This is a practical guide to a risk-assessment procedure that, historically (when applied to portfolios whose stock component tracks the S&P 500 stock index), would have produced almost 50% better "reward for the risk taken" than would have either a 100% stock portfolio or a strictly balanced 60% stock portfolio:
A Practical Guide to Risk-Bounded Stock Investment (HTML)
The approach presented there is:
"Buy as the bears appear; hold while the air is clear; sell as stocks get too dear."
This procedure is not new; a similar procedure was practiced more than 70 years ago, but it seems to have fallen out of fashion (unjustifiably, in my assessmnet).
The derivation of the "Risk-bounded buy-and-hold" stock allocation strategy is described in the PDF here:
A fixed stock-to-bond ratio has some disadvantages (regarding risk-of-loss and reward-for-risk-of-loss-taken) that are seldom discussed, but which I discuss here.
All investment involves risk. I am not a financial advisor; I am merely presenting the results of my investigations. These documents are not financial advice; please treat them with a commensurate degree of skepticism. If you cannot serve responsibly as your own financial advisor, please hire one. Thank you.