[chaz12]

With the stock market going down so much last week and I know my 401k took a big hit, Will it make up the loss when the stock market rallied Friday?

[ebaines]

Maybe. Most 401(k)'s have facilities to let you check the value on line. However, remember that your 401(k) is a retirement account, and you need to think long term. If yo are in your 20's, you will be adding to this account for up to 40 more years before making withdrawals, and even then your account will need to be able to fund your retirement for 30 year or more. Consequently you can't be worrying too much about what happens in any given day, or week, or even year. Between now and the time you are 90 years old I can guarantee that the markets will go through at least several extreme periods of bullishness as well as several crashes. Count on that, but also count on the markets ON AVERAGE OVER TIME giving you a good return to fund your retirement. What you should be doing is making sure that your account is prudently invested with good diversification between stocks and bonds, large cap and small cap, domestic and international. Rebalance your account every 6 - 12 months to maintain the level of diversification - this will automatically cause you to buy low and sell high as the markets rotate between these classes of assets. And stay the course.