I am by no means a market timer. I believe in investing regularly over time and, for the most part, holding things long term.
That said, over the past 3-ish years, I have gradually reduced the equity allocation of our portfolio and it now stands at about 66% (it was 80% 3 years ago). It's part of the adjustments I've been making as we prep for retirement. My plan had been to wait for the impending inheritance I'll be getting and use that money to adjust it down further to 60%. However, I don't know when that money will come and I've gotten increasingly nervous about the state of the market, so I've decided to start tweaking things a bit now.
The first thing I did was to turn off reinvestment of dividends and capital gains for a few of our stock mutual funds. That won't make a huge change and it won't move the needle quickly, but it will gradually lessen the stock exposure.
The other more immediate thing I did was to put in a sell order last night for one growth fund in my Roth. The aggressive growth stuff has shot up the most and will likely drop the most when things go sour. I'd much rather sell high and buy low than the other way around. That fund held about 2.5% of our total so it takes us to about 63.5% equities.
I don't want to make any drastic moves so I may stop there until I get the inheritance, and then tweak it the rest of the way to the 60% mark. Of course, if today's market performance continues, the market itself might get us down the rest of the way.
May 12th, 2021 at 07:18 am 1620800302
I think the Jobs Plan and Family Plan are going to pass and drive the economy in a positive direction. I have money that I kept on the side forever (literally) and based on my and the country’s circumstances, I am going to move half of it into the market.
Still leaves me with a good cushion, and my income stream more than covers my current and projected expenses...so this is a risk I can take...
May 12th, 2021 at 02:07 pm 1620824822
May 12th, 2021 at 05:24 pm 1620836682
May 12th, 2021 at 06:39 pm 1620841153
May 13th, 2021 at 04:08 pm 1620918483
May 16th, 2021 at 08:31 pm 1621193482