With shares suffering the way they are, is it worth selling them now to get what profit we still can?

Q.

Ten years ago, when my then 16 year old daughter started her part-time job at McDonalds, she started an investment plan with our encouragement and on reading many advice columns. She invested with Asgard - $1,000 initially and then $100 every month since. My daughter will be 26 in September and she is questioning whether it is worth continuing with the plan as it is presently worth less than what she has put in. Should she cash it in or keep it? Our understanding from all the info we were given was after 10 years she would no longer have to contribute and that it would continue to grow with compound interest and we have also continually reiterated this to her. Are we wrong in what we have been telling her?

It is a sad fact of life that the global financial crisis has caused extremely bad returns in share based investments. However, I urge you to stick with the plan because investing now is giving her the opportunity to buy shares when they are low. When the market recovers her investment will recover with it.