What do you move it to to hedge your risk?\\
Edit: To clarify, I don't have everything in stocks. I'm just looking for good advice on how to further diversify. I'm aware that timing the market is a fool's errand. :)
If your allocation is based on your tolerance for risk, you won't need to change it when the market crashes or booms -- such an allocation is based on the risk characteristics of the assets over the long term, not their current performance.
The time to change such an allocation is when your risk tolerance changes, e.g. as you get closer to retirement you will probably start to prioritize preservation of wealth over growth.
I don't have the stat in front of me, but it's often repeated that all of the biggest gains in the market over the past several decades have occurred on just a handful of days. If you missed those days, you missed those gains.
That is to say that if you try and outsmart the market, the odds are pretty stacked against you that you'll not buy back in at the right time (or you could be wrong about the timing of the correction in the first place.)
This isn't investment advice – usual disclaimer, etc. But, I'd definitely skim through Random Walk if you have a chance.
Over decades this will return better returns at dramatically less stress than any other approach.
After hearing so many people say positive things about Vanguard for so long, I set up an account there. They had pretty much all my disposable cash, in a Roth IRA, for about two years. Rather than begin the predictable uptick in wealth I expected, my results, having about $25K parked there, was that I lost about 300 bucks. I sent several messages asking what I could do about it, their responses were gobbledygook that I did not understand, so I took all my money back out. Praying that I don’t wind up with a huge tax burden this year, due to this mistake.
Here’s my message: regardless of the hype, Vanguard is not for unsophisticated investors. I am looking for an actual human being who can help me invest, now.
i am going to pay an actual human being to give me a list of options, with all the pros and cons spelled out, so i can make limited decisions that wind up with my pile of money growing, instead of shrinking. if that's too much to ask, i'll just keep my money under a mattress, thanks.
Thank you, but it really has been a recent thing for me. It's only in the past year that I actually worked out what this all means, passive versus active investments, pensions etc.
> i am going to pay an actual human being to give me a list of options
I totally understand that but do me a favour. Before you pay anyone or start down that route, watch this playlist - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_chiIIxMGl0&list=PLXy71rkGuC...
It was accidentally stumbling across that which led to me getting my stuff together. At the very least it should give you a grounding in what to read up so as not to be blindsighted by any financial advice you may get in the future from a professional.
> instead of shrinking. if that's too much to ask, i'll just keep my money under a mattress, thanks.
Inflation is always eating away at your money there, no matter how thick your mattress is ;)
while that's true, if i'd kept my money under a mattress for the last two years, i'd have 300 bucks more than i have now. and with a lot less hassle.
so, here's another story. i hate paperwork. hate, hate, hate. i hate it enough that i pay a guy to do my taxes. i send him the forms as they trickle in, sign what he tells me to sign. he answers my dumb questions about my mortgage and my car loan and other financial stuff, when i ask them. i give him a check for like 200 bucks a year, and i consider it money well spent.
i've been working with this guy for over ten years now. he's proven himself to be absolutely trustworthy. i tried to give him even more money to manage my portfolio, but he is not interested in having that job, so he turned me down.
is it really impossible to find somebody like him, to be my money manager? while i hate paperwork, i am a really good judge of character. i dispensed with half a dozen shysters before i landed on my current guy. i could do the same thing with financial planners.
this is why i just want to pay a guy like my accountant to narrow down the decision tree for me.
Over time, it's nearly impossible to beat a diversified index fund with any other strategy.
Market timing is bad for your money and your sanity.
I'd go for farmland near clean water.
Cant go wrong there. Sad but true.
Plus some company or other in the Netherlands exporting polder technology.
I don't eat canned goods. Said land can be chosen to have a secured fresh water source. And in the post apocalypse, when you can't count on getting bullets, a bow is a better choice than a shot gun. Bonus points: it takes skill to shoot a bow, so most people can't take your bow and turn it against it.
Duh.
Commodities possibly I guess.
It's a hard one when the stock market has been the only game in town for about a decade.