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• Monday, December 1, 2008 06:25 AM

  Your husband knows

  Dear LW,

  Your husband knows already. Unless he's been the provervial ostrich, head in sand/denial, he knows. So -- assuming he didn't beg you to get out of stocks just before the market crashed, leading to an all-out emotional brawl in which you said insulting things to each other, and you ranted about how dare he tell you how to invest your retirement savings, how dare he presume to think he should override the advice of your professional financial advisor -- there is no reason for you to do anything at all except say:

  "Honey, as you know, the markets tanked. Like everyone else's, my investments tanked too. The good news is that we aren't retiring any time soon, so there's time for my portfolio to recover. But right now the markets are so depressed that I can't bring myself to read my monthly statements... which is actually a good thing because if I do I might be tempted to sell, and thereby crystalize my losses. Which I/we cannot afford to do."

  And then what you need to do if figure out how much liquid cash you have kicking around, and plow it all into the mind-numbingly-depressed market. That is the conversation you need to have with your spouse: can the two of you as a couple find a way to take advantage of the current, hugely advantageous, buyers' market? If so, what investments do you as a couple want to make? (Avoid sectors that have the strench of outdated 20th-century thinking, like the American auto manufacturers, and you'll probably do okay).

  Because the honest-to-goodness truth about the funds in your portfolio is that they won't start to rise in value again until people like you decide that it's time to buy. If you spent last weekend blowing all your cash on new electronic equipment because you felt it was your patriotic duty to stimulate the economy, fine, that might have helped... but if you want the stock market to turn around, put your dollars there.

  —DeirdreH Read DeirdreH's other letters
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