This whole economy thing is wild, isn't it?
So many complaints that things were horrid under the last leadership--and now?
I have to fess up. We made tons of money between 08 and 12 and just got out. Well, not completely, but enough to help me sleep. Yes, we missed this run up. My friend reported a 20% rise in her portfolio. We built a house instead. My tummy could not do it any more.
We are well aware that corrections correct themselves. But once we decided that our need for growth was translated to ulcers, we just were done. We just could not find a good company that did not use the slave labor of China to make their money. My obsession went to the poor (the actual poor) of the world and how my need for more and more impacted them. Sorry, not buying into that.
The up side is that he does have a pension and mine begins in a few years. Good old government pensions. If they dry up, we have a paid for house, a well and solar generators :)
So, in the past we HAVE sold in May, with our broker (who retired a wealthy woman in Alexandria VA) we took a few months off the market every year and enjoyed our profits. Now we just live life daily and enjoy not having ulcers.
You're lucky (or perhaps smart) to have a govt. pension. I thought I was going to have a pension, but my company switched to cash balance plan in the late 1990s. So now I have a pretty good IRA (switched over from the co. 401k), but it's not secure. Most of it is vulnerable to the vagaries of the stock and bond markets. But cash? Sure, a cushion. But cash is guaranteed to lose value to increasing inflation.
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