I just made a big long post on this that got lost in cyber-space, so here’s the short version:
1. About 50 mostly high-dividend stocks*.
Spread across the world, industries, company sizes… Examples: Israel high-tech, Chile pension fund mgmt, Russia mining, Aussie pearls, Singapore stocbroker, Finnish paper, UK water, China oil, China coal power, China utility, UK tobacco… Because they dominate high-div stocks, I have a lot of banks, but I tried to spread the bank risk across different countries, bank sizes, and I avoided high residential mortgage banks (except for National City – I missed their big res mortg sub in the disclosures). In the US, I have low-leverage medical REIT, infrastructure, venture capital, theme parks…
2. Two Vanguard index funds – the most diversified domestic and foreign ones.
3. Cash for the purchase of a home some time in the next 5 years
4. 401k’s mostly in cash
I bought Yen/dollar futures in June, but am out now. I am considering yen/euro futures, but don’t feel they’re fully ripe yet. The Euro is sharply overvalued on a consumer buying power basis, and the yen is slightly under. I see the dollar as too fragile to bet on against the Euro, but I think the yen is resilient.
*I’m unhappy only 1/4 of the time that way, when the stocks go down AND the dividend goes down.
