Market timing !?!

[Sam]

I know, it's a dirty word. As much as I enjoy watching my mostly stock portfolio setting new highs month after month, I'm also getting concerned. Both S&P500 and Nasdaq have been doing so well since the beginning of 2003. That's about 4 years of continous good performance. Can't help but thinking about getting closer and closer to the end of the upswing.

What does your gut say?

 

[REWahoo]

What does your gut say?

My gut doesn't have much to say about anything but digestion. As to market timing, my 45/55 mix says....it's just about right.

Yep, I'm FIREd, retired, and ridin' my allocation roller coaster to the full stop...

 

[Sam]

My gut doesn't have much to say about anything but digestion. As to market timing, my 45/55 mix says....it's just about right.

Pretty strong gut. Good for you.

 

[Cut-Throat]

My gut tells me to get ready to do nothing. First thing tomorrow, I'm gonna stand pat and not budge an inch.

After the first of the year, I'm going to rebalance, which should take some profits off the table. This would include my REIT index fund that I invested in over 3 years ago. My gut said that this Fund has been going up for years and now I'm going to allocate some money to it, what a fool. Yet another 25% gain this year. I've got all of money that I invested in it 3 years ago back and then some!

 

[yakers]

Since I'm still working a market decline would be a buying opportunity. The question I have is a short, sharp or long, slow decline?

 

[REWahoo]

Pretty strong gut.

Not really. Just 30+ years of learning the hard way that I have no market timing skills.

 

[mathjak107]

me too , i got lucky once or twice market timing but i suck at getting back in.. i have been getting more conservative over the last 2 years but thats more a lifestyle change than market timing.

 

[unclemick]

Vanguard's REIT Index (1998) and Small cap value index

Out of them this year and all in Target 2015 - as part of my campaign to control those pesky hormones.

Still have about 15% in individual stocks - to feed the disease should another outbreak occur.

heh heh heh heh

 

[dmpi]

Forget for a moment, where the market has been. Just look at current valuations.

1. P/E are still resonable.

2. Rates are stable. Maybe trending slightly down.

3. Companies are full of cash. Ready to drive stock buy backs and M&A.

4. Market participation is still far far from mania level.


My advice is quit looking at the charts. Buy when you think its a good value. Sell when its overpriced.
Simple as that.

 

[Spanky]

I made a boo boo: Took REIT and International value (IV) off the table on 10/30. Both have gone up, REIT 6% and IV 4%.

 

[Leonidas]

My guts tell me that I can’t predict where the psycho market will be this time next year. Ten years from now I say it will be up from here – it’s all that uncharted territory between here and there that has me baffled.

But, like Wahoo, CT and Uncle Mick, I’m going to rush right out and get busy doing a lot of nothing.

I’m also rebalancing based on what is right/wrong in my portfolio, because you’ve got to weed out the losers that aren’t going to get better anytime soon. Or, and this is more the case this year, you have to trim back some of the winners just because they’ve become a higher than acceptable percentage of the portfolio. There will be some element of timing, mostly just to look at the sectors to see if I should hang on to something a little longer or sell it now.

My gut feeling is that it will be an okay year ahead. Nothing spectacular either way. Like dmpi I see a lot of positives, but there are some negatives that could be a real drag. But that’s what I was thinking last year, and YTD I’m up something along the lines of a small boatload of money.

I’m going to do my thing based on my timeline and then watch the show.

 

[bpp]

Last year US stocks were underperforming, so all my new money went into them. This year US stocks have remained neutral, with Japanese stocks underperforming (after going nuts last year) and Non-US-non-JP stocks booming (after being neutral last year), so it looks like most new money will be going into Japanese stocks from next month.

Interesting to finally see the three regions I use (JP, US, and Elsewhere) begin to perform differently from each other year-to-year. It seemed like everybody was in lockstep from 2000-2004 or so, so there wasn't much need for rebalancing then.

 

[Bikerdude]

Can't help but thinking about getting closer and closer to the end of the upswing.

What does your gut say?

My gut says the market will go down and then up and then down. You get the point. Get an allocation your comfortable with and then go on with life. Much the same as some others have said.

 

[windsurf]

Yup; been feeling the drip, drip, drip of those hormones. Only it's not testosterone; rather, it's cortisol, the fear/stress hormone. Good news and calm, in my life, has always been interrupted by the jar of some downer. Is that one defintion of life? So, my thoughts have been running to, "Well, what bad thing is about to happen now that everybody is basking in buckets of dough resulting from nothing more than having enough to invest in the corporate band wagon." The last time I had this feeling, I had to spend the next year listening to Bob Brinker brag about his bail out call (of course, that was just before I started paying attention to him). I became a subscriber and promptly lost huge on his QQQ call. Drip, drip, drip.

 

[mountaintosea]

The last time I had this feeling, I had to spend the next year listening to Bob Brinker brag about his bail out call (of course, that was just before I started paying attention to him). I became a subscriber and promptly lost huge on his QQQ call. Drip, drip, drip.

Ah windsurf I too lost on Bob's call of the Qs.

But I think unless something horrible happens ( who can predict?) the market will zigzag on up. We are two years out from the BIG election. I think both sides feel a lot is at steak. Historically the 2 years before the presidential election are up years. 8)

 

[BUM]

Vanguard's REIT Index (1998) and Small cap value index

Out of them this year and all in Target 2015 - as part of my campaign to control those pesky hormones.

Still have about 15% in individual stocks - to feed the disease should another outbreak occur.

heh heh heh heh

Hi mick!

Me too. I think I do what you do...and it works out just fine. I seldom look at or discuss, my and DW's IRA's and SEP's. They are well Vanguarded and I don't tinker with them. I don't expect to touch them for ten or more years.

The 10% thats in "my account"...thats another story! Its my 10/90 allocation. Ten percent of my holdings, ninety percent of my rhetoric.

So back to the thread... yep, I took some bucks off the table last week. Not PFE though, gonna hang in. Didn't buy more. Still in the green for me, so far.

heh

 

[tryan]

I became a subscriber and promptly lost huge on his QQQ call. Drip, drip, drip.

But he put you back in 100% March 11, 2003 .... should have recovered the Q's (and then some).

I use Brinker for my 401 stash ... didn't have access to the Q's so I was protected from myself. :

 

[audreyh1]

We are two years out from the BIG election. I think both sides feel a lot is at steak. Historically the 2 years before the presidential election are up years. 8)

I think that's why the market is going up so much this quarter. EVERYONE knows the next two years should be up years - so they are getting in NOW.

Kind of like how in some years the "January effect" is played out in Nov and Dec.

I'm not saying the next two years are going to be bad, but they very well could be lackluster - or at least not nearly as good as anticipated.

Audrey

 

[TromboneAl]

My gut tells me the market is going to go down soon.

My gut contains partially digested toast, jelly, milk, egg plant parmesan, wine, oatmeal chocolate chip cookie, banana, a vitamin pill, water, almond roca, beer, and a bug that I breathed in and swallowed.

I don't listen to my gut.

 

[Sam]

Very funny TromboneAl. You're sure that's all? Nothing else nasty beside the bug?

Forget for a moment, where the market has been. Just look at current valuations.

1. P/E are still resonable.
2. Rates are stable. Maybe trending slightly down.
3. Companies are full of cash. Ready to drive stock buy backs and M&A.
4. Market participation is still far far from mania level.

My advice is quit looking at the charts. Buy when you think its a good value. Sell when its overpriced.
Simple as that.

That's pretty convincing, dmpi.

But I think unless something horrible happens ( who can predict?) the market will zigzag on up. We are two years out from the BIG election. I think both sides feel a lot is at steak. Historically the 2 years before the presidential election are up years. 8)

I think that's why the market is going up so much this quarter. EVERYONE knows the next two years should be up years - so they are getting in NOW.

Never thought of that. Good point.

 

[Leonidas]

My gut contains partially digested toast, jelly, milk, egg plant parmesan, wine, oatmeal chocolate chip cookie, banana, a vitamin pill, water, almond roca, beer, and a bug that I breathed in and swallowed.

Man, I want to eat breakfast at Al's place. Except for that bug thing, eck.

 

[audreyh1]

Interesting year so far.

I did my fund rebalancing in late April/early May this year. The stock market then promptly sold off. It wasn't quite enough to trigger my rebalancing again so soon though. The equity portion of my allocation has just caught back up to where it was before the selloff.

The bond portion keeps stumping me too. I see these (seemingly) ridiculously low bond yields and I keep thinking that I must need to trim bonds (by not reinvesting the monthly dividends). But every time I check, my bond fund percent is just about where it should be (or just under). The thing is that even as bonds have gone up in value (down in yield), the stock market has gone up even more - just enough to keep everything in balance!

So I'm just doing a whole lot of nothing! (Expect that I'm not reinvesting distributions in my REIT funds - that should trim them back to par, and a few other equity funds which are above allocation).

Audrey

 

[Patrick]

I did my fund rebalancing in late April/early May this year. The stock market then promptly sold off. It wasn't quite enough to trigger my rebalancing again so soon though. The equity portion of my allocation has just caught back up to where it was before the selloff.

As more and more people become active in indexing and rebalancing, it will begin to affect the market, right? As people sell off their winners that will drive those prices down. And as people buy the laggards that will drive those prices up. Then, won't we need to rebalance earlier and earlier in order to make our changes before the adverse affect of the herd strikes?

 

[REWahoo]

As more and more people become active in indexing and rebalancing, it will begin to affect the market, right? As people sell off their winners that will drive those prices down. And as people buy the laggards that will drive those prices up. Then, won't we need to rebalance earlier and earlier in order to make our changes before the adverse affect of the herd strikes?

The impact of the relative few who actually follow the tenets of indexing and periodic rebalancing (rather than listening to their gut and attempting to time the market) will be so small that it will likely have little effect. When it comes to market drivers, think fear and greed, not logic and need...

 

[Cut-Throat]

As more and more people become active in indexing and rebalancing, it will begin to affect the market, right? As people sell off their winners that will drive those prices down. And as people buy the laggards that will drive those prices up. Then, won't we need to rebalance earlier and earlier in order to make our changes before the adverse affect of the herd strikes?

This reminds me of the Yoggi Berra saying that "It's so crowded there, that no one goes there anymore"