Bad time to invest in IRA? Wait 6-8 months more?

I have been investing in an aggresive fund thru Fidelity, however, these news reports and my current IRA show losses nearly each day of the week. Should I actually save $$ by putting it in my savings account until the market picks back up? I've done that for the past month, but getting hardly any interest from my bank stinks too...

Let me add my thought that led me to the question... Yes, the market is down, which is a great time to buy.. but the forecast is that it will stay down (maybe getting much worse) for quite a while longer. I will invest, but wouldn't waiting a few months till that "lowest point" around this summer be a good idea?

Keep up a systematic purchase into your IRA. This is a long term investment and even if there is a recession that lasts for 3 years... keep buying b/c you will be buying inexpensively.

The younger you are the more aggressive your fund selections can be. Set up the Dollar Cost averaging and STOP looking at your statements but maybe once per year.

Stay on track and you'll do well.

Never heard of buying HIGH. No, you don't wait until the market picks up, you buy now while low. If you contribute steadily every month, you will get more shares when it is cheaper and fewer shares when it is more expensive.

Good Luck! Hang in there. It is the long-term you are worried about, not the short changes in the market.

Its never a bad time to invest in an IRA, as long as you have plenty of time until retirement. The sooner you start the more you will have when you retire.

See if they offer a "bear fund." When the stock market goes down, a bear fund makes money by getting on the short sale side.

Also keep in mind 6-8 months may be premature. The previous recession lasted from 2001 to 2003.

You didn't say what fund you were in at Fidelity. If that fund is in a sector that is expected to do well in a declining economy then yes continue buying that fund.

The sectors I believe that will do well in the next several years are Natural Resources, Gold and Precious Metals. Other areas expected to do nicely are Japan, China, Korea, Brazil and Russia.

These are funds that I will be adding additional positions in shortly.

We entered a danger zone decline several weeks ago. This decline may be upwards of 36% or more. Once it appears that we have reached the bottom of this decline, I will buy new positions in these funds.

The 8th year of every decade for many decades has been a good year for funds.

Be patient and continue to ask good questions as these.

I would not put $$$$ into a fund that I did not believe would rise nicely within a year or sooner.

Since your IRA money is retirement money, and thus is intended for the very-long-term investment... buy when you have the money. If you're nervous, then investing monthly (or biweekly, or whatever) ensures that you get more shares when prices are low, and fewer when prices are high (dollar-cost-averaging).

If you think that you know enough to time your market purchases... well, studies show that even market pros aren't very good at that. Right now is a great example of that, since nobody knows if we're on the verge of a recession, if there is a recession it may (or may not) be a very very mild one, and nobody knows if the stock market will slide some more before recovering. (The stock market does sometimes climb during recessions too!)

We can be fairly sure of this, though -- that stocks are a good investment for the long term, and your IRA is for the long term.

The fact that you are asking about investing in an IRA would lead me to believe that you are not retiring anytime soon and the money will be invested for at least 5-10 years. If that is the case then I would continue to put money away in your IRA and dollar cost average your way to higher future returns.

The economy will recover in the long run and if you tell yourself that you will invest "at the bottom" or "when things turn around" there is a good chance that you will wait until the turn around has already started and you will miss out on a good part of the upswing. I would agree that if you are in an aggressive fund now you may want to look into diversifying into less aggressive funds and perhaps adding a fund that has exposure to gold and precious metals.

Buy gold and silver (GLD and SLV) and you will be a happy camper. No need to wait. These are going up at 30-50% annual clips with no signs of stopping.