Bigworld, Yes, the debt bomb is entering the later innings, but I figure the finance magicians can likely hold things together for a number of years. I figure the US debt hitting 40 trillion could be a key turning point, and then sometime prior to it reaching 50 trillion the debt / dollar crisis will arrive. But just a guess.
Fwiw, I used this morning's bounce to reduce the stock allocation a little more, down to 12.5%. So that should do it (hopefully). I sold off the liquid S+P 500 index portion, and kept the individual stocks and sector ETFs. 200 plus individual stocks are too cumbersome to sell, so the idea is to keep them (12.5%) as long term buy / hold. Anyway, that was the original plan, so I'll try to stick to it. I figure the cash proceeds will earn ~5% with no risk, and can be re-deployed later. Buying a 1X short ETF (SH) to hedge the remaining stock exposure is an option at some point, but I figure that earning 5% in cash is good enough. The permanent 12.5% in stocks will benefit as the stock market eventually recovers. Anyway, I figure it's best to have all bases covered, and never go to zero in any asset class.
Anyway, still a work in progress, but it turned out that 28% in stocks was clearly too high for an aging nervous nellie like me. Buffett and Bogle both said that the key is finding the right allocation you can live with (without insomnia or daily Tagamet). I thought the old rule of subtracting your age from 100 might work, but 31% in stocks is clearly too high on the 'Tagamet scale'.
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