“Should folks take retirement money out of investments and stuff the mattress with it or what?”
This guy thinks we’ll see Dow 8,000 by December:
http://www.triwealth.com/investor-radio.php
I believe him. I’m perfectly willing to stay out of the stock market until things settle down. Bonds or money market fund seem like a reasonable alternative to me (although I also recently put some IRA funds into gold index funds (unfortunately, this option is not available for my 401(k)).
Aside from everything else, there's no way to figure any publicly traded company has a future due to some brighter idea when looking like a bright prospect automatically makes a company a target for bear raids and short selling by the Warren Buffets and George Soroses of the world.