I have a 401k plan thats tied to the stock market. Do I panic now or is there an end in sight .?

[eagleman]

So our government encourages us to move away from reliance on Social Security. What our Goverment seems to be encouraging us to do is all become bravado risk takers. This sucks!

[junzfour]

We had that once and we then called them up and went into secured funds, " Bonds" and the interst grew from there. We lost allot of money before doing that. Fidelity is a very good 401 so if you can trnsfer, give it a try. See if you can roll it over into something lie that. But i am sure you can put it into secured funds. You won't lose a penny then, just gain interest.

[Flyby]

People got along just fine before Social Security. We planned for our retirement. The stock market is always in flux. In other words, the market is always going up or down. Over the long haul, you will do much better in the stock market than relying on Social Security for your retirement. You can't make a living on Social Security. Besides, Social Security may not have the funds to pay when you get ready, anyway. Our political leaders have looted the fund for years. They should call it Social Insecurity.

[chris_sockets]

panicking is what the novice investor does, he panics and sells and the savvy investor picks it up and it goes back up, your in it for the long haul its a 401k you should be at least beating the banks rate 5% a year if not time to re balance your portfolio

[chris_sockets]

if you are young then i wouldnt panic...there will always be ups and downs and chances are the market will recover over time...but if you are about to use your retirement then maybe i would worry about it.

[PETER T]

The current meltdown is a market correction. The correction is painful for some. If you are losing right now its a disaster but if, like me, you are buying it is a clearance sale. If you are not going to withdraw funds from the 401K in the next 3 months just wait and watch. Most of these corrections last about 30 days. They go down so they can go up!

The problem is that lenders are finding out why it is a bad idea to lend money to people with bad credit histories. They don't pay!

Don't panic - there have been several of these since 2000

[Steve]

If the stock market falls 5 to 10%, and you feel compelled to sell, don't invest in the stock market. These drops are normal. They happen, specificaly, when the market hits new high. Since a low point in 2002, the Dow has risen over 6,000 points or 80%. You need to have the stomach to ride them out.

If you worry about what the market will do in the next 6 months, you are not investing. You may be gambling.

Focus on earnings more than fluctuations. Corporate earnings drive the stock market. Focus from daily fluctuations to long term fundamentals.