Monthly Update - Down 3K

My NetWorth fell slightly (about $3000) last month. It wouldn't have fallen at all, but I started selling away my large positions in the S&P 500 as I am trying to move into cash and more stable and less risky investments for a year or 2 (or 3 or 4). Since when did the S&P 500 become a risky play? I sold positions on various days throughout the month and seemed to of picked some bad days. Don't try to time the market. Don't try to NOT time the market like me. Either way I always seem to lose the minimum/maximum peak and valley game (even when I dollar cost avg). I also sold off most of my IRA and SEPIRA positions and transferred it in the money market (of the IRA or SEPIRA or ROTH IRA account). I will still be paring away the rest of my positions as soon as the market stops going up (but how will I really know when that is?).

After selling off most of my positions in the S&P 500 fund of a 2nd rate mutual fund company (S&P 500 index fees of 1.21% !). I prompty opened a Vanguard account and transferred all the money into it.

Vanguard

By the way, opening a Vanguard account is the easiest thing I have ever done. Their website is so much nicer than the others (Janus, Fidelity, etc). It took 10 minutes and I could then set up the transfer from my bank account. 2 days later I logged in and the money was there.

New Beginings

Anyways, now I have lots of 2/3 of my cash and stocks (which comes to about $107,000) in Vanguard's money market earning 4.93%. I am debating what to do with it. 15% into Gold? 15% into Energy/Oil mutual fund? Should I just be happy with 5% for the next 2-4 years? I know fear is bad for trading and investing purposes, but right now, I fear losing my hard-earned money.

Time Deposit

I had about 25000$ in yen in my Japanese bank account and was ready to transfer to the US when I noticed I could get 8.6% (APR) on it for 1 month via my bank. Basically, it's like a 1-month CD. The only catch is it had to be in USD instead of Yen and I would have to pay the transfer cost for changing my yen into dollars. But, after doing the math, the 8.6% (divided by 12 since it is just for a month equals .71%) is still a great deal so I did it and locked it away for a month. I'll have 25164$ on July 24th. 164$ free dollars for the month isn't bad. EXCEPT, if the Yen-$ exchange is down to 112 by then, it would have been smarter to hold onto it in yen. Right now, we're at 114.57 and falling! It doesn't look good. I wish my hindsight was my foresight.

Future thoughts reside in China

I am looking to get a lot of my money back in yen and I have found I can invest in a risky emerging market fund which is just Chinese companies. This kind of mutual (hedge) fund is not available in the US and only because I have access via my Japanese bank can I do it. While the emerging markets don't seem that great, I feel that China is a bit insulated from all the others. This fund's correlation to other emerging markets is very close to 0 (no correllation). Furthermore, I can invest in yen and therefore will not be exposed to the Dollar volatility.

Until now, I have only transferred Yen I have earned here into Dollars back home, but now I would like to transfer some of my Money Market Dollars back into Yen. Problem is it's not that easy, as I need to call up my bank in the US and setup that kind of international transfer.