I am almost 70 years old and have all my savings in the stock market.
Yes that was dumb and given time I shall take care of it.
But I watched my lifelong savings drop down over 20% and I chewed my lip.
Last week the stock market was rising every day, not by a whole lot, but going up. This past Monday the market was up to 27,300, about what it was a year ago. I picked up that phone toot de sweet and told my guy to get me $10,000 cash, which I do every couple years.
Well that’s why I have the savings.
Then it starts going down and down and praise the Lord I got enough out to last me for a couple of years, or until I must make withdrawals, which is now 72 someone told me.
Man, I am no stock market specialist but in one day I made the perfect move, selling when the market was high.
I told my guy I would soon be moving the rest of my money out of the stock market and the next day, boom it starts dropping. But now I can wait it out because I really believe that by Christmas of this year the stock market will be high again.
Just a bit of stock market serendipity.
I have another 10-20 years till I retire (my wife keeps pushing it out LOL)
So with a steady income I’m taking more risk with my stock account. I only deal with dividend stocks, but using margin (more then paid for by the dividends) to a large extent. That extra leverage is apparent on both the up and down swings. I’ve been buying throughout since March and have basically gone “all in”. Yesterday was a hiccup but late March was when I was really puckering with a couple margin calls.
My retirement stuff (401k and IRAs) is in index funs mainly and will sit there without any manipulation till retirement time.