Painful

There is one word that can best describe the U.S. Stock Market today (and for the entire year actually), UGLY.  The markets are currently down over 3.5% today on the heels of a further decline in the price of oil and the decreasing value of currencies around the world.  Added to that, is the fear that there is renewed fear that the mortgage market may be over extended similar to what happened back in 2008 when the market crashed.  From the investment managers I've spoken and emailed with today, the massive selloff is mainly the result of the following things:

- decline in price of oil which represents a slowly global economy

- slowdown of economic growth in china

- mutual fund and hedge fund managers being poorly positioned and too heavily invested

- fear and panic among investors

So that being said, what are we doing?  Well we've sold investments that we had good profits on and have left that money sitting in cash on the sidelines as we are waiting for the markets to "calm down" and the fear and panic to subside a bit before we decide to start "cherry picking" at discounted stock investments or adding to our current investments.  To say the least however this stock market is painful to watch.  I believe however the foolish thing to do would be just to sell out of ones investments b/c it hurts to see the values go down; you must remember however that you haven't lost your money as long as you don't sell.  The investments that you own merely fluctuate in price and if you buy high and then sell low (or buy wherever and sell at a lower price) you will never make money.  So as I sit here wincing at all the red and negative prices I see on my computers and on tv, I am taking a deep breath and remembering that this too shall pass and at some point the markets will stop going down and we can take all the cash we are sitting on and buy discounted stock prices and mutual funds so that when the markets eventually start going up in price we can make money again.

Until then...OUCH