You only lose money if you sell the stocks. Hold on to them…they’ll go back up.
The stock market seems to be the only place where people are afraid of a bargain.
Just curious, is it a 401k or is it an IRA? I wouldn’t keep a 401k from a company I didn’t work for any longer. Roll the money over into an IRA.
It may be worth while probing why she feels this is such a risky thing to do - even just leaving things as they are. It could well be that she doesn’t feel she understands it enough (not saying she doesn’t understand, but her perception may be that she doesn’t), which is making her risk adverse.
We’ve done some studies at work that show that women tend to underestimate their financial confidence, are afraid of asking questions about it, are more aware of life events (so your 30 years away may seem much sooner to her, and the impact of stopping work greater) - which all leads to a reluctance to take ‘risks’ with investing - even though the riskier strategy here would seem to be to try to cover ‘losses’ now.
It’s not an IRA, but I’m not sure it’s a 401k either. It’s TIAA-CREF (I work in education), and I think non-profits like universities set up their retirement accounts under a different law. I think it’s a 403b.