We are using a small inheritance from my brother’s estate rather than draw any retirement fund money the next few months. I hadn’t thought about this being an opportune time for Roth conversion, but it definitely is!
To answer OP’s question: With what the market has been doing the last week and a half, a whole lot more than I thought a month ago.
On market update calls for a securities issuance last week, it was very interesting to hear the uncertainty in the market analysts. They do scores of market update calls all day long every trading day. And with any type of interruption, they can give you the expectations for what will happen (based on a ton of experience). They give those updates effectively in their sleep.
But here its totally different. Answers and paths are not clear at all. Changes are minute by minute. Very unfamiliar play for analysts.
I have always read that for large numbers of people, returns are less than the market because they tend to sell on bad news (selling low) and get back in when things are going well (buying high). Exact opposite of what you want to do.
No one knows when we will have hit bottom until its way too late. May well think bottom has been hit several times only to find out we are not there yet.
Businesses are looking at what they will do if hit with the virus. Can they shunt activity to another location or have people work from home. But I think bigger business question is will their customers still be demanding their goods/services.
Yes, but somehow I feel that right now having cash on hands is safer than locking it into some sort of stock/fund. But this is just me being emotional, not completely rational.
Someone told me recently that the government can change the rules or whatever that currently say earnings on ROTH Accounts are not taxable. Is that true? I could see that for future contributions as of a point in time, but if the rules change after people pay the taxes to move from regular Retirement account to ROTH, for example, and then it gets taxed on the way out also, that seems highly unfair.
Sure, Congress can always change tax laws, and frequently does. However, I don’t see you hypothetical happening as the result would be the elimination of the Roth. If that is the plan, then what Congress would likely do is eliminate the Roth going forward, not retroactively. But they can do what they want.
I’m not even looking at my portfolio right now. I can mentally calculate the carnage and that’s close enough for me.
I’ll buy at some point but not yet.
@doschicos I’m with you - Not looking!! Easy come, easy go. 
I mostly don’t look, but we have a lot of cash and a slug of gold so that should help. I was trying to buy some downside protection but didn’t get it in place (have to talk my financial advisor through it). Will do so on the next significant rise.
We are in the middle of real estate transactions. We bought a new house in January (at what I think was a meaningful discount to market because of the way that the seller marketed the house). We are selling our house and an adjacent building lot. We signed a P&S with a developer for the adjacent lot. I think we are close to meeting the conditions for that sale. We were going to put the existing house on the market in mid-April but ShawWife and the RE agents are eager to move it up. I’m eager to close those sales and reduce our exposure. Both transactions will likely close in mid-July, though we could probably close the sale of the building lot somewhat sooner.
We have three other properties (two condos with high rents) and a country house on a lake outside of Montreal that we just rebuilt and don’t rent. One of the condos is in a great neighborhood and the tenants are affiliated with Harvard teaching hospitals or some Harvard Med School or SPH entity. So, market demand is pretty constant. The other is in a neighborhood that has become very trendy. I suspect our rent there could come down.
So, I’m just hoping the floor doesn’t come out of the market before we close our RE transactions.
Actually have read that real estate is in demand as folks are skittish about stock market now, so you may get lucky in your accidental timing.
I am fast-tracking my job search. I was hoping to take the summer off & return to work in the fall, but the stock market free fall is not a good thing for us. We have a lot in our retirement accounts, but using it at this volatile time - especially so early in our retirement - is just not something we want to do. We are fortunate to have quite a bit of cash savings, which we will tap into for the time being. Unfortunately, it means we can’t do the updates to the interior of our house as we had planned. We will do some, but greatly scaled back for now. As much as it bums me out, after saving so long to do the updates, I am incredibly grateful to have the savings to use for living expenses. We are cutting way back on spending, but to be honest, it’s not all that difficult given the need for social distancing right now.
Our travel expenses will go down as well as dinners out. How’s do you do social distancing while shopping for food?
ShawWife has a art residency in Canada to tImed to coincide with a show she has art a museum there. I wonder whether either or both will be cancelled.
Social distancing for food shopping? If they have online order and pickup you could use that. Or delivery. If not, you could try going at less crowded times of the day/days of the week.
It’s not that hard to maintain a one meter social distance when shopping. The key there is not touching your face and sanitizing your hands when you leave.
Re: social distancing while food shopping. We always go food shopping 30 min before Costco closes, on a weekday. Hardly anyone in the store. Grocery stores open until midnight - we shop those after our Costco run.
Interesting. I was at Costco a couple of days ago and one guy was wearing a mask and gloves. Was at a supermarket and thought twice about getting bagels that were selected with tongs as there was no wipe for the tongs. hard to keep 3 feet away from people in this, smaller, supermarket.
We would go farms, in season, and Costco for vegetables and Costco usually for fish/chicken. Occasional stops at our local tiny and cramped health food store.
Just bought two kinds of garbage bags for the old house and a Roomba and compactor bags for the new house on Costco.com. Looking forward to seeing how the Roomba works as this is a huge house with many different floor surfaces on the ground floor (tile of more than one kind, bricks, slate). We are putting in wood in the in-law suite, which is another probably 1500 sf on the ground floor, but I’m assuming this Roomba will just do the main house. Otherwise I can imagine it getting lost.
Mr. B: “The Coronavirus will be also known as the “bovine flu virus” - the virus that killed the bull market.” ?
Go to the store during its least busy hour?
Good idea on hours for shopping.
Interesting things are happening. Meetings are being cancelled. Our cleaning lady came early today because her earlier customer cancelled because of coronavirus. I have a board meeting that was going to be in the Middle East. They are moving it to Boston but are now asking people if they want to attend in person or via video.
The pace of cancellations is staggering. Across a broad spectrum of events/gatherings.