This may very well be stating the obvious....

[A HERETIC I AM]

But if one were to ever look for bargains, this is bloody well looking like the time.

Disclaimer; I am in no way whatsoever suggesting any reader buy any particular security, nor am I encouraging they make any changes to their portfolio or investment style or objectives. Be smart, informed and do your own due diligence.

But gawd damn!

Who knows how much further things will fall? No one, that’s who. BUT......


Hartford Insurance is trading at around $40 today. Do you think it would have been a good idea to buy a bit when it was at $10 back in 2008? Ditto any number of other Blue Chips that had been bid into the cellar back then? And are being hammered today?

Again, I am stating the obvious. I am by no means an analyst, and for all I know (or anyone else, for that matter) if the panic and fear becomes too widespread, we could be looking at an economic shutdown. I mean, what happens if people just simply don’t go out? What happens if no one buys anything for a month or 6 weeks?

I am by no means an economist nor am I qualified to give anyone any advice further than “Keep right except to pass”, but I’ll say this;

If you think no one will ever take a cruise again, or buy an airplane ticket again, or any of the other investment sleeves that have been particularly hard hit, you would be fooling yourself.

Watch for bargains.

When there is blood on the floor and everyone is running for the exits, the smart money turns around and heads back in.

[elleng]

1. Sounds like a good idea, but I'm not a trader,

have a small nest-egg in a managed fund.

[A HERETIC I AM]

2. And that is fair enough....

But nothing wrong with throwing a few spare dollars at that same fund, either.

Especially if it is on sale this week!

[elleng]

4. I agree, but won't have 'spare dollars' for a month or so;

thanks for the suggestion!

[lastlib]

11. A month from now (or two months from now)

will be a better time to buy anyway. There is more downside ahead. I am convinced of it.

[elleng]

12. I think so too.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. Yes, for those who have some spare cash, this is a good time to start buying.

As for cruises, people will be returning to them. I know there's this bullshit conventional wisdom out there that all cruise ships are total disease cesspools, and everyone who takes a cruise gets sick. That is a very, very long way from the truth.

Currently I am on a cruise ship in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and I'm feeling remarkably safe on board. I'm a bit sorry I'll be back in port on the 18th and will be flying home that day.

On the 31st of this month I'm scheduled to take Amtrak from New Mexico to Seattle, WA, with a stopover in Chicago. There's a science fiction thing I'm currently planning to attend in Seattle, and I'll be extremely annoyed if it is cancelled. I'm booked to fly home mid April.

Likewise, people will be flying again.

As bad as this virus is, it is NOT apocalyptic. It really isn't.

[question everything]

14. Sorry, but things have changed in the past few days.

Limited flying and train travel and, your conference may have been cancelled.

[Pobeka]

5. yep. I'm considering dollar cost averaging my way back in.

[Kilgore]

6. Loud and clear!!

We took a cash position shortly before the crazy started. Intent was to buy some real estate, but these prices are looking just too good to ignore. Started dollar cost averaging a portion back in today with a, but holding back the rest for now since I don't think we have reached peak crazy yet.

Now is the time to plump up the retirement account if you can.

[progree]

7. My "circuit breaker" got triggered today. With S&P 500 closing down 25% from all-time high.

My instructions to myself that I made a 2 or 3 years ago was to sell my fixed income stuff (mostly bond funds) and buy equities when the 25% down point is hit. It's been hit. Today.

I used to be nearly 100% equities as far as my equities - fixed income mix. Ever since about 2000. Then in April 2019 and in August 2019 after some really dotish and frightening actions by the Dotard-In-Chief, I decided that I should move toward the asset allocation that the "experts" recommend for someone at my age in station and life -- something like 60 equity - 40 fixed income.

The main reason for doing that was to have something to buy equities with when they got cheap. The time has come for me to put up or shut up.

Anyone know what a good choice for a broad equity group is historically for times like these -- a recovery from a big plunge? I mean things like small cap value. Or large cap growth. Or whatever. I am not at all interested in individual stocks.

[A HERETIC I AM]

8. Perhaps the Consumer Cyclicals.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/consumer_cyclicals.asp

Consider it this way;

People stop buying or doing X, and/or an array of X, but X represents things that they would normally be buying or doing on a regular or semi regular basis.

If they stop buying X, pent up demand starts to build. When the dam breaks the demand for X goes into overdrive. If no one could buy refrigerators for ten years and then all of the sudden, it was open season on fridges, what would happen?

Things wear out. Items need to be replaced. There is a reason why they have a sleeve called “Durable Goods”. Sure, they’re durable, but they aren’t infinite.

If I was looking for a space to throw money at in the coming weeks, it would be the things people are currently utterly afraid of taking part in, or being a part of, right now.

[progree]

9. Thanks! I'm surprised it didn't pass through my mind, considering I had "cycles" in mind! but yeah

definitely something to transition into.

[mitch96]

10. As Rothchild said "the time to buy is when there is blood in the streets" nt

[question everything]

13. COSTCO, Procter and Gamble (the makers of Charmin TP)

So far we are staying put. Wish they "follow" the example of the Obama administration from 2009 that suspended the RMDs. As I posted here some months ago, the rise of the market in 2019 was not welcomed as it forces us to withdraw larger amount than what we need, while the value is dropping.

[progree]

15. One does not have to sell equities in order to make IRA withdrawals (RMD's or otherwise)

Last edited Sun Mar 15, 2020, 12:49 AM - Edit history (1)

one can just transfer the shares from the IRA to a regular taxable account (edited: apparent exception: Fidelity).

For my inherited IRA -- which requires RMDs no matter how young I am (or was) -- I've been selling what I needed to make the RMD (by selling some shares of the one and only holding in this account, which is an equity mutual fund), and then transferring the cash proceeds to the taxable account, and then investing it by buying shares of whatever current equity mutual fund in my taxable account that I want to add shares to.

But I've always could have just transferred the shares instead of doing the sell-transfer-buy routine (edited: oops, apparently not at Fidelity). I've just chosen the sell-transfer-buy routine as I've wanted to redeploy into something different anyway, sort of part of my annual asset reallocation operation. (EDITED LATER: I actually tried doing a direct tranfer of shares from my Fidelity IRA to my Fidelity regular taxable account, but it wouldn't let me -- details in #17 and #18 below. I was so sure that was an option -- maybe it was sometime in the past. Or maybe the Fidelity website is experiencing a glitch)

Either way, the RMD is not forcing me to sell equities at a low point in the stock market or at any other time (oops, exception: Fidelity). By transferring shares, there is no sale of equities.

By doing the sell-transfer-buy routine, yes, I've chosen to sell equity shares (edited: might not be a choice at Fidelity), but as soon as the trade and transfer settles, I buy other equity shares. If that occurs at the bottom of the stock market, well, then, it's sell low and buy low.

I recognize that IRAs were never meant to be eternal tax deferrals, so I don't get upset about RMDs. (Edited: but I'm getting upset at Fidelity). I knew what the deal was when I opened an IRA and contributed to it. I also recognize that I've been fortunate enough to have had significant money to spare all these past years to put into what is ultimately a tax reduction scheme that most people can't take advantage of, or can but only to a much smaller extent than me.

Edited to add: retaining one shred of dignity on my part: the IRS does not require one to cash out their equities or bond / bond funds etc. in order to do an IRA withdrawal -- one can do their IRA withdrawal via a direct transfer of shares. I read that in Bob Carlson's Retirement Watch newsletter.

[question everything]

16. Are both the IRA and the taxable account held by the same firm?

Like Vanguard, or Schwab?

[progree]

17. In my case, yes, for the IRA RMDs (Fidelity) and Roth conversions (Vanguard)

that I do (the Roth conversions are done via a transfer of shares from the Vanguard traditional IRA account to the Vanguard Roth IRA account.

The IRA RMD's can ???? <- (question marks edited in later) be done via a direct transfer of shares from a Fidelity IRA account to a regular taxable Fidelity account, though like I said in #15, I've been doing the Fidelity thing via sell-transfer-buy as part of an annual reallocation plan). EDITED TO ADD: Well, I actually tried to do an IRA RMD via direct transfer of shares like described above, I tried twice about 4 hours apart, and I seem not to be able to do it, so I have egg on my face here. It just asked for a dollar amount -- didn't let me specify a certain holding like a mutual fund, let alone a number of shares of it -- and then when I tried to go further, it said " (MMMH2000) Your transaction cannot be processed at this time. Please try again later, or call a Fidelity Representative at 800-544-6666." )

But I've transferred shares between financial firms many times -- when I inherited (several accounts at several firms), also, Smith Barney -> Vanguard (an IRA), transferring my Xcel Energy 401 K and my ESOP to a Vanguard IRA.


EDITED TO ADD -- my memory is vague on the details -- the Xcel stuff (it was NSP back then) was in 2000 or so. Smith Barney, maybe 2007. The inheritance stuff was 2005 and my sister (the executor of the estate) did much of the work. There were certainly phone calls and long discussions involved and actual old-fashioned snail mail paperwork involved, medallion signature guarantees where I had to go to a bank, crap like that, I just don't remember.

Many more edits for clarity made around 650p - 700p central time.

Edited to add 1213a central time 3/15 the stuff on trying to do a Fidelity IRA RMD via direct transfer of shares and not succeeding.

[progree]

18. Update: I just tried Fidelity IRA RMD withdrawal via direct transfer of shares to a regular

Last edited Sun Mar 15, 2020, 04:12 AM - Edit history (2)

taxable Fidelity account, and it doesn't seem to allow it. I tried twice about 4 hours apart, and both times I got " (MMMH2000) Your transaction cannot be processed at this time. Please try again later, or call a Fidelity Representative at 800-544-6666." )"

I edited #15 and #17 above for this unfortunate discovery. So apparently if someone wants to do this, they would have to call.

I suppose what might have happened in the past is that say Joe needs to do a $8,200 IRA RMD withdrawal/distribution from an account that has fund XYZ in it. XYZ is currently at $41/share, so he specifies transferring 200 shares ($41 X 200 = $8,200) from the IRA to his regular taxable account.

Unfortunately, as usual, Fidelity doesn't do the transfer until after market close, and the new NAV for the fund determined. The new NAV is $39, so 200 shares worth $7,800 get transferred, and that's what's reported to the IRS -- a $7,800 withdrawal/distribution.

Guess who pays a 50% penalty on the $400 difference that should have been distributed but wasn't? Answer Joe. Guess who Joe goes screaming at? The IRS? Maybe. Fidelity? For sure.

So I guess that is why Fidelity isn't allowing this.

BTW I tried doing the same thing at Vanguard and it seemed to be working and like it would do it, but I didn't do the final "Submit" thing because I don't want to actually withdraw from my Vanguard IRA.

I have done Roth conversions at Vanguard via direct transfer of shares (from the Traditional IRA account to the Roth IRA account) many many many times without issue over the past 20+ years.

[question everything]

19. Well, will take my time. Obviously will have to do it by phone so will wait.