I have moved my dad mostly into cash, with about 50% exposed to bonds and equity mutual funds (OBOCX and OCGCX).
Good luck to you and your dad. When people ask me for advice, I usually recommend this fund: www.skagenfunds.com/Funds-and-prices/SKAGEN-Kon-Tiki/ The return in USD have been 23,4% a year (average) since it started in april 2002. Best year gave +103% (in NOK, 2003), worst -36% (in NOK, 2008).
Dad is glad we are mostly in cash with a small fraction exposed to the market. Now he has gone to the extreme that he doesn't want to be in this market until every problem is solved, to him the worst being the complete breakdown of the US government. I tell him to stay flexible, that all markets correct and there will come a point where things will look almost critical, and that is the time to start thinking about getting back in. We are nowhere near that capitulation (AAPL giving up the ghost would be a good sign for him), but the indications are that we have ignited the core to one major capitulation lower.
Interesting to compare the relative performance over the years: http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=...n;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined;