Just an observation I had this morning concerning the Market downturn

[Skip_In_Boulder]

I started monitoring the markets a couple of weeks ago just to see how the investment community was interpreting the debt ceiling debacle in Congress. Needless to say it became clear within a few days that they were not seeing this as a positive development. Not to mention the timing of other negative developments that started coming to light at the same time making the situation just that much worse.

We are now beginning our third week of a serious downward trend and I began going over some charts this morning after the Dow went below 11K. What I found is that after the close today if we continue the downward spiral for the rest of the week for roughly between another 800-900 points we will have wiped out the gains in the market for an entire year. And that's not to mention the NASDAQ and S&P, which none of the MSM seems to be mentioning, even though they have taken greater hits than the Dow throughout this.

So, when you get your next 401K , or IRA, or pension fund statement, and it is showing 0 gain or negative loss be sure to call your local tea party group, or tea party Congressperson, if you happen to be unfortunate enough to have one, and thank them for wiping out a years worth of your work towards your retirement.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Just one correction, we wiped them out last Friday

but you are correct. I turned to my husband and told him, this feels like a slow motion crash.

[Skip_In_Boulder]

3. I am calculating an entire year

from Sept. to Sept.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Ah they were saying for the year...

last friday... starting from January I guess. Thanks to me that means a slow motion crash.

[Skip_In_Boulder]

7. Most likely

and without looking at the numbers I would think that would be correct.

[Tippy]

2. Well there goes my Blood Pressure again........

[RebelOne]

5. Fortunately, I pulled all my money out of my 401K

and my IRA several years ago when the statement were showing a loss. I was already retired, so just socked the money into a savings account until I could figure where else to invest it. Though the money is not gaining much interest, at least, the account balance is not going down.

[Mz Pip]

6. Send John Boehner an email

I did. He got 98% of what he wanted. He needs to get moving on all those jobs he keeps yammering about being created with tax cuts. If this keeps up I'm going to need a job. My private investments aren't doing so well.

And he wants to privatize Social Security?????

[Skip_In_Boulder]

9. Yeah they do want to privatize Social Security

We still have money left in there that they want to steal from us.

[WCGreen]

8. There is a plus for dollar cost averaging in this in that the stocks

bought by your funds today will be at a low and can only go higher and will kind of make up for the loss to the stocks that were bought at higher levels.

[Skip_In_Boulder]

10. There is an argument that can be made for that

but it will depend a lot on how your individual portfolio is configured. But at least it could help to minimize some of the damage.

[WCGreen]

11. That is about the only good morsel that will fall out of this...

[The_Casual_Observer]

12. That only applies when the lows are followed by significant and sustained

highs. That hasn't been the case for 10 years. The DJIA has never even reached it's pre 9/11 high again, it's been an cyclical accordion
playing between 10,000 & 12,000 for years.

When people tell me that they are almost back to where they were in 2008 I remind them that they have been contributing additional money for years just to get there again.