I’m sitting here at my computer desk with a cup of coffee at my elbow. The coffee rest in a mug, the mug garnished with the words Buy, Hold, Sell, Jump, vertically along its sides. Emblazoned across the top of the cup are the words, Wall Street, which encircles the upper portions of the mug. The handle of the mug is quite ornate, rounded at the bottom, with a cradle in the handle’s top. In the cradle is a die, with a small metal pin through the die, which enables my thumb too spin the die. Instead of numbers, as in a pair of dice, the die’s choices are Yes, No, and ?. And, lo and behold, an article is born.
When do you buy, sell, hold or jump? (A better question still, what do you buy, when do you sell, how long should you hold, and why would you jump?)
This article will tackle the word Jump (to find the answer to those other questions, they’ve been answered in some of my other articles). Would Jump mean off a building? Or Jump to another stock market security? The word Jump reminded me of one of my other articles where I stated ‘just because thousands of people on wall street make their living doing ‘technical analysis’ doesn’t mean you have to jump off a building, too’.
Just today, reported by CNBC, a hedge fund has gone bankrupt. Seems the manager of the fund has skipped the country, along with all of the money. It’s been reported tens of millions of investor’s dollars are gone (as well as the manager).
The Wall Street Journal just had a report stating that retirement plans are facing a new threat: Theft.
Excerpts from the Wall Street Journal (March 2, 2005): New York
Retirement Plans are facing a growing threat: Theft
“Susana Longo, the compliance officer at Applied Financial Group, an investment-advisory firm in Atlanta, was indicted in January on federal charges of stealing $5.4 million in retirement savings from 220 workers at a car dealer, two medical practices and an audio-visual specialist. She acknowledged spending the money on two beach houses, a diamond ring, a 1,600-bottle wine collection and a Porsche 911, according to a lawsuit filed by the advisory firm.” (The article also stated this went on for four years.)
The article also goes on to state there are important lessons to be learned through this Atlanta case and they were stated in these excerpts from the same article in the Wall Street Journal:
As I was reading this article I couldn’t help thinking about the old adage ‘No one cares as much about your money as you do.’
And here’s the crux of this whole article:
You do not have to wait until you retire before moving monies from your 401(k) Plan into an individual IRA. There was and is a law which was passed in 2002 which allows you to transfer any after-taxed dollars and company-matched dollars out of your 401(k) plan into an IRA (with no fees or penalties, and no matter what your age). I have been doing this while still employed with my company. I have built my own mutual fund, using monies that have been transferred from my 401(k) into an individual IRA.
If you get nothing else out of this article, let it be that you will contact the firm your 401(k) monies are with, and find out your available options.
To read the Preface from the book ‘The Stockopoly Plan- Investing for Retirement’ visit: http://www.thestockopolyplan.com
Why have investment plans for the stock market
If you do not have an investment plan in the stock market you are subject to impulses, urges, hunches, premonitions, strong feelings, greed, panic, fear, indecision, and just plain foolishness. In my opinion, without a plan, without that clear conception of a total stock market investment strategy, the chances of successful investing in the stock market are pretty slim.An Economical Retirement Investment Plan
The practice of economy, directed toward a retirement investment plan in the stock market, is in itself a source of great revenue. It is the art of making the most out of every stock market investment, with the definite purpose or goal being to provide a life that is fully independent of monetary concerns.Stock Market Retirement Investment Plan
For a successful retirement investment plan to work in the stock market, some ‘reasonably sure’ assumptions would have to be made: