Although I’ve taken an income and capital preservation approach to my investments in the last few years, my portfolio has taken a few body blows this week. Is it time to take a defensive posture while the current storm sorts itself out or just ride it out?
If so, what are the safe havens these days?
I am a bit confused. The S&P500 is -0.2 YTD. Anyone that is fairly conservative (i.e. capital preservation), should be positive YTD. Bond are slightly positive, dividend funds (looking at you VIG) are sitting around +1% YTD.
I don’t know your allocation but unless you are much worse than those numbers, I would ride out this storm.
I personally got hammered this week due to my exposure to international markets - who are much more dependent on foreign oil, but I think the higher price will be “temporary” so I have decided to ride it out. I had my largest single day nominal loss earlier this week - but I am only down 2.5% for the year (including another small beating today).
If I were to look to a safe haven, it would probably be domestic consumer staples. XLP is still up 9% for the year but it also took a small beating this week - but then XLP was basically flat last year.
I’m sorry I wasn’t clear, I’m doing fine. My question should have asked about being proactively defensive, if that’s a thing. 
My inclination is to stay the course, for now, but contemplating the chances that this week may be the start of a longer trend.
Lots of people were riding the Mag 7 wave and thought it could only go up. (I saw the same thing in the 90’s with the dot com boom.) Then reality set in.
In truth, I rode the dot com boom myself, but got out of everything in 1999-2000 as we set off on a long RV trip that kept us out of touch, and yes, I thought the market was “toppy.” But when I came back in it was with stalwarts of one flavor or another and have been fine since. But many people didn’t, and (presumably) learned the lesson. Maybe some didn’t?
When the markets trend downward it’s a good time to review your holdings. I would hold quality stocks likely to recover and perhaps even acquire more at attractive prices.
I would trim speculative high PE or no PE stocks and possibly hold cash. Wait for better times.