A stock broker ponders harakiri.

Yesterday was a bad day for those of us who have retirement money tied up in the stock market.  Me, for example.  I had a terrible day yesterday, and I shudder to think just how much money I lost yesterday due to the stock market taking an abrupt, scary nose-dive.  The Dow Jones industrial average, the major stock market benchmark for the New York Stock Exchange and other exchanges around the world, dropped 512 points in a single day, losing about 4 percent of its value.  That’s not the only troubling sign; yesterday’s decline was the eighth day in nine that the stock market lost money.

“The velocity and the magnitude of the decline was surprising to me,” said Tom Manning, chief investment officer at Boston-based investment firm Silver Lake Advisors.  “Fears of a recession seemed to grip investors all day long.”

Now here’s the tough part.  Do you try to wait out the market adversity, or do you make a move for an alternative investment position, like gold or orange juice futures or the Islamic stock exchange?  Personally, I’m going to keep putting money into my retirement fund, but put what I would’ve put into a Roth IRA into CDs or something else that’s guaranteed to make me a little (not much) cash.

Tags: stock market crash, stock market plunges, dow jones industrial average, s&p 500, stocks crash, worst day for stocks in two years, Tom Manning, Silver Lake Advisors, stocks drop 512 points, stocks drop 4 percent, worst day for stocks in 2 years, recession, depression, New York Stock Exchange

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