Are you getting ready to make major equity shifts?

[Golden sunsets]

Our plan calls for reducing our AA in equities 1 % per year for five years from 55% equities to 50%. This year we will ratchet down to 51%, so one more year till we reach our permanent floor. If the market drops significantly before year end, that may mean we buy equities. We have redundant cash available via a 10 bond ladder in our IRA's, plus a 5 year CD ladder in taxable that would mean we would not have to sell equities for at least 20 years in a worse case scenario.

 

[Montecfo]

No big changes planned.
There will be volatility. I do not consider it an big issue but does create opportunity

 

[unclemick]

At age 76 my RMD money is a stash causing a ?? blow that dough or lust (aka male hormones) to put some more into equities after a drop. Football preseason is underway - not that my sub conscious is taking over or anything.



heh heh heh - my target retirement is ballpark 50/50.

 

[SecondCor521]

Football preseason is underway - not that my sub conscious is taking over or anything.

Is is Geaux Chiefs now, or still Geaux Saints?

 

[Bir48die]

Reallocated ten months ago. I'm good

 

[yakers]

Went to 40 stock, 45 bond, 15 cash/MM, will hold that, if market drops 20% will buy slowly, at 50% would go to 70-80 % stock

 

[street]

No change for me. I will stay with 75% equity.

 

[RobbieB]

I was there for a while. But the stocks keep going up and the bonds...

Back to 80/20. And I'm selling stocks for dough to blow.

 

[T-Minus]

Per McClung’s “Living Off Your Money” model, I sold ~10% of my appreciated stock on 7/26 (in an IRA account, so no capital gains), which brought my stock allocation back down to ~52%. While waiting for the trade to clear, the market dropped. Haven’t yet re-invested it, so it’s just sitting in 2% return Money Market fund.

 

[gayl]

Yes. June 6th I was:
76.8% SCHB / SPY
6.8% SCHF
13.2% CDs / cash / bond
3.2% individual stocks
Then (due to family drama) I forked out 135k cash to xDIL. [emoji2959]. SCHF sucks so that went Friday to cash for either CDs or SWVXX (money market). Now taking a hard look at those individuals.

After Friday I'm:
77.2% SCHB / SPY
21.3% CDs /cash / bond
1.5% Individual stocks (did not sell any here)

My 'plan' is 80/20. I'm pretty close but watching those individual stocks. A little cash heavy. I've become SO conservative

 

[LOL!]

I understand why minimum choices are "up to 25%" in either direction for the poll, but I have a question anyways:

Does anybody really change things by more than 5% to 10% ever anymore? That is, even the $100K out of $600K in the first post is pretty huge, isn't it?

 

[NW-Bound]

Nah! My brother-in-law jumps 100% in/out of the market all the time. And he would buy mainly shares of his former megacorp, by trading his 401k. I think this one account of his alone is more than $3M now.

If his company goes down he buys. If it goes up he sells. His timing is not perfect, but he beats buy-and-hold. Here's a guy who does not read any financial statement or cares to know about fundamentals. No gross sales, profit margin, EPS, balance sheet, anything. He looks at the price chart and price chart only. He trades millions of dollars with one click.

Life is never fair, is it?

 

[Rianne]

No, staying at 100% stocks (since 1993).

OMG, are you my DH friend from megacorp? Wait, no you live in LA. DH friend 100% equities since mid 90's and retired last year with 2 pensions + SS. He's one the most frugal people I know. He won't spend that dough, but he's definitely rolling in that dough.

 

[copyright1997reloaded]

We probably couldn’t have retired early if we had sold off or even reduced equity exposure in 1987, 2000 or 2008.

Sure I worried a little “this time might be different” in 2008, but I didn’t lose any sleep over it because I’d read The Four Pillars of Investing and other books thoroughly explaining market history/behavior/cycles. Every time there are “experts” and many more non-experts saying “this time is different,” and they’ve been wrong every time since 1871. FIRECALC includes the Depression of the 1930’s if you want to see worst case odds, along with other extended recessions. If you sold off during the 2008 recession, odds are you lost money in your portfolio, some people missed out on good returns for years. If you did nothing you had great returns just waiting (see below).

Recessions are unpleasant, seemingly necessary (due to human behavior), but they’ve always been followed by a greater expansion for most modern economies.

Great post that everyone should read, read again, and keep on reading until they fully understand.

By remaining in equities in good time and in bad, my net worth today is more than I earned in my lifetime. So after all the money I've spent for food, clothing, shelter, ex's education, ex's house, child care, child's education, child support, cars, house, gifts to relatives and charity, enormous federal and state taxes, social security, medicare, land, RV, vacations, and on and on...it's like I was able to take my pay and magically get all of that without spending any of my earnings.

To answer the pool: I've already re-allocated. With the run up, I sold things in May, June and July to get my equity allocation back down to 60%....where it sits.

 

[Lsbcal]

I understand why minimum choices are "up to 25%" in either direction for the poll, but I have a question anyways:

Does anybody really change things by more than 5% to 10% ever anymore? That is, even the $100K out of $600K in the first post is pretty huge, isn't it?

I wouldn't think going to a 50/50 portfolio from 60/40 is huge. Not to me anyway. I also wouldn't focus on the $'s as that gets into quite emotional territory. I just mentioned the $'s to make the illustration real.

Note I am referring to tax advantaged accounts as that is how we hold our equities.

 

[LOL!]

I wouldn't think going to a 50/50 portfolio from 60/40 is huge. Not to me anyway.

Have you ever done it yourself?

I do think it is huge.

 

[Running_Man]

As one decides whether or not to re-balance to a lower equity percentage the following I find interesting:

The S&P500 has had 3 -2.5% days in the last 15 trading days while still being within 10% of the all time S&P500 high. This has happened only 3 times previously :

May 27, 1929
October 10, 1955
November 7, 2007

If you raise the percentage to 3 days of 2% drops in 15 trading days while being within 10% of the all time high increases to 9 days where the third time occurred:
May 27, 1929
Oct 10, 1955
April 14, 1987
April 11, 1997
Feb 9, 2000
Aug 9, 2007
Nov 7, 2007
Oct 24, 2018
Aug 23, 2019

1955 & 1997 not much occurred after this happened, most here are probably not much interested in these type of stats, And Finally:

The times listed when at least 9 of the 15 trading days had a move of at least one percent up or down while SPX was within 10 percent of it's all time high.

What these all point out I believe is distribution of sales near the top.

 

[Lsbcal]

Have you ever done it yourself?

I do think it is huge.

Have done this twice in the last 4 years.

EDIT: I don't think it is as huge as holding 80% to 100% equities. Lots of people and lots of choices.

 

[unclemick]

Is is Geaux Chiefs now, or still Geaux Saints?

Conflicted even last year when a possible Saints/Chiefs Superbowl 'could' have been a possibility.

Still like both leaning a tad toward the Chiefs now that I live here.

50/50 portfolio with ? maybe 10% side money to 'blow', invest on a dip or stumble across 'a few good stocks'.

heh heh heh - decisions, decisions?

 

[Splash]

Won't make any changes.

I learned a long time ago that I am not good at picking individual stocks and I am not good at timing the market. I was rewarded for staying the course over the last several years so I plan to not make changes although I'm sure I will be anxious.

 

[frayne]

Dumping everything and going 75% bitcoins and 35% North Korean pork belly futures.

And I'm a stable genius when it comes to math.

 

[Ed B]

No major changes but I did move another year's expenses from equities to cash a couple of months sooner than planned.

 

[zaqxsw]

Given the results of this poll, it sure begs to ask the question: what is moving markets? Just traders and hedge funds

 

[Henry Lili]

Buy and hold. Only rebalancing based on range parameters if necessary.

My range is 55 to 65. Currntly sits at 55. If we get to 50 buy limit order triggers. Not to get all the way back, of course.

 

[OldShooter]

Given the results of this poll, it sure begs to ask the question: what is moving markets? Just traders and hedge funds

Retail investors don't move markets. Professional traders and program traders do. If, when you read a news story that says something like "Investors did ... xxyy ... today" you substitute the word "Traders" it will make the statement more accurate.

I recall reading somewhere that 95% of trades are made by professionals. That's one of the reasons that trading is hazardous to your wealth. They know more than you do.

This article says the market volume is 2% retail investors: https://repository.law.umich.edu/articles/118/