I hope someone smarter than me has a more useful answer.

These are trying times.

Making 4% isn’t great, but it beats losing 20%.

I have a fair chunk of stocks, and I am well aware that they could drop 5% in one day.

And good afternoon.

We are in Germany so there are some options that aren't available. (no European mutual fund purchases.)
We just bought a flat to help with diversification.
Most of our money was in IRA accounts so when we pulled the money out for the equity we got taxed.
We have kept our old credit union because it is nice to have a US bank.
I think our stock/bond ratio is near 50/50.
Trump's work devaluing the dollar cost us 10% in the exchange rate. MAGA.
German bonds are around 2+%, so not much income there but should be fairly stable.
Who knows what will happen with Social Security under this 'leadership"

Anyway it is a mess.

There are millions in the US who saved like we were expected to and now along comes the GOP to upset the apple cart.

I've done some back testing.... Bonds just aren;t as safe as they are cracked up to me.

Maybe stable funds? Even cash in an HYSA.

Feels like nowhere is safe.

I assume you're already retired?

Trying to find what might be a relatively safe haven for retirement funds.
We have just bought a flat in Germany. So that is some diversification. We can pay down the existing note on a yearly basis.
Right now we have mostly IRA accounts. Drawing them down means a sizable tax hit. (German taxes are higher than in the US)
So there are limits to what and when we can do stuff.

Quite a puzzle. Who expected the orange fool to work to destroy the economy of the world?

is paying me over four percent interest, still. My stocks, on the other hand have gone sideways, the dividends I get are about equal to how much the stock goes down! I agree with you about gold nearing a peak. I haven't seen this much precious metals hype in 45 years, the time when silver went bust.

I know gold is a safe investment held by many. But what happens in a very dire emergency when all the gold buyers can't operate or purchase a person's gold? Seems to me a glitch in its investment value.

I guess there are 2 ways to hold gold.
One like stock in gold and the actual metal is held by a company. If the system blows up how do you get your gold? I don't know.

The other is to actually have the gold in your possession. That also entails risk. Keep it in a safe at home? Keep it in a bank safe deposit box. Fees for storage. Then how to hold it. If you need it for something. Hard to buy groceries with a kilogram block.
I know I can get 1 gram bits here in Europe.

Most bond funds have some portion in Treasuries or TIPS. I searched for a global corporate fund with small or no exposure to US Treasuries, and the pickins are slim, though I did find one or two in the fund companies I searched. Surely there are more. There's also the issue of is the fund currency hedged, that is do its holding fluctuate with foreign currencies.

I'd even go for US Corporates, light on Treasuries.

Unless gold is buried in the basement you can't get at it anyway, and historically, gold ends up in the same place it was with inflation.

I"m entirely in a tech ETF up 30% in 12 months, up 120% in 5 years, up 1300% in 20 years, compounded it ends up doing ok. Risking money is only money. No one is going to shoot me. Sometimes it drops a lot, so what.

If it drops you could lose income and not have time to recoup the losses.

In 24 my equities lost 30%. Today I'm up past that. It's just numbers.

And has been for the last 25 years or so. And what little amount I had in the market has grown like crazy. Through some smart moves, I've managed to turn 25k into 900k.

etc. , not just equity mutual funds. Some people equate mutual funds with equity mutual funds, and that's not true.

This isn't meant for you Bif, as obviously you know that given your rate of return over multiple decades,

but there is a LOT of confusion out in DU-land, unfortunately. It's frightening what I've been reading in the last few days.

Another one I see a lot here on DU is equating the term "401k" with stocks (aka equities). AFAIK it is exceedingly rare when a 401k is stock funds and stocks only. Almost all offer other than stock stuff, such as fixed income alternatives like bond and money market mutual funds and FDIC-insured CDs .

Another one -- someone has been bragging about "withdrawing everything from" their 401k, because they "don't want to be the last one left holding the bag". I've implored them to realize if it's a traditional 401k, they are going to pay taxes on their withdrawal and help out Krasnov, as if paying tariffs (taxes on imports) isn't enough of a windfall for Krasnov. And one can avoid the withdrawal and taxes by shifting to safer alternatives to stock funds WITHIN the 401k.

With Roth 401k's, if one withdraws everything from that, there's no tax, but one has eliminated a completely tax-free account (tax-free accumulation, tax-free withdrawals, tax-free period). One does not throw something like that away without the utmost consideration.

If one has a 401k with too-limited choices of safer alternatives, the thing to do is explore rolling it into an IRA, which will generally be tax-free if done properly. Ones from Vanguard, Fidelity, Schwab, etc. and etc. have a huge number and kinds of choices.

Another one talks about having come into a substantial amount of new money and "putting it back in their IRA". Well, you don't just put money back into an IRA. Once it's been withdrawn, it's been withdrawn. Putting money into an IRA from a regular taxable account is limited in amount (annually the limit is something like $7000 + $1000 "catchup" for over age 55 or 59 or whatever it is) and one must have earned income (from wages/salaries or self-employment) of at least that amount. Otherwise, one pays an excess contribution penalty.

and a sharp move up in markets yesterday, I hedged into that move. Speculative AI in particular, and also underperforming US ETFs. Global funds are on a scream, especially emerging markets. But can it last? Some economists take a Fed rate cut as confirmation we're heading into recession and the beginning of a market tumble.