John
Authers’ Long View article in the FT this weekend addresses market
timing. While he claims that just passive
investors are such bad timers, we would go further: most are.
Attempts to time the market (choosing the right moment to
buy or sell into risk assets) are a mug’s game.
Great for brokerages that delight in investors’ fees levied to
senselessly overtrade. Bad for investor’s
portfolio outcomes. Despite the annual
survey by Dalbar that investors’ attempts to time the market is really bad
for their portfolio, people – including some portfolio managers – still try and
have a go.
The problem is that in timing the market, we become slaves
to our behavioural biases around entry points, and the noise around market sentiment. An investor fearing Brexit might have – out of
emotion – sold everything to cash stocked up on gold sovereigns and run for the
hills whilst tracing Irish ancestry. The
smart thing was to acknowledge sterling weakness and increase their allocation
to FTSE100
exposure where companies have predominantly foreign earnings.
So what do you do if you don’t want to time? The answer’s simple: have a rule. If you’re moving from holding one portfolio
of risk assets to another (e.g. switching managers). There’s no point trying to time – switching on
a relevant valuation point (e.g. month or quarter end) keeps you “in the game”
and allows you to reset the performance measurement clock.
If you’re moving from 100% cash to a 100% non-cash portfolio
of equities and bonds, it’s slightly different: your entry point has a huge
impact on long-term value of your portfolio.
In this instance, I would want to “average in”, either by allocating
1/12th of the capital each month into the proposed portfolio, or a
quarter of the capital each quarter. By using "pound cost averaging” - your entry point is exactly that: an average.
But that’s better than flipping a coin on the
vicissitudes of Mr. Market.
NOTICES: I/we have
no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions
within the next 72 hours. I wrote this
article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving
compensation for it.
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Hi - I don't claim that only passive investors are bad timers - just that the latest evidence suggests they are even worse than holders of active funds. Thanks for the shout-out. Best wishes, John Authers
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