Stock market - Who is into it?

[Gooch]

I had a great 401K till about a year and a half a go. I'm young, so I was risky and had my entire portfolio in stock. Oops! Yeah. My 401K went from 58K to 16K in an eight month span.

Investing??? I put 10 percent of my pay a week into a stock purchase program which gives you 15% of the purchase price. Lucent is trading a 5 bucks right now...2 years a go it was at 88, so I'm getting about 20 shares every week. The only other stocks I own are NCR and AT&T and they too have seen bad times of late. But I'm not looking to do anything with this money for atleast 3 more years so I'll sit and wait....I've got time.

diversify, dude. the whole reason to spread it out is if one thing tanks, the rest doesn't go with it...b/c it's inevitable that something will tank. My 401k got hit too, but, in the very longterm, it'll be alright. If it's aggressive you got to sit out the long falls as well as the big highs. But, I learned by the tech stock crash, that don't put your eggs in one basket.