A Texas couple pulled $190,000 from their 401(k)s during Covid — Dave Ramsey say

When the stock market plunged during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, 71-year-old Donna and her husband, 84, made a decision many investors later regretted.

The Texas couple watched their retirement accounts lose roughly $26,000 in a week and quickly pulled about $190,000 out of their 401(k)s and other retirement investments. Appearing on The Ramsey Show, Donna explained their thinking: "We don't have time to recover (1)."

But according to the hosts, that move may have cost them far more than the initial decline.

"The moment you took it out, you just locked in that loss," cohost Jade Warshaw told Donna. "It went up 25% three years in a row, and you missed that," Dave Ramsey added (1).

The couple's story highlights a common investing mistake: Selling during periods of market panic and missing the recovery that often follows.

The Covid selloff was one of the fastest market declines in modern history. The S&P 500 fell about 34% between February 19 and March 23, 2020, CNBC reports (2). But it also staged one of the fastest recoveries on record, regaining its losses by August 2020 and finishing the year up more than 16% (3).

Ramsey argued that the couple's fear of further

Fuente original: Yahoo Finance (https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/texas-couple-pulled-190-000-113000329.html)