This time is different poll

[Lordosis]

I have read some people have abandoned their IPS. At what point would you call it and jump ship?

I am not talking about if you went completely to cash or if you alter a small play fund. Basically are you following your plan or have the recent events caused you to make your portfolio more conservative?

[Peds]

confused.
you ask if jumped ship....then say not talking about going to cash....which is jumping ship.

[childay]

Autopilot, but paying attention. 2008 everyone also said was different. Not that I had any money then but was also paying attention. More well seasoned folks no doubt recall previous events

[CordMcNally]

Autopilot. I'm tuned in but I typically follow the markets anyway.

[Lordosis]

confused.
you ask if jumped ship....then say not talking about going to cash....which is jumping ship.

Trying to capture any deviation to your plan based on market conditions.

[Anne]

Perhaps the people who would vote for all the other choices don’t want to get jumped on by everyone else here by admitting they are jumpy.

[jacoavlu]

I didn’t choose autopilot because I’m certainly paying attention. I have cash as planning to pay off a mortgage in 1.5 yrs but if a big drop happened over the next year my cash will probably go in the market

[Outdoors]

This is a funny question to me. I'm 100% equities sitting here contemplating if I should use some of my emergency fund cash to buy more stocks now that they're on sale. Then again, I'm in my 20s so I have a very long time horizon to invest. (And no I probably won't use my E fund to buy extra, I'll just continue automatic retirement contributions to 100% equities as before.)

[jacoavlu]

stocks aren’t on sale yet. There have been significant stretches since 1/2018 where things were still cheaper than they are now. We’ve basically only jumped backwards 6 months.

If you had an E fund then you should still have an E fund now

[WCInovice]

*holds head down in shame*

I had lump summed a big VTSAX purchase in December. Sold it and took losses (and some gains on prior purchases) when I sensed things getting dicey a few weeks ago. I probably sold around 1/4 of all my equities

Im not a market timing guy (or at least never was before) and I keep it simple with 80/20 stocks/bonds. I’ve never market timed and didn’t panic sell in early 2018 or 2008 (though I had less money in 2008).

I read a lot about this virus and fancy myself a math person. I really like Nassim Taleb. Ironically, what pushed me over the edge to deviate from my plan was all these financial advisor emails comparing Covid-19 to the flu. This isn’t the flu. I really felt “it’s different this time.”

So my plan (I think) is to re-enter slowly over the next few months. The selling was the easy part I’m finding. I bought back in some yesterday but I’m not all the way back in yet.

[Tim]

Autopilot, but what?
I think everyone here is paying attention. That does not mean you change anything or lack emotions.
I would like to point out that many here that hope for a drop are actually market timers. Really.
The "hope" is a drop now means later you will buy cheaper and reap benefits later as well. That is "timing", or at least "hoping".

[nephron]

I am still allowing my automatic contributions to my newly established taxable account to go through. I sometimes wonder if it wouldn't work better if I did it manually though as it looks like I just purchased some more vtsax today right after we just had this run up. There should be some way to set it just to dollar cost average invest on days that the market is down X%. The problem with these corrections/recessions is that by the time that you realize you are in a correction/recession, it's probably too late to do anything about it. I still think that more people should have realized the effects that this coronavirus was going to have on our economy and the global economy back in December. I think that people were just too happy with the high returns that we had last year to notice. I think that I thought that it might just be like a brief SARS/MERS blip, and saw what it was doing in China but for some reason didn't think that it would do the same thing here. I am still 95% in stocks, but imagine that small bond holdings may continue to increase as the stock market contracts. I don't mind a temporary correction/recession, I am more concerned about developing another lost decade or longer. Definitely would affect early retirement plans. Would have to recalculate retirement projections with a 0% growth in investments, that would be painful.

[jacoavlu]

^^^ you could use limit orders

but I’m sure you realize only investing on down days would be silly

[Tim]

nephron
Your concerns you have only glimpsed for the accumulation phase. Now think through the concerns for transition and the the final phase. This might stretch for 60 years. (30 work, 30 retired). Might want to use this to rethink your AA . That 10 year stretch is unpredictable and dangerous.
Question for you. Have you considered not zero, but negative? Just curious.

[East Tennessee MD]

I will stick to my IPS as this is exactly what I wrote it for. As new money becomes available throughout the year, I will purchase equities to work back toward 70/30. When the market recovers and my portfolio gets equity heavy, back to bonds I will go with new money. So it goes and has gone for 25 years.