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Let’s Hope January Doesn’t Set The Tone For the Rest of the Year!
By JLP | January 18, 2008
Take a look at this table of the year-to-date performance of some of the leading stock indices:
Let’s just hope that January doesn’t set the tone for the rest of the year.
Topics: Investing | 9 Comments »
January 18th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Not bad, in a little over half a month, we’re approaching the total return that most indicies saw in the 2001 calendar year. Oh well, that’s what dollar cost averaging is for.
January 18th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
[...] No kidding. Here’s the [Link] for a complete chart with YTD information. No Comments, Comment or Ping [...]
January 18th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
My 401k is at -8.4% for the year so far. In comparison to the indices, I guess I shouldn’t complain.
January 19th, 2008 at 9:20 am
Wahoo! Stocks are on sale!
(And may continue to be on sale for the next few years.)
January 19th, 2008 at 10:20 am
Lorax,
You are right. Instead of putting a negative spin on it like I did, I should have stressed the good news.
January 19th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Yup; if current trends continue, the stock market will be worth $0 by August. Somehow, I doubt that’ll happen.
In any case, I’m doing a push into the market; I’d had far too much cash the past couple of years and was waiting for some serious market carnage to jump in. I’m a huge fan of index funds, and started buying this week. (Although I wish I’d bought Thursday’s close and not Wednesday’s; my 401K appears to execute trades nearly randomly.)
January 19th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Glad I didn’t fund my Roth IRA the first week of the year. Next week will be just fine.
January 20th, 2008 at 12:22 am
Sure, I’m upset that I fully funded my Roth in October of 07 and lost several hundred by the end of the year… sure, my 401k has taken a beating and lost about 9%. Hmm. Ok that is really depressing!
But yes for my ‘play money’ in stocks I am trying to use DCA as much as possible, but I am very concerned the downward spiral will continue for quite some time, and DCA isn’t going to help too much.
January 20th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
[...] As of Friday’s market close, the S&P 500 Index is down 9.75% in 2008. I posted that I hoped that this January’s performance wasn’t an ominous sign for the rest of year. That p0st got me to thinking about whether or not a negative January meant a negative return for the year. So, armed with the monthly returns for the S&P 500 Index going back 1926, I ran some numbers and here is what I found out: [...]