After the House voted against the bailout today markets have basically blown up. Our retirement portfolios are down over a thousand dollars in one day.
I am not totally sure how I feel about the bailout. On the one hand I don’t want my tax dollars bailing out companies that made poor financial decisions. On the other hand, not helping out those same banks could have terrible ramifications for credit markets in coming years.
If I had to guess, I wouldn’t expect to see a turnaround in the financial markets until at least the end of 2010, if not later. There are too many negative factors facing our economy. The question is how does this affect my investment plans. Common wisdom says to ignore market fluctuations and invest for the long term. But my gut says that there’s a better way to invest than the mutual funds that I’m in. I might have to stop with the passive strategies and take up active investing by picking my own stocks, but I’m not sure I’m ready for the time commitment that will take.
Another concern for me is my job, which is with a major bank. Luckily it’s one of the more stable ones, but then again everyone thought Enron was doing great until they weren’t. Hopefully the news in the coming days is a little better than today’s news.
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