I suppose that is a good argument to have bonds in your portfolio. I just looked at the four bonds I can choose from in my 401k and the yields are really bad, 1.61%, 0.3, 0.38 and -.73 for the last year. Hopefully closer to retirement the yields will be better but they seem to be uninvestable for now.

I did do some work anaylyzing the last numbers from the 2007 to 2013 US crash to figure out if it made sense to time the market and the change in performance by timing and missing by x years and for long term holders, it didn’t make sense. Better to ride out the crash in most cases. I suppose in a 401k or IRA where you can go in and out without penalty it might make more sense to switch between stocks and bonds.

I should really not be lazy and quote the text, this was in response to the Japan market perfromance one entry above