I pulled $5 million out of stocks and now feel stuck without good options

Whether you have $50,000 or $5 million, one of the most challenging decisions to make is what to do when you don’t want to go “all-in” on investing. There is no question that it’s definitely a hard decision to make, as the wrong move could end up costing you in the most literal sense. 

For one Redditor posting in r/fatFIRE, there is a big decision to be made with around $5.3 million sitting in cash, and they are understandably nervous about putting it all back into the market after just selling it all to get out of their stock positions. 

Sitting on a Large cash Position

At the time this Redditor wrote their post, they were sitting on approximately $5.3 million in cash, which they accumulated by selling off a number of stock positions. 

Unsurprisingly, given all of the market volatility going on, there is a strong hesitancy to just throw everything back into the market right now. As a result, they are now exploring alternative options for this cash and admit to lacking knowledge on how to invest in safer assets, such as bonds and treasuries. 

Ultimately, the goal is to explore short-term, low-risk options that can be added to their existing short-term treasury and corporate bonds, which they recently purchased. The way forward for this individual is to consider investing around $1 million of this money in a low-risk option that yields approximately 4-5% annually. Separately, they want to invest another $1 million in a low-risk investment that earns anywhere between $5 and $10 million. 

The Redditor is coming to r/fatFIRE in the hopes of finding some strong suggestions on how to move forward with this money. 

What To Do Next? 

First and foremost, I would advise this individual, if they were my friend, that investing in anything that earns between 5% and 10% is definitely not low-risk. You could make a sound argument that a 4-5% interest investment is pretty low risk, but anything above that is going to be as risky as going back into the market itself. 

This said, the first recommendation for this individual is to invest $1 million in SGOV, a three-month treasury currently trading at around $100 per share. As of September 2025, the YTD return on this position is 3.06% while the one-year return is 4.47%, so this is right in line with where the Redditor wants to be. 

Alternatively, depending on where this money is being held now, the Redditor could drop their cash into a Fidelity account and put it into SPAXX, which is currently earning 3.97%. This number is going to fluctuate monthly, but it’s one of the safer options they can take advantage of right now and earn around $4,000 per month on their money every month for the next 90-120 days, or even longer. 

Either of these two choices is going to be among the safest routes this Redditor can take, with almost no downside other than a fluctuating interest rate on the Fidelity side. As someone currently using SPAXX, I can confidently tell this Redditor that, and although I’m not a financial advisor, I have been more than pleased with my Fidelity experience. 

Treasury Bills Work Too, With a Caveat

One of the things the Redditor explains in this post that I would want to remind them of is that while treasury bills work, they are not without some risk. The interest rate can change, just as it can with SPAXX or a bond, so this isn’t a risk-averse method either. 

Short of dropping the money into a CD in which you lock in the interest rate for a certain period, there isn’t much this Redditor can do that would be totally risk-free. Part of investing is all about the risk; it’s that simple. While I completely understand this individual’s hesitancy around the market, it’s also important to note that they should be talking to a fiduciary financial advisor if they want the absolute best advice. 

It’s one thing for me to give advice, or for this individual to listen to others in the comment section on their post, but a financial advisor can make a detailed plan to keep this individual out of the market now, maximize returns, and do so with as little risk as possible. This is quite literally the job description of a financial advisor that has your best interests in mind, so this should absolutely be on the Redditor’s radar.