market thoughts...bubble?

I always take some gains. Maybe 10% off the top. If you don't take gains and go to some cash, you really don't have any gains, you have unrealized gains.

My thought process is that it is going to go down and correct. Always does. When it does I have readily available cash (the gains I took throughout the life of whichever bull market we are in).

Others like to stay all in, all the time. I don't think that makes sense, but that is a very popular thing to do. In the long run it always seems to work. Unless you are getting ready to retire and the correction happens around that time. Then come the news stories about 70 year olds who can't retire. I always wonder who gave them the advice to not take a realized gain and stay all in.

Only twice in history has the shiller pe ratio for the s&p 500 been as high as it is now: dot com bubble and the months leading up to black Tuesday (start of the depression). I've switched from buying equities as of late and started targeting bonds, as the yields are looking better and better each day. I'm not sure if a pullback is coming, but the market is certainly overvalued compared to historical trends.

My thesis is one of three things will happen: a) earnings will rise faster than price, justifying current valuations, b) there will be a pullback, or c) current valuations will become the new normal. I'm not dumping equities at this point, but I'm definitely in wait and see mode.