[coloradan]

So, what fraction of one’s assets should not face exposure to the equities, bond, or real estate markets (and their attending 40-90% devaluations, from time to time)? Or would it be best to have essentially zero cash assets?

[FredZarguna]

If he were in the process of moving performing assets to cash, I would have no problem with his $1M checking account. But note that he doesn't say in the article exactly why he has $1M in checking. And, to be fair, I can't say $1M is a bad number, because I don't know what percentage of his total assets that number represents. I don't know many professors with net worth in the millions -- although I have been out of academia for a long time, and maybe Harvard Business professors are different. All I'll say is that if I had $1M in cash equivalents, it would be in a money market or some other cash equivalent with better than 0 yield.