Stock market

[BoilerBiker]

so recently i've taken quite a bit of 401k, mutual fund, etc money and set it aside thinking that maybe the next 6-18 months or so could be negative and volatile.
(reading a bunch of things on diff. cycles (7 year/10 year, election year), oil/fracking debts, overall poor earnings, crazy overvaluations - all of this combined).

well the volatility is happening much sooner than i even thought thanks to china, north korea, and apparently others with similar sentiment.
(unfortunately day trading attempts this specific week have not happened!)

what is everyone else's thoughts/opinions as to where its headed in the next few months-year?
could be better just to continue the sink now and get it over with, vs a long drawn out decline w/further possible attempts of gov. intervention(s).
i'm afraid a slower decline could lead to a fairly longer term bear market, that could take much longer to 'recover' from than 2008-09.
(not that much of the recovery since then has been that real imo either).

 

[mitter28]

so recently i've taken quite a bit of 401k, mutual fund, etc money and set it aside thinking that maybe the next 6-18 months or so could be negative and volatile.
(reading a bunch of things on diff. cycles (7 year/10 year, election year), oil/fracking debts, overall poor earnings, crazy overvaluations - all of this combined).

well the volatility is happening much sooner than i even thought thanks to china, north korea, and apparently others with similar sentiment.
(unfortunately day trading attempts this specific week have not happened!)

what is everyone else's thoughts/opinions as to where its headed in the next few months-year?
could be better just to continue the sink now and get it over with, vs a long drawn out decline w/further possible attempts of gov. intervention(s).
i'm afraid a slower decline could lead to a fairly longer term bear market, that could take much longer to 'recover' from than 2008-09.
(not that much of the recovery since then has been that real imo either).

This is what I do for a living, and with this volatility there are LOTS Nice swings for daytrades. Just this morning the S&P 500 futures finished off a 48 point run up from yesterday afternoon's low 5 minutes after stocks opened, dropped 34.50 points, and rallied back 29 points. It has even been crazy here coming into today.
Unfortunately for those who need the money retirement time now, all indications point to a top with more than just a 10% correction coming. We should have A 2-3 year bear market, with the occasional good looking bounces and drop 15-20 person before bottoming out.
You stated almost all of the fundamentals, I go by the charts and my technical indicators developed decades ago. Started trading in 1982, my day job, lots of old friends who traded on the floor before everything went electronic.
The good news, for the younger folks a decade or more away from retirement, a good opportunity to Dollar cost average, Should be fine if "the market always comes back".

 

[TopSecretBoiler]

If you are getting a match on your 401k, put enough in to get the full match, drop it in the lowest mgmt cost funds you can find and forget about it until you are ready to retire. Don't put another dime into your 401k above the match. Depending on how much money you have left to play with, I would recommend buying property. Buy your retirement home or another house in your neighborhood as an income property. If you don't have that kind of money left over, then open a brokerage account and trade the swings. If you have dependents, you may want to consider a permanent life insurance plan (NOT term life) that builds a cash benefit you can play with while you are alive and provides coverage for your loved ones if you die. People like to pretend the market is always going to continue to perform like it did from 1960-2000, but I really really doubt it. Good luck!

Edit: Here's some harsh reality on market performance since 2000. http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/SPX-Dow-Nasdaq-Since-Their-2000-Highs