While some want to take profits I want to upgrade my portfolio to what I believe are better funds and add to stock funds with new money and maybe some bond/cash money. MJG says "that individual investors make poor timing and product selection decisions". So who is right in this case. Sell and take profits or hang in there and make more profits?
I realize that everyones situation is different but surely we can come to a concensus with all the smart posters on this board if one should be selling or buying?
As for me I have a 60/40 stock /bond ratio with a 50/50 split U.S and foreign. Heavy E.M and small caps. I am 54 and as long as I am healthy I will work till at least 61 when I can retire with full benefits.
I have a wishlist of funds I like but have yet to pull the trigger. Thoughts?
Art
Comments
Hi Art, MFO has a polling feature. Relatively easy to set one up. Would give you the answer you seek.
PS - A thought: You might try pinging Chip or Accipiter for assistance if it is your desire to set up such a poll. Just don't say "ping" which doesn't work. Need to say "A ping for (insert name)". Regards
My opinion, if you already have the portfolio distribution you want for the long-run, you won't hurt yourself by exchanging one fund for what you believe is a better fund - but keeping the same equity %. I also like the "Skeeter" process of trimming profits when valuations and the stock market have creped up (like now) and buying funds on your watch list when valuations and markets have dipped.
What I consider a mistake on my part in the past was being impatient and buying a "really great fund" at it's high. I seemed to consistently re-invent my portfolio with "better" funds. I found my returns have been much more benchmark-beating by holding steady and not trying to make improvements when the market is high.
A post to celebrate my up coming goffing sabbatical. I think one can do both.
One does not have to sell out of their positions to remain long. They can simply sell down their position(s) thus reducing the size of the position itself and thus their allocation while at the same time remaining long in the position itself.
I think it is most difficult for the average investor, like myself, to short and/or use leverage thru margin. Let the pros that you might employ through holding mutual funds do that. If you want to reduce your risk, simply sell down in your more risky positions and rasie your cash allocation. Hopefully, booking some profit along the way.
Anyhow, that's how I see it. And, what I have done.
Skeeter
I agree what MarkM posted above. If is easy to fall into "chasing hot fund" at the top. Personally I like to stick with managers with consistent performance through the ups and downs. In the long run, I tend to beat the benchmark while sleep like a baby. As I recall you have quite a few excellent funds.
I also noticed that EM funds are lagging of late so I have added to (ODMAX). The only fund I have that is not at or near a 52 week high is Janus Overseas(JIGFX) which is about 10% off its 52 week high. I am sure this is do to it's large EM exposure and stock picking. Since this is in my 401 I may double up on this one and take a chance since the cash is not earning much %.
I have a wishlist of funds to buy that exceeed my monies. Be patient grasshopper.
Art
>online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424052748704836204578354410146165172.html?mod=googlenews_barrons#articleTabs_article%3D0 If the article can't be access directly, try google "the next wave barrons" then click on the link directly.
The growing local consumer sector is under-represented in index. Several funds managed to out-performed the index including Wasatch Emerging Small Cap, WAEMX, and others. Unfortunately WAEMX is closed to new investor. However, a newly introduced Wasatch Emerging Market Select, WAESX is available, and it will be managed by Roger Edgley, one of the two co-manager of WAEMX.
Another interesting fund is Thornburg Developing Market, THDIX, which is an all-cap EM fund. This year YTD is ahead of the EM index by 12%. Expense ratio is also very reasonable at 1.09%.
I think Janus Oversea has sizable exposure (41%) to emerging market.
https://fundresearch.fidelity.com/mutual-funds/composition/47103C464
If you are really brave, think about frontier market! Again I will go back to Wasatch.
online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424052748704836204578354410146165172.html?mod=googlenews_barrons#articleTabs_article%3D0
You ask the perennial investors question. No forecaster ever has the absolutely correct answer since nobody is perfectly prescient or omniscient. Wall Street is littered with fallen experts who had momentary success, but failed to repeat.
This is not a current observation. Market forecasting experts have been doing the public a measurable disservice for over 80 years. As early as 1932 Alfred Cowles published his analysis of the inability of forecasters to forecast. Here is a Link to his classic paper:
http://cowles.econ.yale.edu/archive/reprints/forecasters33.pdf
Perhaps the best advice to be given is too not trust professional forecasters of any persuasion.
Bad decisions and Black Swan events happen everywhere. Bad decision making and Black Swan events happen more frequently in both the professional and amateur investment universe.
Indeed I did write "that individual investors make poor timing and product selection decisions". That’s not just me making noise; I am merely reporting investment industry research on investor outcomes.
To put a hard edge to my assertion, allow me to quote a summary conclusion from the 2012 DALBAR QAIB report (their 2013 report which will incorporate data through 2012 will be released shortly).
From DALBAR, their devastating overarching observation is "that individual investors make poor timing and product selection decisions". That’s bad news for the “average” investor. DALBAR finds that the average private equity investor lost 5.73 % in 2011 while the S&P 500 was delivering a plus 2.12 % return. Similarly, the average fixed income investor was only getting a 1.34 % reward while the Barclays aggregate bond market was generating a 7.84% annual return.
The fractional individual investor outcomes relative to what could be achieved from a simple buy-and-hold passive Index investment strategy is persistent over long timeframes. DALBAR demonstrates that the average private investor underperforms these standard benchmarks for 1-year, 3-year, 5-year, 10-year, and 20-year study periods. The average investor plays the Loser’s game. Charles Ellis addresses this issue in his 1998 book “Winning the Loser’s Game”.
Note how I kept emphasizing the “average” investor statistic. I truly do not believe that MFO members are average investors. Although we may not satisfy the Lake Woebegone standard of everyone being above average, I suspect we are as a cohort above the average mutual fund investor. Dissenting opinions to the contrary are invited. That’s why I am at full attention to mutual fund recommendations and analyses offered by MFO itself and MFO participants.
I score my portfolio holdings against relevant benchmarks on a quarterly basis. Like everyone else, even after careful research and review, I have made bad decisions. Although I infrequently adjust my asset allocation, and when I do, I do so in an incremental fashion, I do constantly search to upgrade poorly performing individual fund holdings.
Certainly, if a fund changes its management, or changes its investment strategy (like morphing from a concentrated to a broadly diversified portfolio), or changes its fee structure, or changes its trading frequency, divestiture decisions are easy if these changes nullify my reasons for initially committing to the fund.
Another more common reason is if the questionable fund consistently underperforms its appointed benchmark. This is not quite so easy a decision since the allowable underachieving time span is a debatable issue; the marketplace might just have momentarily gravitated away from the manager’s style.
So I constantly upgrade, but I am not putting any additional money into the markets. I am not moving into fixed income either; the payouts are barely keeping up with inflation. Our family situation likely differs significantly from most present MFO participants, and that difference is important. Our plans and needs are definitely not yours. However, we are not now abandoning the equity marketplace.
Both my wife and I have been taking MRDs (Minimum Required Distributions) for years and our portfolio’s value has continued to increase. Given our ages, our portfolio structure, and our withdrawal rates, the likelihood of our portfolio survival rate based on Monte Carlo simulations approaches 100 % (never exactly 100 % since it’s a probability estimate). Our portfolio can handle a major market hit and we would still not be in a financial danger zone.
Given our circumstances, our decision is to stand fixed with our slightly upgraded portfolio. The majority of the signals that we use to gauge the equity market’s health (momentum, GDP growth, P/E ratio, inflation) remain positive. This year’s early equity gains are a little disquieting, and a minor retrenchment would not be surprising.
Black Swans happen with lightening speed, so dedicated vigilant monitoring is the order of the day. That never changes.
In no way do I recommend our course of current inaction to you guys. Each of you is the captain of your own ship and must plot your own compass headings to reach safe harbor.
Good luck to all of us since bad weather is difficult to forecast with high precision.
Best Regards.
Regards,
Ted
I personally do not find the valuations too excessive and the economic news have been on an upward trend. So, the market can go up more from here. It will certainly not go up in a straight line and there could be a pull back but I am not waiting for one. These things can go up a long time before such pullback happens. If it happens much later you have incurred an opportunity cost. I am not trying to outguess the short term movements.
Basically I am periodically trying to improve the risk return profile without making major asset allocation changes. However, I think I might be a couple percentages higher now vs beginning of the year in equity allocation as one the funds I took money had a lot sitting on cash. I am also slightly higher in foreign allocation again by a few percent vs the beginning of the year.
Regards to all.