Whoever wrote that Vanguard message did so with shaking hands, between sobs & swigs of bourbon straight from the bottle.
They're right, though. Now is exactly the wrong time to make dramatic investment moves. Everybody's shit is doing the same thing; unless you need your retirement money in the next twelve months or whatever, you're better off leaving it alone and waiting for the eventual correction. Like, this is not a comforting lie, this is good advice!
Adultier adult here, having had to talk to my retirement management people earlier this week. (I hate it. It's useless. But I told them to divest me from anything that holds TSLA in the portfolio/fund because Elon is an asshole and the company's financials are shit.)
This week has caused about three percent (3%) of my 401(k) to vanish.
And that's okay.
I can't touch that money without a tax penalty (or emergency) until the 2030's. It's not paying for cat food or keeping my electricity on. This is a privilege not everyone enjoys (yet).
If you're in a position to have any kind of investments, don't do anything rash and/or bananas with important chunks of money. (My financial guy gave me this advice, too. I specifically asked about cashing out the whole fucking thing.)
Yes. 100% this.
My qualifications: I worked in banking & mortgage for 10 years & had my Series 6, 63, and insurance licenses. I was qualified to sell mutual funds and annuities.
Obligatory: None of this constitutes specific financial advice. Please consult your financial professional who has an active license for specific advice.
That said, generally speaking, if someone has a 401k or IRAs and other retirement investments and they don't need to access them right now, don't fucking touch it. Don't even look at it. If they don't feel comfortable putting more money into it right now, that's understandable, and they can turn their contributions off (though it might not make sense to do so, depending on their tax bracket - traditional 401k contributions are pre-tax, so putting that money back in their taxable income may just turn that money into income tax payments, and that's not even considering employer matching, which is Free Money).
Shit is wild right now, but that money is not Real Money until you cash it out. All of your losses and gains are Schroedinger's Gains and Losses. Until you open the box - that is, make a withdrawal - those losses aren't realized. And since you will end up with absolutely ridiculous tax penalties if you take money out of retirement accounts early outside of a few specific circumstances, opening the box early is a bad idea.
So, since the losses aren't real until you open the box, and you can't open the box until years from now without getting like half the cat taken by the IRS, don't even think about looking at the box and seeing the predicted percentage of alive cat that you might find inside there.
Another financial professional here. I second all of this.
If you're lucky enough to have a retirement account, the best strategy is always to ride the market waves. Decades of numbers and returns back this up. Don't move or pull your money. Don't stop contributing. Especially if you are many years away from retirement.
Think long term, not short term. In the long run, the stock market still averages returns every year.
That said, I fully understand taking positions in your portfolio for moral reasons. If you want to sell any funds that have TSLA in them, and your advisor thinks that won't screw you up too bad, you do you, boo.
(Also, that email is funny, but it's very obviously fake. Telling you to not look at your 401k is not something a company should be doing, legally speaking.)
For those who want to see the real email (I received it yesterday), here is the portion that was edited. Honestly, it's pretty close to the edit, reading between the lines lol.
Hey, I'm not sure I count as an adultier adult despite my grey, (I already needed an adultier adult in relation to elder care this week) but if you have investments and someone who helps you with them, ask them about ESG funds. They're called that because they're screened for environmental, social, and corporate governance.
Not in a matter of they're doing better now, but it's investing in things that are less bad and there's some hope in the long term they might rebound better.
It's still not ideal in that they don't screen out enough of the bad stuff, but they make sure there's no investments related to fossil fuels or making any kind of weaponry. And they have to meet labor, human rights, anti-corruption, and DEI standards.
