I don’t have a 401K but rather a 402B (or so I think). I never sold during the dot com bubble and, stupid me, I never sold in the more recent crisis despite receiving warnings in this very forum. So I was stupid but not doubly stupid. 90% of my account is in a single fund: Oppenheimer Emerging Markets (odmax) which is up 74% year to date and 82% going a full year back. It’s nothing to crow about though since I am still about 20% off being back to even. On the other hand I never dreamed in March that six months later I’d be singing to my wife this little ditty every morning: “bUBBLE days are here again”. Nothing like feeling ruined to depress me or feeling flush to cheer me up. The whole thing is unnerving being constantly on this see-saw rocking between greed and fear (I’m in greed mode right now which might be a good sign for everyone else to exit equities).
I am not moving that money soon unless I sense a another collapse and hope I have the sense to act rather than just stew in my own fear and ignorance. Aside from those retirement funds we have a small cash pile sitting in CDs making nothing and have been thinking of alternative investments that won’t further expose me to equities. Fixed income, bonds, etc are all new to me. Here are some of my ideas
1. An ETF that invests in foreign currencies money markets. Supposedly you can make money both on the enhanced interest of foreign money markets and on the possible further decline of KING Dollar as Kudlo calls it. Wisdom tree offers these ETFs for the yuan, brazilian real, euro, indian rupee, S.A. rand, yen and more. Of course if the dollar strengthens (in another crisis) I could be screwed.
2. ETFs investing in foreign government bonds / corporations or even us junk bonds.
If one wanted to buy a corporate bond (say for CAT) how would one go about doing that?
