lpep, the reason I have so much in bonds is I read (and advice from here) that you should invest in the percentage of bonds as your age. Hence I'm 31 years old...
Hi Shade
The "bonds equal to your age" advice is simply a rule of thumb largely designed to be quite conservative and (IMO) for people who can't stand market volatility and/or are a lot older than we are. This strategy is good at smoothing the bumps of market volatility, but historically the returns of such a portfolio are much less than a portfolio with more equities the vast majority of the time.
If you want to make an informed decision you'll need to ask yourself a few more questions. How long is my investment timeline? how likely is it that I will need to pull money out in the near future to cover an emergency or large expense (like a downpayment on a house)? how well can I handle drops in the market (or put another way: "when the market drops can I sleep at night without pulling all of my money out?")
As suggested earlier, read the jhcollins stock series - it's a great introduction to all of this.
Personally, my investment timeline is decades, and I have no intention of pulling anything out for 10+ years (I have an emergency fund to cover the unexpected). My allocation is 95/5. What's more, I plan on having at
least 80 of my portfolio in equities even after I reach retirement, because historically I have a much better chance of my portfolio surviving than if I follow the "age as a % of bonds" rule.
Now to be clear I'm not saying holding your age in bonds is a bad strategy. It certainly will be a less bumpy ride than having almost everything in broad market index funds like I do. For many people, that piece of mind is worth the likelihood that they will trail the market by a few percentage points. Everyone needs to come up with their own strategy.
Check out
www.firecalc.com if you want to run the historical simulations yourself.