OP, I sent you a private message. Those looking to hedge against DOWNSIDE exposure in the S&P 500 may consider placing funds in a trading program that trades stock index futures with a bearish directional bias. One positive element is that this allocation requires no additional work on the investor's part; the CTA does the trading on his/her behalf. Another poster mentioned gold. I'm not certain gold is immune from an equity-driven sell-off. Hedge funds & other large players may have to sell gold or silver, to raise cash to meet margin calls on their underwater stock positions. Hope this helps. --CHI CTA
Gold has it's caveats as much as anything else. -- Plans where you purchase it and somebody else keeps it for you and you have the right to take physical possession: Very nearly always the gold is not going to be there even in the best of times... -- If you take physical possession of it you have to store it and protect it. I was studying TA all day every day right about the time when 9-11 happened. I had a large watchlist of stocks and had I been trading real money I would have been net short that morning.. I really do believe that these big events are signaled. It could be because of insiders that have a heads' up and it could be because of some things along the line of how the universe works... I always test my ideas by looking at flash-crash data, always, I would be net short, there are events that lead up to the actual craziness that are detectable. All that aside, having some deep out of the money options leads to better sleep but you have to be profitable enough to pay for them...
I like to think of it as the F.U.D. factor. As long as it is present and Wall Street can keep building it's "Wall of Worry", then the indicators point to a susstainable upward price trend. Geo politcally speaking there are alot of reasons to buy vs. not buy. Global growth and build out will occur at a stagnant pace and those that wish to protect thier wealth will keep placing into assets that are unatainable to the common folk. Wealth consendation is occuring at brisk pace. Why would anyone want to allow some underclass segment to emerge? Just keep them down in the hole and bury them with debt. Asia is going to have a choke hold on Europe soon enough. Walmart was unable to break the Europeans but the Chinese will. Welcome to Neo Feudalism, Akuma