Many 401ks are shrinking

Wow, the free market deciding your retirement fund was bad the whole time? Who would guess?
- It was great at one thing: aligning the interests of the working class in the imperial core with the imperialists' interests.
  
  It also destroys solidarity. One 401k getting nuked doesn't create a movement, but an entire pension fund for a profession - instant solidarity.
  401k is the greatest scam perpetuated on the American worker.
- Ultimately any retirement system suffers from these weaknesses. You can have a retirement system based entirely on universal generous state pensions; it won't matter. When the economy takes a hit, the state is less capable of generating revenue.

Damn, it's almost like trading defined benefit plans for at-risk stock market portfolios to handle retirement WASN'T in normal people's interest.

- Literally just last week my retired dad was talking about how important it is that the economy contracts and that we cut back so we can pay down the debt.
  Now he's freaking out because he's losing tons of money.
  Rich boomers are by far the dumbest people on the planet
  
  Surely since he's retired his money is in bonds... surely...
  
  pay down the debt.
  WHO IS THAT DEBT TO?
  
  Frustratingly my retired parents lost $20k from their retirement account, but they don't care and still support the tariffs.
  
  pays off the debt
  Now what? Do they think past success of america was because it wasn't in debt? America's been in debt forever
  
  If the economy contracts, the tax revenue falls more than spending falls so debt goes up. Then the the unemployment benefits, food stamps, and stimulus checks go out and the debt goes up more.
  
  Get exactly what you want and still cry. Its hard for me to not hate people like this.
- lol
  We were overdue anyway. Babe it's been 20 years time for your most efficient system cyclical market collapse
  
  I thought we just had one like 5 years ago during Covid.

401ks have shrunk so much they’re calling them 301ks now

This is a great indicator of how 401ks are doing
- People in retirement or about to retire should be seeing less than half that decline if they've used an appropriate target date fund (which most employers default to) or rebalanced manually into bonds. Still not great of course
  
  Gen X literally hates bonds. Before the pandemic they had the highest risk exposure of any generation before them because they never invest there money correctly.
  
  And great, just what we need: more of the same trend.
  The older workers not retiring, now this time for a reason other than some pretentious sense of “honor”.
- If your investments, especially for retirement, are affected by a month over month change in the stock market you are either @MayoPete@hexbear.net or you are doing it incredibly wrong
- Jeeeeesus
- Live by the equities die by the equities (climate change and economic catastrophe)
  
  The planet will not exist by the time I'm retirement age

its almost like its a scheme to steal your fucking money and prop up a rich people's stock market

i had to completely cash mine out (it was only 4k) months ago to pay bills and rent
so fuck these people i literally have nothing invested and dont know how'll ill have a roof over my head in 30 days

"As your investment advisor, I'm advising you to not retire anytime soon."

The GOP openly spat on their most loyal voter base but somehow Democrats will completely fail to capitalize on their self-own.

Call me when the boomers blow up a government building

This is why re-balancing your portfolio as you age is important and why target date funds are great for like 95% of people. The risk of events like this happening is not worth the gains of full sending into the market

Is there anything I can do? Not that I'm retiring anytime soon. I probably can't take out the money but should I stop contributing to mine or something?
- Keep doing what you're doing. If you're not retiring soon this has pretty much no impact on you and is in fact somewhat helpful to allow you to get in at a lower cost basis
- No, unironically buy the dip.
- If you have a safety net and no high interest debt keep contributing and hold your positions.
  
  💎🙌
- Be like me and have a job too shitty to have a 401k
- If you’re younger, then this is somewhat beneficial. Now is the “low” in “buy low, sell high”.
  Despite all the drama, historically the market’s going to bounce back before you know it.
- My employer contributes a set amount whether or not I contribute. Not a match. I do choose between a handful of different index funds or bond or money market index funds… I don’t fully understand this. Is one of these smarter to be in right now? And should I keep my personal contribution going if it isn’t necessary for matching? Thank you fellow communists for your financial advice.
  
  Getting out of stocks in January would have been smart. Now it's kind of a crapshoot. it depends on how old you are and what you're planning on doing with the money though. If you're young it's probably better to just hold your positions. If you're nearing retirement you should probably already be investing a lot more conservatively regardless of the state of the market.
  If you don't have an emergency savings or you have high interest debts then it might be better to put your income towards that rather than the 401k, moreso the closer to retirement you are. If you're young and have a safety net you should probably just keep putting the money in though.
  
  Stocks
  Bonds
  Money market
  
  Ordered from most to least volatile.
  At this moment it's bad to be in stocks: it's a bad deal to sell the stock to buy something else, because they are relatively cheap. The flip side is that it's a good deal to accumulate stock because it's relatively cheap.
  So the employer contribution should go to the index fund. Keep several months of expenses in cash or money market in case you end up unemployed during a crash.
  
  I’m not super financially literate buuuuut I’d say bonds. They don’t participate in the nightmare machine known as the stock market, which is a plus. They’re guaranteed, no hoping line go up or stressing line go down. And if they can’t repay you, well your 401k won’t be a concern at that point.
- Ignore it. Maybe transfer a slightly higher amount to more stable bonds or something similar. Attempts to individually manage investments are usually over-tinkering.
  I think it's not a bad idea to have some gold (in hand) if you can afford it. Not as an investment but as an inflation hedge and a way to buy a plane ticket in an emergency. Kind of like wearing a chain to afford bail but for the entire country.
  
  Transferring funds out of stocks when they lose value is a guaranteed way to lose money. This is when people should buy stocks, and transfer to bonds when stocks are at their all time high values (which they very likely will be again in the medium to long term future)