<prompt> Human: My father just retired last year, after working for the State for 30 years. Before I go on will say he has a pension, and deferred comp from the state, and is working a security job for extra income. They arent rich, but doing just fine. In 2007, his deferred compensation plan had about 600,000 in it, in some actively managed funds provided through NY State. In the crash of 2008, the value reduced to about 150,000, for a loss of almost 75. I asked him a year later, what he did after the crash with his investments. He told me something that makes my heart hurt physically to this day. I cant handle this risk, I moved everything into cash when it bottomed outI was young at this time, and still just a dumb college kid living at home with no knowledge of investing or markets. If I could go back and tell my dad what I know now, he would have retired with almost 2 million dollars in that account, even if he did nothing but wait it out. The point of this short story is to know your risk, know how much time you have to retire, plan accordingly, and stick to the plan NO MATTER WHAT. Do not let fear influence your investments.  <response>: Was having a conversation with my aunt last year and she said a similar thing. We were talking about retirement and 401ks and she said we had a 401k, but it just kept losing money, so we took it all out about 5 years ago. 