There are no "generic" stocks in the tax-deferred accounts. However, US corporate bonds (as in LSBDX) as well as many leveraged closed-end funds (GGN, GIM, ETY) and the oil & gas trusts trade a bit more like stocks than bonds. Thus I approached this weekend by putting on a partial hedge with the double short SPX ETF, SDS. I don't do options Greek, so I guessed that a 15% SPX exposure would work somewhat. It's sort of a test over the weekend. These accounts are paying nearly 8% at current prices, so asset value doesn't matter much in the short term as the payouts are fixed except for the oil & gas trusts which vary with monthly oil and gas prices.
The other part of the fixed income is the TIPs fund, VAIPX, with PIMCO's PCRIX as a "kicker" at 25% of the value of VAIPX. PCRIX is also TIPS-based but with an unleveraged always long CRB commodity index exposure. Longer term readers will remember that I had a sizeable amount of PCRIX in 2003-2005 and then again in 2006-2008 when it was a big winner. I cut down the weighting in HSTRX to add VAIPX and PCRIX. HSTRX does much the same thing as VAIPX and PCRIX together but the latter two give it a bit more punch and pay more of a dividend. HSTRX is more in the shorter end of the TIPS maturity spectrum, whereas VAIPX holds every single extant TIPS issue.
Looking at the chart of many of these holdings, I still count myself extremely lucky to have avoided taking the big hits I would have had by not cashing out and running into VSGDX last Summer, Fall, and Winter. Except for the oil & gas trusts, which I sold part of at the highs and added back on extreme weakness, I was almost totally in VSGDX and later partly in VFIJX. I was a little late getting back into LSBDX and some of the closed-ends as it took a while to lose my fear, or feel it reduced. That's another reason for the SDS partial hedge this weekend: most were not bought at the lows.
I don't really think SPX has "finally" topped for the year since the 2CS sentiment indicator is still nearly 130. A big bear market rally should take it under 100. But just in case I'm wrong...or in case we are going into a correction of the move up from March 8 but will then rally further thereafter into July, I'll see how this hedge works for a few days.
In the taxable accounts we still have the "Hillary/Obama Portfolio" with 62% in short term municipals (VWSUX) and the rest in gold bullion, CEF, GDX, RGLD, SLW, and the long/short Trader Vic Sperandeo monthly-rebalanced commodity, financials, and currency futures fund, RYMFX. It is the red line on the chart above from its date of inception.
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