https://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/investing/T052-S001-12-bond-mutual-funds-and-etfs-to-buy-protection/index.html
12 Bond Mutual Funds and ETFs to Buy for Protection
As the stock market continues to take a beating, nervous investors look to bond mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) for protection and sanity. After all, fixed income typically provides regular cash and lower volatility when markets hit turbulence.

@Derf: In short words, I reduced cash by 1% and raised my equity allocation by 1% in the growth & income area of my portfolio through recent buying activity.
By the way ... the barometer is back to a reading of 180+.
With this, I've still have my equity buying britches on and favor equity income over fixed income.
Old_Skeet

“There have been four great buying opportunities in my adult lifetime. The first was in 1973 and ’74, the second was in 1982, the third was in 1987 and the fourth was in 2008 and 2009. And this is the fifth one,”
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/18/investor-bill-miller-one-of-the-best-buying-opportunities-of-his-life.html

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/searching-for-a-bottom-canada-stock-managers-eye-2016-support-1.1408302
Canadian article
Got it via email
Searching for a bottom, Canada stock managers eye 2016 support
/A month into a rout that has lopped off about a third from Canadian stocks, money managers are gingerly stepping back into the market in the hope that a four-year low is the bottom/
thoughts maybe -2016 (support) levels/bottoms!?

“With my Schwab account down 22.14 % YTD, I don't think that's to funny”
- Not sure what that means ... Is the Schwab everything you own,or just part of your investments?
- Are you calling a bottom in the market at today’s numbers?
- Do you have an allocation model you wish to share?
I don’t compute my returns daily or report them publicly. I do benchmark against TRRIX - as I’ve been doing for at least 15 years (often mentioned here). Generally I’m very close to that fund’s return over time..
Regards

@hank: Is the answer Infinite ? While you were fully invested I was the opposite, to much so !!
With my Schwab account down 22.14 % YTD, I don't think that's to funny ! How are you doing ?
Since 01/01/2020 I've put 7.3 % of total starting portfolio to work. Approximate half before the down draft. So I'm not throwing a large % into the fire.
parsig9, from above, is investing a lot more than me , but to be fair he has a (few) years to go to retirement & I've been there for ten years.
You commented, "What about the current situation makes one bullish at this juncture ."
Nothing about this situation makes me bullish at this time. Down the line things will turn & Mr . Market will catch his breathe & rise again. Or are things different time ?
Have a good evening , Derf

Hi Expatsp,
Not sure anyone can give you a straight answer here. Here is what Gundlach mentioned yesterday in his webcast: some CEFs are trading at low prices/wide discounts, BUT if they own energy then they DESERVE those valuations/discounts. Not sure what PDI and PCI own. I bought some CEFs two days ago (most had 0 leverage) and they are all down 10-20% today. So not sure when the pain will end for CEFs. According to Gundlach (again), there is a liquidity problem.
from his tweet: As if we needed more evidence of a liquidity squeeze crushing asset prices, today I received panic offers of blue chip (though not at all trophy) art at slashed prices.
What I can say is that people where crazy to pay a +30% premium on some CEFs a few months ago. Now they are cheaper. But as with everything they can become even more cheaper.
Good luck to all of us.

https://realmoney.thestreet.com/investing/stocks/too-much-bad-news-15268675
Too Much to Bear
The economy is shaky and the fear is real, but at some point the bad news overloads us, and we have to start looking for the green shots

Incognito google search
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.ft.com/content/28b75368-67d9-11ea-a3c9-1fe6fedcca75
Part of market looking oversold
Many here have right ideas considering adding start small positions in several sectors
We maybe laughing our ways to banks 10 yrs from now

Are you trying to be funny @Derf?
By your definition, there were hundreds of “buying opportunities” between October 9, 2007 and March 9, 2009. Had you bought every time the market dropped 5, 6, 7% you’d have spent most of your amo before the best opportunities presented themselves. Think of “buying down” as if swigging on a pint of Jim Beam. Nice and slow. Pace yourself man. Live for another day.
“The US bear market of 2007–2009 was a 17-month bear market that lasted from October 9, 2007 to March 9, 2009, during the financial crisis of 2007-2009. The S&P 500 lost approximately 50% of its value, but the duration of this bear market was just below average due to extraordinary interventions by governments and central banks to prop up the stock market.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_bear_market_of_2007–2009
Here’s a “pop quiz” for Derf - How many times can something fall by 10% ?

Come on Simon. You make comments like,

"Stock prices are going much higher - higher than you can ever imagine."

and

" the bull market will last another 15 years",

those aren't arrogant statements? By the way, ironically you made these comments close to the top of the market, Feb.15th.
I'd like to see you stick around, but if someone points out statements you made that were so misleading at best, just say,

"man I was wrong".

It keeps going down down down...probably sit this one out for couple of wks until dust settles
One of my friend met chief of infectious disease physician [50+ plus experiences] of Large Major Hospital in Austin Tx states things maybe settling in 4-6 wks/slow down...he also says he has see anything like this before but it will pass. Less flu/cold and SARS and hopefully cousins of SARS Covid19 at mid april/warmer weather, less incident of transmissions. That is what we are hoping for. Will it last one year, he does not think so. Will it last few months? Maybe.
We are still keeping our 80/20 in our 401k and retirement portfolio, DCA with continuous bimonthly distributions but probably wont add more monies for now.
Plus we have to pay uncle Sam 2019 tax soon [april now july 15 tax deadlines]
Maybe we are hovering near the bottom, but this is what some folks say last wk. Maybe new bottom today
well at least the USA death rates hovering 1.4% but probably will be much lower next wk once have more data and less panic. 85s-90s% of infectious personnel show very little nor no symptoms, only old and sick patients have issues.
China/Hong Kong and S.Korea are easing out slowly now. US will soon follow, don't know about Italy + EU though
regards

The Leuthold folks track a bunch of metrics. Some target the distance to "normal" and others target the distance to "fair value."
The fair value note released this week looked at price/cash flow, price to book, dividend yield and three flavors of P/E. The implied drop to reach the median level maintained over the past 70 years ranged from -1 to -22%, depending on the metric.
Bear markets end up with valuations somewhere around the bottom quartile of the range. So ROE-based P/E is normal at 18.3 and low at 15.1. At the beginning of this week, the market's ROE-based P/E was 18.35 which might translate to "not wildly overvalued but way back the trough in a bear."
For what that's worth, David

Spent 12% of my portfolio on PRFDX, PRDGX, TRVLX . Bit on PRNEX too. I will start moving around 5% a week from my cash equivalent funds into equity until it's gone. I am comfortable buying from here down to oblivion. I have 15- 20 years to retirement.

Amazon tries to keep pretty much a "just-in-time" inventory. They're likely to run out of stuff to sell before they run out of customers.
Speaking of that sort of thing, yesterday I thought that it might be a good idea to supplement our full-size upright freezer (which my wife always keeps 106% full) with a smaller 6-8 cu ft upright model. Tried Home Depot, Best Buy, Walmart, Amazon, couple of other places. Not one available within 250 miles of the SF Bay Area. There were lots of models of that type shown, but every one said "SOLD OUT".
I'm speculating that many people here in the bay area who live in apartments or smaller units may not have had a separate stand-alone freezer, did not really need one because they ate at restaurants frequently, and now are in a difficult situation.

Amazon YTD -4% Last 5 days -2.6 % What if purchases dry up ? With 100k new workers they're thinking (NOT) !!
Derf

Probably not a conventional consumer staples stock, but Amazon should benefit and it was reported yesterday in the WSJ that they are hiring 100K workers. If people have money to spend, AMZN will get a chunk of it. Nota bene: “if”

I saw a deal to get SeekingAlpha for $19/mo and pounced for a year. The data/metrics are far more usable than M*'s new (er, current) site ... and the user comments I find quite useful food-for-thought, oftentimes more insightful than the article I'm reading there.

I made a real quick 1K on MJ in a couple of weeks last year. Sent 10% of that to MFO. Wouldn't touch it now, though.

“We're still above 2016 levels in the market ...”

On the last trading day of 2016, the Dow closed at 19,762 .
Currently, the Dow sits at 19,185 .
Remains to be seen if the Dow finishes the day still below 2016 level. Always possible they’ll shut this market down early.