kerryvan:

My inital thoughts are:

  buy a green dress, maybe a Monkey, a good reliable car,  some Art, maybe a garfunkel, or some remains...  by BNL,,,  LOL   congrats, 

 this one may take some time to ponder.  I was surprised your advisors didn't have more in the ira, tax free side of things..  You have a few yrs to max that out at 20.5 K a pop to transfer into tax free/ roth ira....

The entire market globally has gone down, so the loss is no surprise.  I need to look up some of the funds, then I can comment..

KV, thanks for your intiial impressions... i've always lived well below my means which has been a big factor in accumulating what i have for investment (along with 28 years nose-to-grindstone...) - as such, maybe i'll splurge on a few modest luxuries; ) ...

what really has me hung up is this gut feeling that i should look at taking equities 'off the table' given economic predictions looking out 2-4 years, with a big concern for preventing further erosion of gains/preservation of principal --  Schwab places me in their 'moderate investment profile (shifted from moderate-aggressive in the last year to reduce volatility exposure somewhat).  That's where the issue of tax consequences of shifting out of equities into more fixed income positions....and questions like whether i should keep reinvesting dividends/gains - are hard for me to navigate.

 Perhaps the advisors haven't been too off the mark but with the nominal amount of activity on their part from one semi-annual meeting to the next, and the buy/hold mantra  i feel i can at least watch my funds do what they will do just as easily as they can - without paying about (presently) 1K of assets per quarter for that 'supervision.'

thanks for your generosity in sharing perspectives, one and all!

m