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system
allocating ira money, clarification needed
user
you're saying that you're thinking of keeping 35% in cash? if you expect the market to plummet in the next few months and then head up again, this would be a smart strategy. hold on to a bunch of cash, then when the market hits bottom buy, then as it goes back up collect your profits. in practice, the long-term trend of the market has been up for as long as there has been a stock market. bear markets tend to be relatively short, usually just a few months or at most a year or two before the market gets back to where it was. if you are smart enough to predict when there will be a decline and how long it will last, you're smarter than 99% of the professionals, never mind the amateurs. personally, i keep only trivial amounts of cash. let's see, right now about 2% of my assets. if you're more active in managing your retirement accounts -- if you really watch the market on a monthly basis or more frequently and adjust your assets according -- it would make sense to keep a larger cash reserve and use it when the market goes down. but for the average person, i think it would be a big mistake to keep anywhere near 35% of your assets in cash. in the long run, you'll probably lose out on a lot of potential growth.
assistant