Too scared to invest.. Market timing

[Danmar]

Retired 7 years. We are always fully invested in div paying equities. Cash only held to cover lumpy expenditures. We treat pensions as FI proxy. Very simple for us- just spending the divs. About 3.75% yield presently. Since retirement total returns about 10% CAGR -good enough for me. We have a very high tolerance for equity risk and would never sell in a down market. hardly trade at all, maybe 1-2 times a year and hardly ever in the taxable accounts. Basically ignore AA as I can't change our pensions which represent about 50% of our income.

 

[unclemick]

I am with the stable AA folks. That helped me weather the big downturns with not much more than a yawn. I fiddle around at the edges by timing my liquidation events for annual expenses and occasionally buy up a bit of equities but I always hover near the 60/40 level.

Yawn. Horseshoe and hand grenade wise. 1970 about 60/40 - 2013 about 60/40.

Stay the course (Bogle) in hindsight caused some tense spincter tightening over some bear markets in the past but 20 years in ER has helped.

I do find it mildly irritating that I did the best by doing nothing and letting the computers rebalance my balanced funds.

heh heh heh -

 

[RobLJ]

With this market outperforming long term 10% average, it certainly seems likely it's going to correct again.

I'd like to stop worrying and just balance my portfolio, but the market is driving me crazy!

What are you all doing with new cash? How much do trust the general advice.

As several have already indicated, figure out how much you'd like to invest and dollar cost average (divide in 4 and invest a 1/4th every 2-3 months).

I'm getting close to 5%+ on my stock allocation % so it's getting close to a question of when I should rebalance and from what funds. Same kind of dilemma, although I do have a process.

 

[imoldernu]

Wanted to join the discussion, but don't have any investments.

 

[Amethyst]

We don't really have an asset allocation (gasp!), but this forum has taught me to think of our pensions as bonds, which means pretty much everything else except emergency funds, real estate, and those darned tax-deferred annuities, needs to be in stocks. So my TSP account is in one of the stock-heavier lifestyle funds. As for taxable accounts, I have been steadily dollar-cost-averaging into VG Total Stock, no matter what the market does. When a little bit extra comes along (capital gains distribution, say), that goes into VG Total Stock also.

Amethyst

 

[NW Landlady]

I received a large lump sum payment on the sale of my last big Building in April of this year....just after the market had risen about 25%. Ouch!

The market really freaked me out....so I held back on investing it for a while....probably would have done well just putting it all in, but I did wait until there were drops in the market & generally spread it among my Vanguard accts in installments when DJIA was under 15000.

So far, knock on wood, I have done better than I expected....hope it stays that way....

 

[Which Roger]

Smartest thing I ever did years ago, for my peace of mind and investment performance, was determining the asset allocation I'm comfortable with, setting my portfolio to that, and then completely ignoring the market. No more decision making, no more worry, no more 'nuthin except rebalancing once in a blue moon.

+1

 

[Midpack]

I received a large lump sum payment on the sale of my last big Building in April of this year....just after the market had risen about 25%. Ouch!

The market really freaked me out....so I held back on investing it for a while....probably would have done well just putting it all in, but I did wait until there were drops in the market & generally spread it among my Vanguard accts in installments when DJIA was under 15000.

So far, knock on wood, I have done better than I expected....hope it stays that way....

History would suggest that you'll do well in the long run, but you can plan on some painful corrections along the way - it probably won't just "stay that way." That's what investing is all about (vs market timing)...