FLAGATOR,FLAGATOR wrote: Thank you for all your responses so far. I really appreciate them.
For those who recommended gradually investing in the PP over the next year or two or three, would you suggest I book my losses now, and then ease back in?
I am already fully invested.
Moreover, I am already semi retired so to speak, so in all likelihood, I am not going to be adding any more funds in the portfolio in the foreseeable future. This makes it a bit more challenging I believe.
Again, thank you very much for your input.
Welcome to the forum. There are others on here who are also retired and fully invested in the PP (I'll be there in a few short years myself) . The question of whether or not to "book your losses" depends on a lot of factors. You might want to lock in some losses for tax purposes if you have corresponding gains. I would recommend to think in terms of tax efficiency when pondering any moves. Try to think long term on the withdrawal strategy. If you are pulling cash from a few different accounts (or even just one), the other assets will have time to recover.
You are holding three really volatile assets and there are bound to be times when two or three will move down together even though in general they tend not to.
Have a look at the PP data on peaktotrough.com. You can plug in a starting date (go back 10 or 20 years). Set the "Result View" to monthly and then hit "Calculate Returns". You'll see that there are plenty of times that the portfolio is down for two or three months and then comes back with positive returns. I just went back to 1/1/1990 and found only two periods with four losing months in a row.
Are we in a new era? I don't know but there is a good track record and a lot of thought behind this asset mix.
Also, don't forget that depending on how you have your stocks and bonds invested, you may have some "phantom" dividend or interest gains that have not yet posted.
Finally, focus on real returns. If you haven't look at Tyler's real return charts (recently re-posted and re-formatted), or can't find them for some reason, someone will point you in the right direction. We are in a low nominal return environment but the real returns should still be positive on a rolling basis... at least that is what we are all hoping for!
Good luck.