I sold all my stocks and bonds today.

[Pablo]

My summary:

Sell everything if you can't sleep at night. OTOH, you can't afford to NOT be in the market. Inflation alone makes that clear.

Market driven by: interest rates, fear of being at some kind of high, then FOMO. For me - I remain medium cash rich at around 30%, but in JAAA, SGOV, PAAA. GSST, OBIL and TBIL rather than money markets, and just enough in FZDXX. I Hold VGLT and sell covered calls when premia are juicy. I SWAN. I don't hold a lot of individual stocks, but some tech funds, wide market funds, covered call funds and such. The individual things I hold are BDCs, BDC funds and oddball stuff. Plus I have a butt-ton of BACPRB (over 20,000 shares)

You do what you have to do. Today alone I'm up over $1000 since 6:30AM Pacific Now: +$1,230.17

 

[bovine1]

What do yall think about REIT's. I like to buy them at PB ratios of .6 to .7 ish. I've been nibbling at ACRE, ARR, and MFA. TIA. Is BACPRB Bank of America preferred B?

 

[JeffKeryk]

I sold most of my portfolio this morning and am at a year to date realized loss of $2.55.

Wow. The S&P is up something like 25% YTD. Of course tech is a major contributer.

 

[Vil_Riker]

Wow. The S&P is up something like 25% YTD. Of course tech is a major contributer.

View attachment 256436

Yeah, tech is the way to go. Everything else is mostly shyte.

 

[Astro14]

I sold most of my portfolio this morning and am at a year to date realized loss of $2.55.

What have you been doing with your portfolio???

The S&P is up over 25% this year. You’ve lost money?

You don’t have enough to retire in the US (from another thread) and here you are, timing the market, picking stocks, and you are grossly underperforming those who have just left everything in an index fund.

There is a huge lesson here.

Whatever you are doing IS NOT working.

The OP went to cash for personal reasons, but you went cash, because?

 

[JeffKeryk]

As @Astro14 says, there is a huge lesson here. IMO, the last years have been so good overall that some think they can time the market.
History shows otherwise.

It is not about short term gains; it is about what you have when you need it. For me, that means long term. It also means diversification.
I say let the market, and your money, work for you. Good luck.

 

[wwillson]

As @Astro14 says, there is a huge lesson here. IMO, the last years have been so good overall that some think they can time the market.
History shows otherwise.

The only time I've ever tried to time the market is when the market was tanking during covid. My belief was that the market would go back up given enough time. I dumped a bunch of cash into the market as it tanked, dollar cost averaging on the way down. The market went back up, way up. To me this was such a no-brainer that I didn't even consider it market timing, something more like foolish exuberance harvesting.

I don't market time, period. You cannot outguess the market. I put my money where my mouth is. I just put more money into the market today in the form of a backdoor Roth from my 401k. I could have put the money into money market to time the slowdown that many think is coming, but nobody knows. Holding back money from the market is foolish, just put it in and let it grow over time. Who cares what it does over the next year. It doesn't matter, because I won't withdraw any of it for at least 15 years. Time is on my side. Now if I were older, I may have put the money into bonds instead of equities, but you can bet it would be invested.

 

[SC Maintenance]

Lots of anecdotes. Good to see Wall Streets marketing firms are earning there pay.

Everyone needs to decide there risk tolerance and time horizon.

Some food for thought. Not any kind of advice, just cliff claven knowledge.

Not accounting for inflation:

• Crash of 2008 Took 5 years to recover on the S&P
• Crash of 2000 took 6 years to recover on the S&P, and took the nasdaq 15 years.
• Crash of 1929 took 25 years.

If you count inflation from 1966 - the market was overall flat until 1992 (per Jim Bianco research recently). This of course is why the Vanguard hockey stick looks so appealing - its a nominal number.

If you had happened to buy the 10 year treasury just before the fed started cutting rates in August you have likely lost about 8% off the value of their bond if they sold today - in just 4 months. Yet people often consider bonds "safe"

Current CPI is 2.7%. 4 week T-bills pay 4.33% or about 1.6% above inflation.

Full disclosure - I am fully invested in equities currently. Not investment advice.

 

[wwillson]

Lots of anecdotes. Good to see Wall Streets marketing firms are earning there pay.

Everyone needs to decide there risk tolerance and time horizon.

Some food for thought. Not any kind of advice, just cliff claven knowledge.

Not accounting for inflation:

• Crash of 2008 Took 5 years to recover on the S&P
• Crash of 2000 took 6 years to recover on the S&P, and took the nasdaq 15 years.
• Crash of 1929 took 25 years.

If you count inflation from 1966 - the market was overall flat until 1992 (per Jim Bianco research recently). This of course is why the Vanguard hockey stick looks so appealing - its a nominal number.

If you had happened to buy the 10 year treasury just before the fed started cutting rates in August you have likely lost about 8% off the value of their bond if they sold today - in just 4 months. Yet people often consider bonds "safe"

Current CPI is 2.7%. 4 week T-bills pay 4.33% or about 1.6% above inflation.

Full disclosure - I am fully invested in equities currently. Not investment advice.

While what you say is true, so is the fact that the S&P 500 is up 400% from Jan 1, 2000 to now and there are been 4 major market declines. Nobody could have timed those declines by selling on top. Like Warren Buffett says, "It's not about timing the market, it's about time in the market".

I was in the market during every one of those declines and I kept putting money in the market. The money I put in during the bad times grew like crazy when the market went back up. It helps balance the return of the money that declined in value. The rate of return on my money in the S&P 500 is about 8% over those 24 years. But had I jumped out and in trying to time the market, my rate of return could be almost nothing or even negative and it's almost guaranteed that it would have been < 8%.

Another great Warren Buffett quote: "The stock market is a device which transfers money from the impatient to the patient.”

Get in and stay in.

 

[Sam_Julier]

I am retired, was self employed most of my career, and depend on my IRA for a good chunk of my retirement income. My IRA is self managed.

I have been investing for over 50 years, and have been through multiple market booms and busts. Nothing as frustrating as seeing all your gains go down the drain in a market bust. I believe in buying low and selling high. Most amateur retail investors do the opposite. They want to jump on the bandwagon of stocks flying upward, then they panic and sell low after the market crashes. And then they are so scared that they don't reinvest when prices are low.

The question i always ask myself in making investment decisions is, 'What is more likely, the market going up 10% from where it now is, or going down 10% from where it now is?

I was lucky to make some nice gains in 2024, but right now the market to me looks like Wiley Coyote discovering he is off the end of the cliff. I don't want to give all my gains back as the market slides. As it appears to be doing.

So I sold all my stocks and bonds today. Looking to be a vulture when the market drops early next year. As I think it will.

Good luck!

 

[Jerrysends]

Yeah, tech is the way to go. Everything else is mostly shyte.

Until the rest of the market gets hot & tech lags. Keeping diversified is super important.

 

[JeffKeryk]

Until the rest of the market gets hot & tech lags. Keeping diversified is super important.

Tech is a roller coaster. In my case, I manage my tech investments (from my working days options) and a few others, and Schwab manages the rest. We tend to argue about the portfolio weighting... Ha!

 

[Jerrysends]

Lots of anecdotes. Good to see Wall Streets marketing firms are earning there pay.

Everyone needs to decide there risk tolerance and time horizon.

Some food for thought. Not any kind of advice, just cliff claven knowledge.

Not accounting for inflation:

• Crash of 2008 Took 5 years to recover on the S&P
• Crash of 2000 took 6 years to recover on the S&P, and took the nasdaq 15 years.
• Crash of 1929 took 25 years.

If you count inflation from 1966 - the market was overall flat until 1992 (per Jim Bianco research recently). This of course is why the Vanguard hockey stick looks so appealing - its a nominal number.

If you had happened to buy the 10 year treasury just before the fed started cutting rates in August you have likely lost about 8% off the value of their bond if they sold today - in just 4 months. Yet people often consider bonds "safe"

Current CPI is 2.7%. 4 week T-bills pay 4.33% or about 1.6% above inflation.

Full disclosure - I am fully invested in equities currently. Not investment advice.

In today's world, corporate greed is an unstoppable force with regard to inflation & investing. The stock market is the easiest way to get piece of this.

 

[Vil_Riker]

The OP went to cash for personal reasons, but you went cash, because?

Tax management.

 

[SC Maintenance]

While what you say is true, so is the fact that the S&P 500 is up 400% from Jan 1, 2000 to now and there are been 4 major market declines. Nobody could have timed those declines by selling on top. Like Warren Buffett says, "It's not about timing the market, it's about time in the market".

I was in the market during every one of those declines and I kept putting money in the market. The money I put in during the bad times grew like crazy when the market went back up. It helps balance the return of the money that declined in value. The rate of return on my money in the S&P 500 is about 8% over those 24 years. But had I jumped out and in trying to time the market, my rate of return could be almost nothing or even negative and it's almost guaranteed that it would have been < 8%.

Another great Warren Buffett quote: "The stock market is a device which transfers money from the impatient to the patient.”

Get in and stay in.

I never said anything about timing the market - I said "everyone needs to decide on their own risk tolerance and time horizon".

Your quote on a 400% gain in 24 years is in nominal terms. In terms of inflation its a little over doubled. That is still really good, but it came with a lot of volatility, and over half came in the last 5 years. So again, time horizon matters.

As for quoting Buffett, Berkshire has more cash on their balance sheet than any time in their history? Does he have a saying for that?

I truly hope there is no market decline mainly because I am fully invested. But I have decades before I will spend any of it, so that might be different for others.

 

[k1xv]

Well, this is the first trading day after I sold all the stocks and bonds in my IRA, GOING TO ALL CASH. Today I put the cash in a short term US Treasury Bill account, so it is earning a little over 4%, with no long term commitment, before I decide its time to get back into the market.

Today the DJIA, S&p 500 and NASDAQ are all down about 0.75% as the markets continue to slide, so that is a paper loss I avoided today.

 

[Astro14]

Tax management.

You avoided answering the rest of my post.

You’ve been chasing returns, make frequent posts about what you bought, and what you sold, including your losses, in the investors thread.

Then, you started an entire thread about how you don’t have enough money to retire.

You don’t see the correlation between those two?

Between the strategy that you have chosen, and the net result?

 

[gfh77665]

My summary:

Sell everything if you can't sleep at night. OTOH, you can't afford to NOT be in the market. Inflation alone makes that clear.

DING! Winner!

 

[wwillson]

But I have decades before I will spend any of it, so that might be different for others.

That's the key for you. It literally doesn't matter what the market does today, this month, or next year.

 

[wwillson]

As for quoting Buffett, Berkshire has more cash on their balance sheet than any time in their history? Does he have a saying for that?

Yeah, I think it's something like, "We've made a killing and we're going to sit on T-Bills until impatient investors exuberantly dumb their stocks in a down market, then we'll buy equities and again be patient." Something like that.