The commodity price surge is getting my attention. It feels to me to be too soon to sound an alarm. But there seems to be an increasing amount of smoke in the air. Just how long does "transitory" last?

The world economy is facing a buildup in stagflationary forces as surging energy prices boost inflation and slow the recovery from the pandemic recession.
“We’re seeing all of this inflation,” Supriya Menon, a strategist at Pictet & Cie. told Bloomberg TV. “Ultimately how does that get resolved? Part of the way it could get resolved is through demand destruction.”
Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey highlighted the conundrum when he drew attention to the limits of monetary policy to deal with some of the factors causing higher consumer prices.
“The shocks that we are seeing are restricting supply in the economy relative to the recovery of demand,” he said Monday in speech. “This is important because monetary policy will not increase the supply of semi-conductor chips, it will not increase the amount of wind (no, really).”

Stagflationary Blow

Still own my ASML. Have not bought any more of it since I bought it at least 10 years ago.
If you were looking for an initial point, today may be the day. Saw the price hit low-to-mid 800's per share prior to today.
I was hoping it would split again (it has split four times (97,98, 00 & 12)).

Just received an email from T Rowe Price concerning lowering its fees on some of its fixed income funds. I was unable to locate some of the other filings for some of the funds T Rowe listed below from their email:
At T. Rowe Price, our mission is simple: help our clients achieve their long-term investment goals. As a part of this mission, we are committed to putting the needs of our clients first.
With this goal in mind, we recently conducted a periodic review of our fixed income lineup and are pleased to announce that we are reducing fees for a number of fixed income mutual funds, effective October 1, 2021.
IMPACTED MUTUAL FUNDS:
Fund Name
Corporate Income Fund
Credit Opportunities Fund
Dynamic Credit Fund
Emerging Markets Bond Fund
Emerging Markets Corporate Bond Fund
Emerging Markets Local Currency Bond Fund
Global Multi-Sector Bond Fund
GNMA Fund
Intermediate Tax-Free High Yield Fund
New Income Fund
Short-Term Bond Fund
Tax-Free Short-Intermediate Fund
Total Return Fund
U.S. High Yield Fund
Ultra Short-Term Bond Fund
This link from T Rowe in the email should help:
https://www.troweprice.com/content/dam/iinvestor/Forms/t-rowe-price-mutual-fund-pricing-updates.pdf?cid=PI_Fixed_Income_Crit_Com_202109&bid=796548385&PlacementGUID=em_PI_PI_Fixed_Income_Crit_Com_202109-PI_Fixed_Income_Crit_Com_202109_20210928&b2c-uber=u.80951A52-33FF-ED8F-B172-05378DF37F53&van=FI-MF-fees

While the S&P 500 has yet to see even a 5% correction in 2021, nearly 90% of its members have already had at least a 10% correction at some point.
https://www.schwab.com/resource-center/insights/content/market-perspective?cmp=em-XCU

I use similar approach to @observant1 on selling. An addition is ETFs and index equivalents, especially in large caps. As more actively ETFs are available, they are reasonable substitutes since they don’t have limit on holding period imposed by brokerages.

Thanks, Observant1. Those would be my reasons as well, except 4.
Most of the Buy strategies I read about have an element of Price or are Price based. I would like to hear about Sell strategies that are Price based too. For example, no more than 5% loss, sell 25% of holding for each 20% gain in a year, etc.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1683471/000089418921006883/badetf485a.htm
Excerpt:
Principal Investment Strategies
The Fund uses a passive management (or indexing) approach to seek to track the performance, before fees and expenses, of the Index. The Index was developed and owned by Thematic Investments, LLC and is administered by EQM Indexes LLC (the “Index Provider”).
EQM BAD Index
The Index is a rules-based index that seeks to provide exposure to a portfolio of (i) betting or gambling companies, (ii) alcohol and cannabis companies, and/or (iii) pharmaceutical companies.

T. Rowe Price Intermediate Tax-Free High Yield Fund:
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1608530/000174177321002904/c497k.htm
T. Rowe Price Dynamic Credit Fund:
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/313212/000174177321002902/c497k.htm
T. Rowe Price Global High Income Bond Fund:
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/313212/000174177321002903/c497k.htm
T. Rowe Price Emerging Markets Bond Fund:
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/313212/000174177321002906/c497k.htm
T. Rowe Price International Bond Fund:
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/313212/000174177321002905/c497k.htm
T. Rowe Price Emerging Markets Local Currency Bond Fund:
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/313212/000174177321002911/c497k.htm
T. Rowe Price Tax-Free Short-Intermediate Fund, Inc.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/730200/000174177321002913/c497k.htm

Very good discussion in this thread.
Over time, I have read about a lot of buying strategies. E.g., DCA, BTD, etc. But I have never read an exit strategy. I think this is a secret sauce people do not share. I hope folks in this forum share their exit strategies.

Investors sometimes sell their best-performing stocks too soon and keep their poor-performing stocks too long.
I mostly invest in mutual funds and would consider selling a fund for the following reasons:
1) Underperforms category for more than two consecutive years.
Some funds generate "lumpy" returns which is factored into the decision.
2) Unwelcome fund company or fund manager/management team changes.
3) Significant investment strategy modifications.
4) Meaningful fee increases.
This is more art than science for me.
Selling your winners and holding your losers is like cutting the flowers and watering the weeds.
-Peter Lynch

Here’s the link
Looks like their income related funds experienced a donut-fit. DODLX fell 1%. It was a rough day for fixed income. Just not that bad.

My definitions for market drawdowns - probably correspond to most people’s
0-5% diplet
5-10% dip
10-20% correction
>20% bear market
+/- a couple of decimals.

Who here would not bet half the house --- assuming economic and business variables stay largely the same and the current guy stays in office --- after a -20% decline? The combo of boomer and millennial greed is a Force.

My definitions for market draw downs - probably correspond to most people’s
0-5% diplet
5-10% dip
10-20% correction
>20% bear market
+/- a couple of decimals.

Very good discussion in this thread.
Over time, I have read about a lot of buying strategies. E.g., DCA, BTD, etc. But I have never read an exit strategy. I think this is a secret sauce people do not share. I hope folks in this forum share their exit strategies.
I do not have an exit strategy but would like to create one or a few. So far, if I own broad market index funds, I hold them through thick and thin. If I own active funds which fall behind their category meaningfully over a year +, I will exit. When active funds start holding 10%+ in cash, I exit to a balanced fund or to a high yield bond fund as a holding place to redeploy to equity funds at a later time.
I am completely clueless about exiting individual stocks. I have had better success with entry points but not with exit points.

Both of these gents have come under fire recently for trades they made while serving on the Federal Reserve. As Barron’s Randall Forsyth noted a couple weeks ago, it’s easier to succeed in investing if you happen to be “in the room where it happens.” This is interesting. Now starts the hunt for replacements. If you think the Federal Reserve has an effect on your investments, this is a story worth following.
Robert Kaplan’s afternoon announcement followed closely on the heels of Eric Rosengren‘s announcement this morning.
Story

I appreciate the honesty of posters acknowledging losses as well as gains: you win some, you lose some.
One theory of market timing, and let's be frank here this is timing, is that while it may not improve returns it should reduce volatility. One may not get out at the top or in at the bottom, but that's the point - one is getting a smoother ride by lopping off peaks as well as avoiding deep valleys.
But one of the articles I cited (the one quoting Sam Lee) stated that " it turns out the buy-the-dip strategy [described in the piece] would earn a third of return of a buy-and-hold strategy with much higher volatility."
Thinking that this increased volatility might just be a result of the particular trigger threshold selected, I dug up this 2021 WSJ article writing about a new study:

Although active investors tend to “chase stability”—they are trying to minimize volatility by market timing—they end up doing the exact opposite, according to the research, as they invest in stocks after past volatility is low and before future volatility is high. ... Such investors are chasing safe winners, but they’re actually getting risky losers.

WSJ, Jan 23, 2021 A New Reason Investors Shouldn’t Try to Time the Stock Market
It's worth contrasting this with the Fidelity page bee cited. That also talks about buying less volatile stocks. But unlike the WSJ piece that concerns active traders, the Fidelity page appears to be more about long term positioning of one's portfolio. It gives 30 year performance figures. It discusses how a defensive portfolio performs over a full market cycle as opposed to getting defensive stocks in one part of a cycle and going aggressive in another.
In the interest of full disclosure, I haven't yet read the paper discussed by the WSJ.

Howdy folks,
Interesting discussion and most everything is spot on. Hank's and the others have been doing this for a long time.
Is golds still a hedge against inflation? That remains to be seen. The market is extremely manipulated not in a conspiratorial way but legally by all the central banks and countries that wish to do so. This makes it tough to play in the short run. Almost impossible.
First of all I see gold in a couple of different ways. First I see it as a core investment for all portfolios. Say in the 3-7% range, preferably in physical bullion. More that this size of a holding is speculation. This is fine as long as you know it speculation.
I try to play gold and silver in a momentum investing manner. When they start to show some momentum, you scale in and ride it until it starts to break down at which point you scale out. There is no positive momentum at this point in time.
I mentioned silver only because I do prefer to trade it and as was pointed out, the mining stocks, particularly the juniors. All I can say is that this is where the leverage is and it can truly be nose bleed stuff.
Most precious metal mutual funds contain mining stocks and zero bullion. And you want to be careful with bullion ETF's because they are taxable at the collectibles rate if held in a taxable account. Ouch!
Permanent Portfolio PFPFX is based upon a diversified portfolio that Harry Browne came up with. He felt be diversifying between select asset classes you could smooth the market cycles. WTF knows. I do own it and have for years and will continue to do so.
As for wealth diversification, the Elder Rothschild said a long time ago, that to protect your assets you should have 1/3 invested in securities, 1/3 in real estate and 1/3 in rare art. Rare art can be a lot of things but it ain't beanie babies. In my case, I sub rare coins and bullion for the latter category.
Of note with the current market in bullion, there is a major divergence between paper price and street price. This means that official paper price is viewed as bogus by the people buying and selling physical bullion and therefore there is a very large premium attached to all bullion purchases.
and so it goes,
peace and wear the damn mask,
rono

Below is some hasty / lazy work for me to show myself my actual practice since covid onset and I sold off nearly everything after return to breakeven summer '20 (as I was sure covid would be this bfd hit to all markets).
- All dip buying and selling were done by feel, not by percentage or any defensible criterion other than 'ooh, ooh, it just went down pretty sharply', ... just because it eventually hit me over the head that p/e be damned, this market was just too strong and kept returning to strength, for all the reasons already mentioned by others.
- I am too chicken to figure out if buy-hold woulda been better, but I suspect so, given said unstoppable market strength.
What the below activity did was make me feel better about my fairly quick / short 'defensive' darts in and out of the traffic.
buys and sells of VON_, AOR, and/or CAPE, plus a TRP mfund
(gains; no losses; all Roth, so no tax consequence)
bot 6/11/20 and sold the next day, >1%
bot 10/28/20 and sold 11/13/20, 10%
bot 2/25/21 and sold 4/9/21, 7%
bot 4/22/21 and sold 5/6/21, >3%
bot 5/12/21 and sold 5/14/21, <3%
bot 6/18/21 & 7/6/21 and sold 9/22/21, <3%
bot 7/2/21 and sold 9/2/21, <1%
bot 7/19/21 and sold 8/3/21, >2%
bot 8/4/21 and sold 8/11-2/21, 1%
bot 8/18/21 and sold 9/1/21, 5%
bot 9/20/21 and sold 9/23/21, 3%
I am again now almost completely out of equities.
And of course the kick-myself revenge makeup motive going on here was to try and recoup the hundreds of thou lost by my summer 2020 selloff decisions, after the big covid dip. If I had stayed the equities course (duh) we would have enough extra now to half-forgive kids' debts to us, lavish on grandchildren education funding, replace a car and roof and such, and give way more seriously to a few charities and colleges.

What is the dip definition in use? 2%? 5%? 10%?
We don't set ranges for the depth of the dip
To wit, rhetorically
Indeed. No substance.

Really an exercise in futility here. Massive over generalization of this kind of stuff gets an investor nowhere close to an actionable strategy.
To wit, rhetorically,
What is the dip definition in use? 2%? 5%? 10%?
What dip is the person measuring? S&P? Nasdaq? The RUT? AMZN, AAPL or MSFT stock? ARKK?
The results will ALL be at least slightly different, and many will be significantly different.

I'm wondering if I didn't communicate well here. I asked two simple questions, and then used data to illustrate their significance. What I didn't do was state why they matter; I only illustrated that.
1. Source of cash.
One may have cash sitting on the sidelines. That could be true cash/MMF, "near cash", cash that can be raised with modest penalties (CDs, savings bonds), or more broadly it could include any investment that underperforms equities over time. (Think "two buckets", equities and everything else.)
Excluding allocations that one treats as fairly static for whatever reasons (e.g. emergency cash, projected college expenses, health costs, risk reduction, etc.), the remainder is money sitting on the sidelines.
That has an opportunity cost. I tried to illustrate that cost by comparing putting that money to work immediately with waiting for a dip to deploy. (Lump sum comparisons.)
More times than not, investing cash when available outperforms the alternative. This is well known when the comparison is between a lump sum investing and gradually investing the money on a fixed schedule (DCA). BTD is another variant. What they provide is not superior results on average, but a measure of comfort. One is not risking all at once. One is buying at a bargain relative to a few days ago, even if it is at a higher price than a few months ago.
Alternatively, one may have a stream of cash, so that one is only able to deploy money incrementally over time. Arithmetically this is no different from a sequence of lump sum investments. But it is not viewed this way, perhaps because investors can say that they only have "a little cash" available at any given time. Analyzing a sequence of investments has the added benefit of providing more data points to consider.
2. What's the trigger, when does one buy the dip?
I suggested providing a numeric threshold, but any other objective criterion would suffice. It is not however informative to say that at time A I deployed my available cash while at time B I did not, without articulating a reason. BaluBalu questioned the objectivity of some triggers by pointing out that people let an 8% drop go by while pulling the trigger on a 3% drop.
A few pieces doing a better job of illustrating the likelihood of BTD paying off:

Buying on dips doesn’t necessarily guarantee better returns.... While you wait for a downturn, you could be missing out on significant upturns in the stock market.

WaPo, Sept 24, 2021: In the long run, slow and steady stock-buying easily beats trying to time market dips, experts say

[I]nvesting only on the dips, which involves some market timing, returns far less than simply buying and holding, according to Samuel Lee, investment adviser at SVRN Asset Management. ... [I[t turns out the buy-the-dip strategy would earn a third of return of a buy-and-hold strategy with much higher volatility.

MarketWatch, May 23, 2017: Why a buy-the-dip stock-market strategy is inferior to buy-and-hold
MarketWatch, Sept 21, 2021 (updated Sept 25): Opinion:‘Buy the dip’ is a horrible stock-market strategy — and these charts prove it
Reiterating something I started with: BTD sometimes does better. But that doesn't mean it does better on average. A graph from the last cited piece: