I put a stop loss of $265 on VTI for 25% of my portfolio. Then I hope to reinvest it in PHYS (gold) and VDC (consumer staples with some dividends).
I have a stop loss on the rest of my portfolio on its cost basis (about a 21% drop). If that happens I’d probably wait for the low via 50 day EMA crossing then buy QQQ or something high gain.
If you zoom out, bonds perform very well for their level of risk. It’s only recently that rates have been so bad - additionally, bonds are more than just federal government bonds. There are international, municipal, and corporate bonds as well that should be a part of anyone’s bond portfolio. Afaik, the consensus is that bonds will begin to perform better relative to inflation and the stock market than they have over the past 20 years or so. Even though yields haven’t been stellar recently, bonds are an important hedge. For instance, the market is down ~2% over the past 6mos. During that time, my bonds earned around 2%.
My high yield/money market cash is earning ~4.15% interest per annum. So it is also performing favorably. It’s a good time to have a bit more cash in the portfolio. CD rates are comparable to HYS right now but with less liquidity. That may change, but it has been the case for a while.
So, while I’m not selling stocks regardless of short term performance, the beginning of a market downturn is a good time to shift investing focus to hedges like bonds and foreign stock. I haven’t fully stopped DCAing into US stock, but slowing down until we’re closer to the bottom. I shouldn’t try to time the market, but I am extremely bearish due to current US economic policy and a reasonably high risk of stagflation - so there is a bottom and we’re nowhere near it yet.
I mean you’ve certainly thought it through. It’s just that international bonds and stocks can not be expected to perform well under a US downturn, because the US basically props up the entire world economy, being the home of most international companies and the world reserve currency and the most in debt country on earth. When the US crashes, usually the rest of the world crashes even harder. Idk bonds don’t interest me at all nor do foreign stocks. 20 years is a long time to wait and I see no reason in the future to believe that bonds will go up, every reason to see them collapse further: regime change, debt default, etc. In this case zooming out is an example of historicist bias. The future is not like the past.
Where did you get a 4% money market? But again, inflation has been over 4% during Covid and ~3% since. Under Trump it could get worse if the USA falls out of world reserve currency status.