To address the concerns of investors that mutual funds are not adaptable enough to hold their own in a down market, a number of funds have taken a more dynamic approach to portfolio allocation and have begun to time the market by shifting in between cash and regular investments on a frequent basis. The managers of these funds claim to outsmart the volatility of the market.
This strategy has worked for some funds, such as Ivy Asset Strategy, which has made 14.9% annually for the five years ended this November (about 14% above the S&P 500). For other funds, attempts to time the market have led to increased volatility. For example, the Encompass Fund used the strategy of jumping in between allocation to cash and allocation to investments. It fell 62% last year and gained 110% this year.
Additional problems with the timing the market as a mutual fund are higher transaction costs due to the increase in trading and the possibility that the fund goes to cash before a market rally.
Regardless, these types of funds add some much-needed variety to the predominately buy-and-hold mutual fund market and should be considered in a down market for investors that don’t actively manage their portfolio.
-Erik Ringo – Group 11
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I would like to comment about all of the traders out their being overly concerned about indexes like the standard and poors five hundred. Why not concentrate your efforts on a concenrtated narrow sector though exchange traded funds. Their are now over fifty single country funds available and maybe over 100 narrow sectors like airlines steel solar so why the concern for the nasdaq or the standard and poor five hunderd each one of these countries and sectors is a index of and by itself. The solar exchange traded fund {TAN} is now down 90% from its high in 2007. If I were an investor or trader. I would simply look for any exchange traded fund or closed end fund that does not use any leverage in their portfolios and start buying after their is a 75% decline from its all time high' and than buy twice as much if that exchange traded fund or closed end fund declines another five percent an 80% decline from its all time high' buy twice as much at a 85% decline from its all time high buy twice as much at a 90% decline from its all time high' and finally buy twice as much at a 95% decline from its all time high. Now I know that some of these funds will not decline 90% from their all time highs maybe not even 80%. Another thing that you might be wondering about I would run out of money If I followed that method right wrong. Example take one hundred thousand dollars. Buy 500 dollars of xyz fund at 25 dollars off 75% from its all time high of 100 dollars. Buy 1000 dollars of xyz at 20 dollars off 80% from its all time high of 100 dollars. Buy 2000 dollars of xyz at 15 dollars off 85% from its all time high of 100 dollars Buy 4000 dollars of xyz at 10 dollars off 90% from its all ltime high and finally Buy 8000 dollars of xyz at 5 dollars off 95% from its all time high for a total of 15500 about 15 percent of total cash assets. I am giving an example here the actual investment amount for an exchange traded fund or closed end fund that you are investing in would be the percentage of cash in the account not the percentage of both equities and cash combined.. The investment percentage for each fund would be based on the cash portion of your total portfolio at any given moment in time simply because the dollar amount of cash in the account would change fairly often, So if you have 40% of your portifolio in cash you would use that as your basis for determining your allocation not the total value of both cash and equities. The idea is to have your biggest positions in the funds that have declined the most and the smallest positions in the funds that have declined the least. Also keep in mind when you buy an exchange traded fund you are buying a basket of stocks so the fund cannot go to zero unlike a stock.Than when any fund has regained three quarters of its value that would be 75 dollars in the case of eyz use a 10% trailing stop loss to protect your gains. Who knows you may sell out of the fund with in 90% of its all time high. And their you have it a simple but brilliant strategy. Also keep in mind that you will have tremendous diversification using this method which would mean you could easily employ some leverage in the form of buying on margin. Even without margin I believe that this could be one of the greastest investment methods of all time you will be almost assured of crushing the performance of the standard and poors five hundred. The.Only thing that could change this outcome would be a great worldwide depression.
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