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market at 5 yrs high - question for the board

edited November 2013 in Fund Discussions
Just curious - - Are you folks:

a. still buying [401k stocks funds / other private account funds/stocks/bonds etf, etc...] still getting into the game even though it's all time high
b. not buying/selling, not putting any money in, not doing anything/ stash cash under the mattress
c. thinking/watching/waiting for a pull back to start buying
d. or 'bailin out'/selling before the 'sh*t hit the fan' [like skeeter did recently]

I am still 80%stocks/20%bonds in tsp but thinking maybe changing to less risk portfolio ? 65%/35%. By the way, I wish I was near retirement, probably would bail right now and put it in a conservative portfolio

Comments

  • Well, I'm 50/50 stocks/bonds or thereabouts. 58 years old, wife still working. Romneycare in Massachusetts already. We're a step ahead of Obamacare. It's better than nothing by about a half-step. (Health insurance is radically screwed-up, so let's force everyone to buy-in. Sure. Perfect.) I'm pretty happy from day to day with my portfolio's behavior. I'm staying the course. Biggest bets in PREMX and MAPIX. Domestic bonds covered with DLFNX. US domestic equities covered with MAPOX and MSCFX. The latter--- after today's record high--- is up just a hair short of 30% for me since buying-in, in April of 2012. Others: MAINX, TRAMX, SFGIX and MACSX. "Break a leg," if you make any changes.
  • John,another and probably bigger decision for you personally is if/how you convert from 401k style to the Roth option now available @TSP savings.Good Luck
  • Hi John,

    I don't know that I'd bail out but I would advise everyone to be a bit more cautious. Rebalance or take some profits or simply tone things down a tad. You don't want to fight the Fed, but this is an asset bubble and everyone knows it and sooner or later it's going to pop.

    peace,

    rono
  • For the most part I am just sitting tight neither buying or selling. I have stopped DRIPing into certain select issues choosing to accumulate cash instead for the time being.
  • edited March 2013
    Not investing in anything new for the time being but not selling.

    I continue to believe in real, productive assets that serve a need - infrastructure (pipelines, etc - KMR, BIP, etc), oil wells/royalty trust (I don't own it, but FRHLF would be something I'd consider if I wanted to look at oil royalty trusts), particular REITs (apartments and I like triple-net lease REITs such as WPC), etc. Not making new investments, but reinvesting dividends. There are a few things I'm looking at if the market does pull back, including O, COP and some Canadian stuff.
  • edited March 2013
    Recent post on Mebane Faber's blog World Beta by Dr. Steve Sjuggerud called Should You Buy at New Lows? Or New Highs?
  • Reinvesting quarterly dividends into stock mutual funds as usual.
  • from cnbc early this morning: Inflation adjusted would push the dow another 8 %.
    Derf
  • edited March 2013
    What I'm currently doing varies by account:

    401K:

    -new money is going into PIFZX. As I'm looking to retire within 2 years, this falls within "bucket 1" within that concept. The equity funds in the 401K get a 20% haircut when they hit a pre-defined amount, with the trimmings going to PIFZX.

    IRA Rollover:

    -equities get the same 20% haircut at pre-defined levels, but the trimmings here are now going to fixed income....which is now a difficult decision. Currently it's MAINX.
    -the divi's from the current fixed income funds are not automatically reinvested, but are collected and invested monthly. Currently these are going into SUBFX.

    Pre-tax:

    -I have a handful of individual equity divi-payors...these get automatically re-invested into the same equities
    -equity mutual funds get the same 20% haircut as I described previously into bucket #1 holdings....the trimmings now go into either a muni, or PAUDX (it seemed like a good idea at the time)

    So...this was a long winded answer to your question. In a 57/33/10 mix in retirement accounts, I'm really not doing too much differently simply because of where the market currently resides relative to a 5 year high. I am just filling my buckets....I currently have 3 years of bucket 1 funding.

    I am not smart enough to figure out if it will be up or down a year from now, so I figure a reasonably well distributed portfolio with some prudent re-allocation fits the bill for me.
  • I'm in a holding pattern since selling down about 8% equities in February. I think I'm around 40% equity right now, but that percent may be even a bit lower with funds like FPACX, ARIVX and YAFFX holding a good amount of cash.

    When we get a correction I'll start to put it back in.
  • Took profits in a couple of positions. Now not buying or selling. Sitting on 25% cash. What goes up, must come down.
  • I'm about 50/50 right now, waiting for pullbacks to add, since I shaved some profits in a few stocks, and Im 16% cash. I can wait. The funds I will be adding to will be SMGIX, FBTIX, PHSZX, WAGTX, along with a few stocks that I already own that I want to increase positions in. Im just glad I don't have to be searching for yield in bonds right now, since I own the bonds, instead of funds, so rates are fixed. It's a jungle out there as people seem to adding risk to obtain yield.
  • edited March 2013
    Eliminated 2 funds (RWGFX, JATTX), sold down ARIVX down to token. With the funds raised, I have increased allocation to my existing funds GLRBX, YAFFX, AKREX, ARTKX, ARTHX, FMIJX, GPGOX, GPIOX. and finally added SFGIX.

    SFGIX now looks more reasonable after expense ratio reduction and the past time established that portfolio manager Andrew Foster can operate well solo without the Matthews Research team.

    Right now, I'm about 68% Equity. Despite all that I've done above, it did not change my overall equity allocation (may be plus/minus 1-2%) but slightly increased allocation to my top 4 and international funds I hold.

    My top 4 funds remain:

    GLRBX 9.52%
    YAFFX 8.91%
    PONDX 8.72%
    AKREX 8.67%

    35.82% of the portfolio.
  • Reply to @Investor:

    >Right now, I'm about 68% Equity.

    So is the other 32% cash.

    Also when folks say

    e.g.

    GLRBX 9.52%

    is that 9.52% of investments (including money markets and cash) or 9.52% of combined mutual funds and stocks (not including cash or money markets).

    The reason I ask is the % here and in Art's poll don't really say % of what? And I wonder if everyone is posting % based on the same factor.
  • edited March 2013
    Reply to @Accipiter:

    32% is bonds, cash and other. Cash and other are really small.

    The percentages are the percent allocation in my total retirement portfolio (multiple accounts, includes spouse funds) and yes 100% includes cash.

    The percentages are calculated the same way. They are different as I said I sold other funds and bought into these funds so that increased the percentages since Art's poll. I was busy recently with this repositioning.
  • Reply to @Investor:

    thx for clarification
  • edited March 2013
    Reply to @Accipiter: Hi there... your point is really well taken, as for example I reported our highest four mutual fund positions as approximately 16/16/16/10%, but our entire mutual fund position is actually 36% equities and 18% bonds, with a remaining cash position of about 45%. As I recall, he asked for the three highest fund positions, so that's what I tried to supply, ignoring the cash position entirely

    In the past I tried a couple of times posting somewhat similiar to Catch 22, but I quickly realized that almost all of us have a different method of categorizing our assets. For instance, my calculated return so far this year on our "investments" is 4.7%, but that calculation would actually be only 1.9% if we look at the entire asset base, including cash. I keep track of both figures because of that difference.

    A professional would surely give me a whole bunch of reasons why my perspective is flawed, but it works well for us, so that's why I do it that way. Makes it impossible to compare our return to the nest guy, though, so why bother?



    .
  • Reply to @Old_Joe: You should really calculate your entire portfolio for the same purpose (for example Retirement) as a single portfolio.
  • Reply to @Old_Joe: Hi old budy. If the crash happen tomorrow/and goes down the next 6 months to new lows like in 2008s, you'll be laughin at us out loud...lol
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