Poll:What percentage of your equities are market timed?

[Lsbcal]

Most will probably say zero here. But some investors set up a percentage of their stocks that would go to zero if a big decline starts (or using some other scheme). They might just reduce the percentage if a moving average is breached but not necessarily to zero equities. Also some could move parts of their portfolio around to different equity asset classes over fairly short time periods. Some people want to have "dry powder" for occasional bargains (as perceived by them).

The timing could be day trading, monthly, etc.

Timing here does *not* include rebalancing your portfolio.

 

[pb4uski]

The only market timing that I do is what I call "opportunistic" rebalancing.... if stocks have has a strong, brief run then I might rebalance... or when stocks went down right after Brexit I rebalanced... it is just when I "feel" that markets have overreacted I might rebelance... it probably doesn't amount to a hill of beans but it is cheap entertainment

 

[haha]

I think it is not possible to know this. If it happens, you will then know that that particular equity went to zero. Obvious candidates are options.
Ha

 

[Lsbcal]

You need to make this poll a poll.

Were you viewing this as I was editing it? Hope it is properly a poll now.

 

[REWahoo]

Were you viewing this as I was editing it? Hope it is properly a poll now.

+1

When I saw all the choices outlined in your post I thought you wanted post responses rather than poll responses. All is good now...

 

[MichaelB]

Just so I understand, the question is "what percentage of my equity allocation would I change based on some market timing methodology"? In other words, if my equity allocation is 60%, and based on some timing based formula I would take it down to 30%, my response here should be 50% or 30%?

 

[easysurfer]

The mark of Zero for me.

 

[Lsbcal]

Just so I understand, the question is "what percentage of my equity allocation would I change based on some market timing methodology"? In other words, if my equity allocation is 60%, and based on some timing based formula I would take it down to 30%, my response here should be 50% or 30%?

That would be 50%. You could round it 40% or 60% since the increments are in 20% jumps. We are only considering equities in this calculation.


I made the increments fairly large so as to make this easy to read and respond to.

 

[MichaelB]

That would be 50%. You could round it 40% or 60% since the increments are in 20% jumps. We are only considering equities in this calculation.


I made the increments fairly large so as to make this easy to read and respond to.

Got it, thanks.

 

[scrabbler1]

I'm with pb4uski. When my desired AA has deviated far enough from my actual AA, then I rebalance. Usually, I need to se at least a 5% deviation to make a move. That being said, I have made about 20 such moves in the last 10 years after I ERed. Most of them are in my IRA because there are no tax consequences and because my investment horizon is longer-term than my taxable portfolio. Also, my taxable portfolio is more income oriented, so I don't strive to sick to a specific AA.

 

[RunningBum]

Most will probably say zero here. But some investors set up a percentage of their stocks that would go to zero if a big decline starts (or using some other scheme). They might just reduce the percentage if a moving average is breached but not necessarily to zero equities. Also some could move parts of their portfolio around to different equity asset classes over fairly short time periods. Some people want to have "dry powder" for occasional bargains (as perceived by them).

One never knows when a big decline is starting. Some may be able to predict a big decline better than others, and some may think they know, but nobody really knows. Once you know for sure, the decline has happened, and at that point you'd probably be increasing equities (for the recovery) rather than decreasing.

 

[Car-Guy]

These days, 100% of my equities are market timed and come out of bucket #2 or my discretionary dollars. I've made 25+ trades so far this year and I am still holding equities from "exactly" three of those. Longest time held was about 90 days, shortest was about a hour or so. Example I've traded over 50k shares of GE in the past month or so. Most of my long term investments are in bucket #1 and are in fixed income instruments.

 

[NW-Bound]

Answered 20% because that's what I think I will do, depending on market condition.

In the past, I did as high as 40%, if memory serves. That number also included a lot of shuffling between sectors.

 

[Dtail]

Still deciding on an allocation between 50 and 55% overall equities, but for purposes of this survey will vote zero.

 

[marko]

I don't consider myself a timer, but when there is a big market drop I try to increase my shares of a down fund that I find myself saying "I wish I had bought more back then".

It's my chance to go back in time and correct my shortsightedness or my needs may have changed.

 

[Lsbcal]

I don't consider myself a timer, but when there is a big market drop I try to increase my shares of a down fund that I find myself saying "I wish I had bought more back then".

It's my chance to go back in time and correct my shortsightedness or my needs may have changed.

In some ways I would agree that this is not quite market timing. But on balance if you are using price signals to get in or out, I think that would be strictly speaking "market timing". Now if you are doing it with <10% of the equities, it would still count as zero in this poll.

 

[marko]

In some ways I would agree that this is not quite market timing. But on balance if you are using price signals to get in or out, I think that would be strictly speaking "market timing". Now if you are doing it with <10% of the equities, it would still count as zero in this poll.

Most definitely under 10%; more like 1% or 2%, but I may do that 4 or 5 times a year depending on the number of downturns.

I am sort of doing the same thing as a market timer but perhaps with a different intent.

 

[Lsbcal]

Most definitely under 10%; more like 1% or 2%, but I may do that 4 or 5 times a year depending on the number of downturns.

I am sort of doing the same thing as a market timer but perhaps with a different intent.

Bless you my son. You are not a market timer and thus will enter the pearly gates as your reward.

 

[Lsbcal]

I would not have thought the percentage of people doing some market timing would hit 25%. Or could this poll be attracting more market timer leaning individuals then buy-hold ones?

 

[Rianne]

We typically do not market time. But I think around Feb 2016 Dow went down to somewhere high 16000, low 17000, we had a nice bundle of cash and bought VG total stock market. That was a bit scary, but worked out for us. We have not done that since and probably will not do that again.

 

[Al18]

I have a hard time believing most who answered the poll said 0%. What if you are planning 5% - do you vote 0% or 20%? I assumed the later and voted 20%

 

[pb4uski]

I dunno. Perhaps I misinterpreted the question. My equities target is 60% and I rebalance to that 60% either annually or in some cases opportunistically in certain circumstances. I don't have any part of my investments that I play the market or in some way try to time the market. I don't have any stated % for rebalancing. So I answered 0% since I only rebalance index funds.

 

[Lsbcal]

I dunno. Perhaps I misinterpreted the question. My equities target is 60% and I rebalance to that 60% either annually or in some cases opportunistically in certain circumstances. I don't have any part of my investments that I play the market or in some way try to time the market. I don't have any stated % for rebalancing. So I answered 0% since I only rebalance index funds.

That's what I intended. Rebalancing is not market timing for this poll.

 

[RunningBum]

I have a hard time believing most who answered the poll said 0%. What if you are planning 5% - do you vote 0% or 20%? I assumed the later and voted 20%

5% seems like too little to make any meaningful difference in my portfolio, with too much trouble to try to figure out the markets. Not sure why 0 is hard to believe.

 

[Lsbcal]

So far 70 votes.


25% do some amount of market timing.