Bonds are a hedge against market corrections but not against hyper inflation because you get back your dollars plus 4% a year so if inflation is 20% you are down 16% + taxes on the 4% "gain".
Scheduled for 2026, we have a new Fed chief, "$2000 checks", the beginning of kid's stock market accounts, tax cuts from 2025 causing bigger returns in March thru June, and many other market juicing changes. So I am looking for things which move up with inflation, eg hedges against devaluation of the USD.
Don't rush your decision. You say you've "waited way too long" but hindsight is always 20/20. You need to think about tax consequences and how and when you need access to your investment income.
Gold was the big winner in 2025, up 80% -- "flight to safety". Likely it isn't done rising but I hate gold. They can change the rules overnight, like they did with silver last week. All the same GLDM makes it easy to hedge with gold.
SPY with a stop loss makes sense if you aren't hurt tax-wise by selling if the stop loss is hit. The market will be juiced by all the things I listed and there is a rotation out of tech so SPY looks better than QQQ. I like ETFs that do covered calls when the market is going sideways. You get paid monthly. Takes the emotion and decisions out of it. You get income and the investment stays about the same. It's "Eat your cake and have it to" but it makes sense to have stop loss on these also. SPYI or GPIQ are covered call ETFs that pay about 1% per month, so $100 / mo for $10,000.
I would talk to your tax advisor and do some more research then wait for dips in whatever you want to move to.
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Tangent -- One of the things I dislike about metals is all the fear and hysteria scams that target seniors and push gold and silver. Hard to get solid info or advice amid all that nonsense but this guy is a pro who doesn't usually trade metals and never pushes them. He gives a great history lesson about the market in general and he uses the recent silver law changes and the infamous Hunt Brothers collapse as an example of the kinds of risks that many people ignore. He points out how "the system will always protect itself" and there is an upside to that now. The government is openly buying stock in the companies they are most interested in backstopping so in theory there are stock investment which are as protected or better protected than the USD.
It looks click-baity but the guy is not selling anything and is dispassionate in his analysis. I found it interesting because other people don't talk about all the times that the rules get changed overnight, like March of 2020 when the Fed turned the market at noon on a Wednesday. Just started buying to stop the crash because it was cheaper to backstop than go through months of depression. He is a professional options trader so it is his business to cut through the BS:
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