I have enjoyed reading all of the replies to this post... I am about 50-50 AA, and have not changed that during this crisis. I did buy CVX at 59, and plan to sell those when it reaches 100 or so.
My only comment about this thread, which several people noted, is this. If you sell stocks, and *ever* plan to get back in, how do you know when? Even if you acknowledge that you do *not* want to try and time the market, you are really forced to... aren’t you?
It's very simple. You get back in when you're COMFORTABLE being in the market.
Unlikely that will be at the lows. Very likely you might missed out on some gains. No big deal. I'd rather miss out on some gains than have my life savings take a big drop at the beginning of my retirement. We have no pensions to fall back on and our retirement savings aren't so large that we don't need to preserve what we've got.
I'm going to give it a few months and see if it really seems that the economy is back on track. Yes, by then the market will "probably" be higher. I'm not concerned about that at all. Call it "market timing" if you want. Doesn't bother me.