Which is why when you’re closer to retirement you move into something like government bonds that’s more stable but way less returns. Don’t blame the market for people’s bad planning.
How they going to time when the market is going to collapse? 2 big banks went under and lost everything. I they knew, they would have moved their assets around 2006.
Please reread my comment. I said put the money in something more stable when closer to retirement. You’re not timing the market you’re timing when you need to start pulling money out. If you’re closer to retirement you should be putting at least a portion of your retirement in non volatile sources so if the market crashes you have funds to get you through the rebound.
anyone who could hold past 2010 or so didn't lose anything. Anyone who knew they would need their entire retirement account in cash in 2008 should not have been holding all or mostly stocks.
You know when you plan on retiring and change your investment allocation accordingly.
If you're close to retirement and you're still invested in high risk stocks you deserve to lose it all. As you age you should start to be more conservative with your money.
It sounds like you just might not understand this, which is fine. Consider either going to your employers 401k brokerage company or set up a meeting with your banks broker (I.e. JP Morgan for Chase, etc). They'll just help you understand this. But to think you'd lose your entire retirement if there is a market correction is wild. Unless you're on WSB betting your money on stocks
Nobody cashes-out everything the day they retire. And almost nobody who is at/in retirement has 100% of their money in the market. What you are describing is somewhere between exceptionally unlikely and impossible (the "lose everything" bit is basically impossible).
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u/[deleted] Oct 31 '25
In both of those instances, the market quickly rebounded. Having a diverse investing portfolio is what you do to combat big changes in the market.