This is one of the reason I never even think to time the market, to much maybes

Ohiobuckeye
 

The way prices keep going up, I say watch your spending until things get straightened out. Unless you have a lot of money saved up, then I would be very careful how I spend my money! We’re going through pretty tough times now. I’ve had people tell me that we lived an easy life & now we’re seeing how most of the world lives. But I say this is a bunch of hooie. I say someone is forcing this on us. Just my opinion !

Yeah, I guess mine was an illusion as well. My portfolio looked a lot better at the end of the last administration than it looks one year into this one. But it’s merely an illusion. Thank God, I was worried there for no reason!

Holding steady for the ride (I think we'll have a significant recession, but what do I know?)

Have you looked at the money supply?

Unbelievable. The Federal Reserve increased the money supply higher than ever over the past 4+ years (QE started earlier but ramped up so much over the past 4+ years).... they've created so much money it's unbelievable. Unbelievable. In the form of mortgage backed securities (that are sold on the stock market! And purchased with taxpayer $ Hello!) and selling Treasuries.

The mainstream media doesn't hardly report this, but it is public record. Look it up under Federal Reserve money supply, or see the recent papers written by professors at Harvard, Stanford, etc. Our government keeps spending - regardless of party - they spend and spend and are "printing Monopoly money" to pay for it. Seems like we're in deep - too deep?

The federal debt increase by year:

2018 + $1.3T
2019 + $1.2T
2020 + $5.0T
2021 + $1.9T
2022 + $0.8 T YTD

A quick refresher - The CARES relief act was passed on March 27 2020.

what to do now about stocks
 

Been doing this for a long time managing family trusts.
My suggestion is to buy dividend producing stocks in this kind of a market and keep 50% in cash. I switched to this about three months ago.
I am not a financial advisor so this is just my thinking.

I held tight during the last two and came out of it pretty well so I'll sit tight through this one too.

Doing same thing just not adding to our portfolio for the moment.

Do you know what a Black Swan is?

If not, look it up.

We have had 2 in 2 years. 2 big ones. Huge factors.

Boomer

I really don’t look too much into anything. I converted my 401k to an IRA when I retired. I have spent most of it between paying things off and buying things. We live off my pension, disability and my wife’s paychecks. I own 2 houses, 2 campers and a boat. If money is needed I can sell any of them. When I die my wife gets my insurance and she can sell anything that she want to.

IRA is up 10% from the beginning of the year, looking to accelerate up if all works out correctly. A really good ETF to buy is $LBAY, both long and short. Taxable account is up less but up, maybe 5%, and haven't checked 401K but it should be down less than 10%.

sold all long equity last august, starting seeing that the risk return was very high and not worth holding equities, in 401K and IRA. .

bear market rally starting point somewhere between 3700 and 3850, S&P500 fair market valuation was around 3500, but now falling with supply chain shortages again. . . most likely goes to undervalued, so bottom somewhere starting with a 2 for a generational low to put all cash back into equities

good luck, its not your father's market any more.

Yup, the media doesn’t report the root cause of inflation. They blame it on the pandemic, supply chain issues, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, etc…. Sure, those things all contribute to inflation, but extreme irresponsibility by the Federal Reserve and out of control deficit spending by the government since around 2008 is the real cause. Unfortunately, the same reasons for the cause are also the reasons inflation is not transitory and will be a long term burden.

A Stablecoin crashed yet they want to let you put crypto in retirement accounts. Brilliant

I don’t know or care anything about the market , that’s why I have vanguard index funds for 30 years, covering all the markets , the group was always conservative , but now even more so but I still have some money going into funds every month, no worries ever besides if things get really bad I could learn to cook , I eat out or get takeout almost every night and considering a lot of those nights out I have a date i I’m probably spending $ 2,500 a month just on food and that sounds low to me