I logged into my main stock trading account today for the first time in many months, probably at least six months. I haven’t looked at the account for a while because 2022 just wasn’t a great year for most investments and I just didn’t want to look at all the red in my account. Sure enough, despite some of my investments still showing a profit, enough of the bad ones have me in the negative overall. There’s nothing for me to do but just sit tight and hope they all rebound.
The other thing I noticed is that I have about $10k in cash just sitting in one of these accounts. I believe I dumped all that cash in there about two years ago so I could easily invest quickly without having to wait to fund an account if I needed to act quickly. When I saw that cash in there tonight, my first feeling was some disappointment that I hadn’t actually invested in anything with that money. Then I quickly realized that if I had, especially if I had done it in late 2021 or early 2022, that $10k in cash would be worth less than $10k right now. I had inadvertently done the right thing by just letting it sit there.
The question is now is it still the right thing to do to let it sit there? Lots of stocks and ETFs are down (by many measures), so is it time to get back into it? Or have we yet to see the bottom? Obviously, if I knew how to answer questions like that, I’d already be rich.