I have been selling my portfolio since late last year and got rid of the last of it this week. We are talking about individual holdings in our WF brokerage account. We have still got our 401k's, Vanguard mutual funds and some DRIP stocks.
However, what works for me probably has nothing to do with everyone else's personal situation. Along with the falling market, we had a rapidly declining Australian dollar. Since July it has fallen from 98 cents AUD to $1US to below 70c this week. We took this opportunity to sell what we had left, change to Australian dollars and send the proceeds home where we have it invested in cash and receiving 6-7% interest. This works for us because we are Australian and will be returning home to live eventually.
I feel it was a good move on our behalf and we had been thinking about doing this for sometime, and in lots of ways we were grateful for this weeks actions to force us to do something that has been playing at the back of our minds for some time.
Personally I couldn't care less if the other 2,000+ members of this board think this is a foolish move on our behalf. We are the only ones that have to live with out decision and we believe it is the right one for us. Before this week we were 45/55 cash/stock which by many standards on this board is conservative, but once again when you able to get 8% on your cash holdings why risk it in the market or bonds?