Now for the hard part.
Fleeing the market a few months ago might have seemed an easy decision - potentially painful, yes, but easy, because your gut told you to stop losing money fast. Now many investors are in the confusing state that comes after a mass exodus from stocks.
The question: How and when do you get back into the market?
Andrew Flamm is among those struggling with it. An empty-nester in his early 50s, he recently wrote me: “Fortunately, my wife and I moved some of our assets from stocks to cash before the market fell, though in hindsight we wish we had moved more. Now, we feel we should move some of the cash back into stocks, but are unsure how much.”
Many financial planners try to head off the perplexing question by persuading clients not to budge from the stock market in downturns. They put investors in a mixture of stocks and bonds designed to be a keeper whether the stock market is cruel or benevolent. For example, a 50-year-old might be encouraged to keep 60 percent in stocks and 40 percent in bonds. For a nervous 50-year-old, a 50-50 mixture might be more palatable.
Dollar-cost averaging
But for those investors who have fled and want to return to stocks, financial …
Read the original article at Philly
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Tags: Business, cash, finance, financial, money, Personal Finance, stock
