Stock market rally and recent events

[MillCreek]

My IRA has done very well over the past few days.  I am wondering if this is the market pricing in an upcoming interest rate cut by the Feds in September, the re-election of Mr. Trump due to the assassination attempt, or both.  My brother and sister in law work in finance, and they both predict that a Trump election will benefit the markets. I have read similar opinion pieces recently.

[Ben]

Maybe a rally, but it's hard to say. The market has gone ridiculously high without a significant correction. If that balloon gets any bigger after Trump is in, I fear the crash then is going to be one of our bigger ones. Possibly big enough that I'm too old to recover from it given my current allocations. Depending on how things go the remainder of this year, I'm seriously thinking of going ultra-conservative in allocation. The worst that would happen if I did is the cost of lost opportunity.

Also, one of the things that bugs me about Trump is his irrational call for near zero interest rates. I'm loving the interest I'm making right now on my safe investments, like high yield savings and my settlement funds. Certainly it's underperforming the market, but it's safe income for an old guy.

I'd love to see a couple of 10% corrections this year, just to reduce pressure if there are rallies after Trump is in. I'd also love to see only small downward corrections in interest. I actually like where it is now, but if it stabilized around 3%, that would be okay with me.

[MillCreek]

Some time ago, I picked my IRA asset allocation of 60/40 (VBIAX) with the expectation that I would stay the course, as the Bogleheads like to say.  My investment portfolio is 100 % S&P 500 (VFIAX) and I have a couple hundred thousand in HYSA.  I know the HYSA cannot be at their current rates forever, but I am counting on them to tide me over any significant sequence of returns risk timeframe.

[Ben]

Some time ago, I picked my IRA asset allocation of 60/40 (VBIAX) with the expectation that I would stay the course, as the Bogleheads like to say.  My investment portfolio is 100 % S&P 500 (VFIAX) and I have a couple hundred thousand in HYSA.  I know the HYSA cannot be at their current rates forever, but I am counting on them to tide me over any significant sequence of returns risk timeframe.

Most of my stuff is around the old 60/40, but as I get older, sometimes I don't believe the statistics about that allocation. 

[MillCreek]

Most of my stuff is around the old 60/40, but as I get older, sometimes I don't believe the statistics about that allocation. 

As I follow these discussions on asset allocations on Reddit and the Bogleheads forum, I am struck that the majority of people recommending 100% equities until you die have some common factors.  They are generally young, have lived through few or no market crashes or corrections, think that tech stocks will always increase, assume that 10% plus market returns will continue indefinitely and that anyone who holds any bonds, based on recent bond performance, is behind the times.  They suffer from recency bias and that past performance is no guarantee of future results.

I am no doubt not as smart as they and don't believe that most fund managers or individuals picking stocks consistently outperform the market long term.  This is why I hedge my bets by buying index funds that represent the whole market.  Hopefully I don't end up in a refrigerator box on the street.

[K Frame]

I've got an initial call with a financial advisor tomorrow.

I'm sure that recent events will factor into the conversation.