Withdrawing from investments

In this "crazy" stock market environment, have you either withdrawn or considered withdrawing from the stock market?  If you are considering withdrawing…seeing as how the market is not likely to stabilize anytime soon… the following information may be useful to you if you are invested in mutual funds.

I decided, finally, that it was time to take a break from being in the market (mutual funds).   To my complete surprise and rather great disappointment I discovered that since I was in managed portfolios at two different investment houses, that they believed they had the right to get me out of the market in "their" time.   For one place (Brinker) that was 72 hours.  For another (Fidelity) they were going through a portfolio re-balancing and claimed they could not move my funds till the re-balancing was complete.  I have been completed astounded.   I was calmly advised that there was nothing I could do about getting my money back. That this was their "policy."  I calmly (well, maybe not so calmly), said that it was unacceptable.   That these are historical times that no one could have predicted and that they had a responsibility to act on their customer's wishes in a timely way.  I got the names of presumably "responsible" people to contact in the organizations and have pursued contact with them.

The actions of these investment houses seemed patently ridiculous.  I did not incur the losses knowingly once I advised both places to remove me.  They could be looking at  class action suits if there are enough people like myself unwilling to accept this ridiculous situation.   Currently, I am doing my best to "resolve" the situation with each place without pursuing further action outside of the organizations.   I cannot tell you whether this will work out.   I will keep you posted since it may be of value to you.