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Be Smart. Move confidently. Hang on to your gains. [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-04-03

Full disclosure — I am not a financial analyst or planner by trade. With investments, retirement savings, and all of the other things most Americans (though sadly, not enough) cling to in the dimming hope of a financially comfortable retirement, YOU must be responsible for your own decisions and actions to protect and build whatever you have to work toward that goal.

That said, several weeks back, I posted a diary on the future of the American economy, and the steps most of us should be taking to hang on to the plentiful market/retirement account gains afforded us by President Joe Biden and his economic team following the COVID crash.

Today, the markets are belching up a toxic reaction to DonOld Trump’s “beautiful Liberation Day” speech — another fact empty screed built on falsehoods and misguided calculations about global “unfairness” to the poor ol’ USA that kept us from taking our turn at the trough of prosperity. Never mind that several notable periodicals on the markets and the economy labeled the US economy as “the envy of the world” as recently as November 2024. We, apparently, weren’t...at least in the mind of one addled childlike “leader” who seems hellbent to prove centuries of financial truisms false, and take us down with him.

Back at the time of publishing my prior diary, I noted that my wife and I had executed a rollover of our 401k, an action which allows for you to get a check cut for your retirement account portfolio balance on the day the sales clear and hold it for 90 days before rolling it back into another approved 401k/IRA portfolio. That allows you to hold on to your money while this nonsense sorts itself out. For many, like us, this maneuver may ultimately cause you to forego the “employer match” to your 401k investments during that period. We viewed that as the cost of doing business...and certainly that has borne itself out. But even if you rollover your history to date investments into another IRA vehicle outside of your employer’s program, you can continue making investments into your employer’s program WITH the match going forward. In some cases, you can even continue doing so during the rollover period.

We also felt that withdrawing our funds from a market celebrating the likes of Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and other billionaire autocrats-in-waiting with front row seats to the inauguration and unpatriotic aims to enrich themselves while we grow poorer was our “Cory Booker” moment to say “enough”. Going forward, we will not invest in any fund that holds Tesla, Amazon, Meta, Blackrock or the like. Even if it means we “fall behind” while investors in those companies ride bubbles and “long” positions to “fame and fortune”. Not for us.

If you are still invested, please note, this market, despite what Fox Business or CNBC “experts” might tell you, has a long and potentially painful way to go before “finding a bottom”. We are, as I write this, one wave of retaliatory tariffs by our once erstwhile and most trusted trade partners away from a lot of market pain. The flight to safety into bonds and gold by institutional investors overnight tells us that the multiples (price relative to actual earnings potential today) around the biggest names in “growth” stocks (think Silicon Valley, data centers, mobile devices and ugly-a$$ed furturic silver “trucks”) are still overvalued — some trading as high as 30x over expected current day earnings. If a recession (or worse) looms or hits, these valuations are a pipe dream, and the market will punish these stocks further. Also, foreign investment in US equities, once considered the safest and surest place to profit from innovation, loose regulation, productivity and the almighty and resilient US consumer, is now being called into question. Are we in fact powering our economy on the back of too much credit (we are), our hunger for cheap TVs and “deals” on gadgets (we are hungry) that now will explode in price, and our ongoing belief that the market for homes and stocks can only continue heading in one direction (up and up)? The world is beginning to examine this closely, and markets with sound(er) leadership and less volatility (China, Germany, etc.) may become more appetizing in the near term (just look at their stock market performance vs the US since Trumph took over to see that materializing in real time).

So what can you do now to protect yourself?

— make sure your portfolio is heavily weighted toward safety...US bonds, gold ETF’s (although I don’t recommend these now with gold at an all time high — very volatile), healthcare funds, etc. Speak with a trusted adviser now about where the smart money is going to prevent loss in a turbulent equities market.

— make sure you are not invested in stocks owned and managed by the technocrats who have DonOld’s ear. The surest way to perpetuate this catastrophe is to keep them comfortable with stable share prices. The surest way to end this madness is to send a signal that until and unless the average American returns to center stage in the policy making process, we’re NOT rewarding the fat cats.

— consider moving your money to the sidelines with a 401k/IRA rollover that enables you to “cash out” for a period of 90 days, so your retirement future isn’t following the arrow down that is almost surely to come during that time. Continue to invest portions of your upcoming paychecks into your company’s 401k program to take advantage of the match if that is an option for you.

— don’t try to “time the market” and short sell or buy VIX ETF’s or anything like that. This isn’t about that. That strategy has always been “fool’s gold” to those without inside information or high levels of capital to hedge bets.

— stay calm, save your hard earned money, and pay down credit cards if at all possible. One technique some I know are using to accomplish the latter is to monitor interest rates and refinance into shorter term lower interest 20 or 15 year loans with a cash out to pay down commercial credit if that option exists for you. To be frank, for most, this won’t be a viable option for a while given that still high mortgage rates. But with the bond market surging, and yields falling, it bears watching if, and when, you would have an opportunity to take advantage of this strategy.

Oh yeah, one final note...consider cutting down on your reliance on penguins and penguin meat. It seems like some islands with high penguin populations were “targeted” by this round of taxe….er, I mean tariffs. At least we will finally achieve some “fairness” in trading with these shameful bird populations...

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