Does The GameStop Saga Matter to My Retirement

In January, news from Wall Street was dominated by the GameStop saga. To put it simply, a group of individual investors belonging to a social media forum called WallStreetBets started buying shares of GameStop, a moribund online videogame retailer. This speculation drove the price up from $20 to nearly $500 in three weeks. The WallStreetBets clique pitched a Main Street versus Wall Street story, claiming that they were trying to punish hedge funds, which were making huge bets that the price of GameStop would go down. For a time this worked. Early investors became stock multimillionaires, and some hedge funds were on the verge of bankruptcy before the madness petered out and GameStop lost more half of its value by the first week of February. While the hedge funds ended up okay, individual investors who bought shares right before the bottom fell out were the biggest losers. This saga created a clamoring for regulators to step in and stop this kind of market manipulation, and focused industry ire on Robinhood, a popular, no-cost trading app that many of the WallStreetBets crowd used to buy GameStop shares. While this story is fun to read about, there’s no need for most retirement investors to lose sleep over it. The market is heavily regulated. Over the long term prices reflect what’s going on in the economy, and are rarely impacted by price gyrations among a few small companies. Investors who own a diversified portfolio of stock and bond mutual funds in their retirement accounts have even less to worry about, since these funds hold many different kinds of securities, so if the price of one goes down it will be offset by the rising price of another. If you do want to dabble in individual stocks, research each stock first to see if its current price reflects the company’s real value. If you buy shares, set a target price at which you’ll sell out and stick with it. That way, you won’t get stung when the bubble bursts.

Om Podcasten

Whatever life after 50 looks like to you, thinking about money in retirement shouldn’t keep you up at night. We’re all dealing with the big questions about money and aging: How much you can really spend, how to invest your life savings without risking it all in the stock market, and should you sell your home and downsize? Then there’s the biggest unknown: how much health care you’ll need, and whether your savings and insurance is enough to cover the costs. This is personal. These topics may not be easy to talk about with your own family. That’s why nationally known personal finance experts Terry Savage, Richard Eisenberg, and Pam Krueger and are here to open up the dialogue so you can learn how to define your retirement and deal with your money on your own terms. These three friends think, write, and speak about these issues. And now they’re joining forces to give you the benefit of their experience, wisdom and advice in their new podcast, Friends Talk Money. Each week Richard, Pam and Terry will discuss a different piece of the retirement pie. Everything from Social Security and Medicare to investing and cash flow management is on the table, with practical, common-sense advice on how to deal with these and other challenges. But don’t expect cut-and-dried answers. These friends have strong opinions, and aren’t afraid to debate the pros and cons of their friends’ recommendations. But what you will walk away after each episode is a greater awareness of the retirement planning issues you’ll need to address with the help of your family, friends and financial advisor.