I am leaving asset allocation in our IRAs and 401Ks alone, however

[question everything]

I changed the asset allocation of future contribution: 80% to Money Market Funds and Government bonds, the other 20% to (still) large and medium cap stocks.

It is easy for Suzy Orman and others to berate us for getting close to retirement and to be in stocks, however had I changed everything last year, we would probably still be where we are now. At least, the higher we went, there is more room to fall (I think).

Last summer I changed our asset allocation to 60-70% stocks and even fretted about it when stocks continued to rise while the bonds did nothing.

The only thing left is to keep my fingers crossed.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. It depends on your timeline

we have time... twenty or so years

So I am even looking at taking some "spare" and actually buying some actual undervalued stock and just letting it seat there...

So it really depends on your horizon

My parents are retired... so for them this is not funny

[HereSince1628]

2. Hindsight is twenty-twenty and twittering old cliches are free

This _is_ where having cash is good and since last winter we were roughly 40% cash. Didn't make much money, but it gives us a chance to have something to lose in the next go-round.

[scruffy]

3. If I could make a suggestion . ..

Future contributions I would put in equities, since you'll be dollar-cost averaging and probably making purchases at some pretty low prices. You get no advantage from DCA if the money is going into money market or govt bond funds.

[question everything]

6. I have been doing this the first half of the year with an IRA account.

I kept sending money because I thought I was getting shares cheap, and they continued to drop and finally decided not to send any more to a losing fund (that used to be a star until this year: Dodge and Cox Stock).

We are too close to retirement and I don't know if the market will rebound on time.

[scruffy]

7. I know - I'm getting close to retirement myself.

Except even when you retire, you probably won't be taking ALL the money from either your IRA or 401(k) out in the first year . . . most likely it will be smallish amounts spread over the rest of your lifetime. So you still need to have whatever is in there continue to grow, and the more shares you have, the better the opportunity. (I know I don't know enough about you to say this is absolutely what you would do, but it is how most people I've seen treat their qualified accounts.)

I've been putting the same amount monthly into my 401(k) and another smaller account all year and even though I've certainly had losses, they are at a lower level than the rest of the market, mainly because of the dollar cost averaging. I'm sure counting on all these cheap shares to be worth a lot more when I really need them!

[ozone_man]

4. I'm all in the money market now.

I switched about a year ago to 100% into Pimco global bond fund. That was good for about a year, but started going down a few months ago, so I switched to 100% into money market.

I figure that when the Dow gets to 4,000 to 6,000 range, I'll start switching back. It could take a while, maybe two to six years. There will be many false bottoms between now and then. Determining the true bottom is the trick.

I should say that this is a 401K plan, with few options to escape the bear market, i.e., no short funds. :)

[sendero]

5. The next few years.....

....worrying about return OF capital will make a lot more sense than worrying about return ON capital.

Why anyone would want to be in stocks right now is beyond me.