Fidelity Investments

[DonziJon]

E-GADS: For the month of September I lost 11% of my retirement fund. This month I expected to really get whacked. I am pleasently suprised. For the month of October I ONLY lost an additional 17.4%....That makes -28.4% for the last two months. I probably didn't need it anyhow. :lookaroun: John

[Kirbyvv]

You did better than i did with Fidelity!:confused:

[BUIZILLA]

my Fidelity account went up 12% in October... I will not admit what it went down the previous 3 months

[DonziJon]

my Fidelity account went up 12% in October... I will not admit what it went down the previous 3 months

WTF???:bonk: John

[smbarcelow]

Our company just moved from Merrill Lynch to Fidelity. I selected the 2035 Freedom Fund for my 401(k) and rolled a previous 401(k) into the same fund in an IRA. Now that I've done that, I'm done looking for a while. It just gets me depressed.

[smoothie]

Doesnt matter what investment co. you have your money in,they all have about the same funds that you can move your cash into and out of...what does matter is the type of fund you are in,some funds have more risk,while others are not and dont move up or down that much,a money market fund is the safest bet,its like putting it in a saving account with interest.Look up the ticker symbol for each fund and go from there.

[ky-donzi]

Most of mine is in low risk catigory so I didn't see the drop like some of you did. I use a IRA for an additional nest egg. Luckly my retirment is threw the state and more solid (bonds)

My invertor told me (for what its worth) "every thing is on sale right now, so buy super cheap,,,, and don't look at your statements for a couple months, when you do look at them look at the quanity of your assets and not the value amount"

[Carl C]

My investments are in real estate which, of course, has also taken a hit. All we can do really is sit back and see what happens.

[smoothie]

Our company just moved from Merrill Lynch to Fidelity. I selected the 2035 Freedom Fund for my 401(k) and rolled a previous 401(k) into the same fund in an IRA. Now that I've done that, I'm done looking for a while. It just gets me depressed.
Heres your 2035 Freedom Fund....high risk lost about 39% for the year so far.
http://personal.fidelity.com/products/funds/mfl_frame.shtml?315792655

[smbarcelow]

Heres your 2035 Freedom Fund....high risk lost about 39% for the year so far.
http://personal.fidelity.com/products/funds/mfl_frame.shtml?315792655

Yep, high risk funds have certainly performed according to their category. But, like ky-donzi relayed, everything is on sale right now. With over 25 years to go before my retirement, I've got lots of time for those funds to regain their value and grow significantly. It's just depressing to see the value bottom out.

[Ghost]

Back in 2000, I was doing some work onsite at a small fund management company up in CT. The guy who covered the technology sector, which had already been mostly blown up by then, kept saying the same thing on the phone all day. "It's not too late to short X," where X was any of a lot of high tech darlings that had no real business model but had been a press darling and eaten a bunch of venture capital money.

That said, I am completely avoiding funds right now. I am concerned that lots of things are now all so well tied together financially that the old diversification model doesn't work. (The old model meant tying things together from different arenas, spreading risk around so no isolated disaster took you down.)

My new model is looking for "lifeboats" that are actually NOT tied to everything else, because nearly everything, all that stuff that's become so well tied together, is sinking. So it's all going down together.

My "lifeboat" model may be right and it may be wrong. But what it has me looking for are businesses that I think are not expendable when everyone is limping along and spending is hightly prioritized. Food, utilities, etc. What's harder for me is to understand who has exposure to all the crap securities out there.

An example: Constellation Energy--the people of Maryland will doubtless be willing to pay for electric as long as they can. I don't think the utility is going anywhere. But, these guys were heavily exposed to bad paper, and plummeted from about 80-90 down to the low 20s. How could I know THAT?! Also, they have weird relationships with Baltimore Gas and Electric, so it's hard to know what you're really buying. Which one owns the transmission lines and property? Who owns the power plants? Etc. To me, it is extremely important to understand what I'm buying.

Anyway, that's the rationale I'm using as I shop. Haven't started buying yet, partly because I think we're in for another huge dip yet.

If anyone out there thinks he understands the gold market, please yell. I'm heavily into that as a hedge against the ultimate dollar collapse--but it has been behaving in ways I did not predict of late.

Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. Not even close. Buy stuff you know something about.

[Conquistador_del_mar]

My roommate and best friend throughout college in the early 70s runs a mutual fund that has him rated at #44 out of over 7000 managers. I thought some of you guys might want to read what Ralph has to say about investing in today's world - kind of frightening! This interview was just done by Forbes. His fund is FMIEX which is to be bought out soon - knowing Ralph, he probably won't retire, though. Bill

http://www.forbes.com/financialadvisernetwork/2008/10/23/fmiex-jnj-msft-fan-ii-in_jl_1023adviserqa_inl.html

[smoothie]

Yep, high risk funds have certainly performed according to their category. But, like ky-donzi relayed, everything is on sale right now. With over 25 years to go before my retirement, I've got lots of time for those funds to regain their value and grow significantly. It's just depressing to see the value bottom out.

Good deal...always good to try and buy at the bottom with the agressive funds if you can play it right, looks like around 8500 with the Dow and back up we go.

[Ghost]

With what I think will be the slowest Christmas season in forever, combined with sure-to-be awful Q4 earnings reports in early January, I'm concerned we'll see numbers well south of 8500. Hmmm.