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Ha. You really hedged your bets with that answer, didn’t you?

Invest now! In what? Well, that depends, so let me cover all the bases! (Or cover none by being specifically ambiguous!)

SO, to be fair, I *have* investments. And I have cash. My cash position right now is significantly larger than my investment position. On purpose. We are one event away from market meltdown. At this point, it could be just about anything. That doesn’t mean I’m sitting totally on the sideline. I’m just holding a reserve so I’m ready to pounce when it happens.

I didn’t hedge my position. If you want to message me the specifics of your portfolio I’ll give you specifics. I answered your question. Invest your cash. Invest it smart where it makes sense for you. That is your answer. I have two best friends who have been sitting in cash for the past two years. They do it because they are afraid of the impending market collapse they keep reading about. Its their call. But they’re going backwards and they don’t realize it.

If you’re talking about just moving money between cash and mutual funds within a 401k..... odds are you’ll come out shorter than if you had just stayed in the funds. That’s what happens to most people. In theory we get out when the market is down and back in at just the right time. That’s called timing the market. You better be way better than average if you think you’ll make money doing that. But if you’re still working and several years from retirement, why would you have money in a tax defered account that is sitting in cash? You have time... and time has a track record of the market going up. If you have a crystal ball and know exactly what the future holds... then I guess you’re more savy than most. Best of luck!

Here's an investment idea. If you have 200k that is not in a 401k, ira etc that will suffer withdrawl penalties.... find a good deal on a house. Spend 200k on it. Pay cash for it. Sell the house by owner to a family in their early to mid 30's who are ready to get their life together. (many do stupid things in their 20's and get their act together in their 30's) You will have no problem finding a family you want to be in business with who has 15k to 20k to put down, but have a credit rating that is marginal so that a traditional lending company won't loan them money.

You sell the house for 220k. You get 20k down. You loan them 200k at 6.5%. You amortize it on either 20 or 30 years (their choice) but you balloon it in 10 years. This gives them time to get their credit rating fixed and possibly refinance in a few years. It gets you out of the deal in 10 years either way..... or if they're still paying and you still like them you can loan them money again.

You've just taken 200k out of the "risky" market. You've picked who you want to do business with. You have a hard asset behind your investment instead of a CEO's promise.

You setup an escrow account and collect their taxes and insurance and pay those annually.

You'll draw about 1600 dollars a month. After 10 years they'll still owe you 170k. You can reinvest the 1600 a month or whatever you want to do with it.

If you get the house back (which I did on one of them) you put 5 or 6k in it and resell it, and start over.

You can't beat that deal, and I could sell one every week like that if I had the resources. There are tons of people out there who will jump on the opportunity to own instead of renting. You just pick the most responsible that you want to be in business with.