That was fun!
I didn’t think I’d see a return so quick.
I’ve been selling a little here/there all year as the market was going up from funds that I was over allocated in.
During the dip, I bought funds that I was under allocated in all the way down and part of the way back up. Of course not all $$ was put in at the bottom – most was put in before hitting the bottom. The market has been so stingy with it’s pull backs this year I was a little eager to pull the trigger. But due to the possibility that it may continue dropping – I just buy a little at a time. I was ready to buy more if it continued down.
One fund that I’m over allocated in is back up to a lifetime high and I’ve already started selling again.
A cool
thing about the recovery is not everything is recovered. So some funds are at a point that I am selling and others are at a point that I’m buying. For the most part US large cap equities are more than recovered. Most of my US small cap funds still have a little way to go yet. My international funds still have quite a bit of ground to make up from the dip (I’m still adding to some of those).
I’ve recently (this year) added some specialty funds (small % of portfolio) for diversification (something other than bonds that might not go the same way as the rest of the market). The equity specialties I currently have are energy, utility, REIT (US), REIT (global), and Precious Metals.
The shining star through the dip was the utility play. It didn’t really participate on the down side at all, but it has soared upward during the recovery.
The REITs also provided some assistance during the dip – they didn’t follow all the way down – they started recovering sooner than the rest of the market and are well above were they were before the “correction”.
My energy fund tanked hard. It was already down 10% before the US market correction started. I’ve added to that fund 4 times during it’s decent including at the bottom (23% off peak). It has started to push back up a little, but it has a long way to go.
Precious metals started the downhill slide early and is still tanking. I sold a little in August around this year’s high and have bought 4 times on the way down (may buy more if it keeps trending down). May or may not be the right move, but it is currently down 26% from where I sold and I can’t help myself (do I need to call the GA hotline?). If it recovers, I’ll sell some of it because I probably have more in it than I’d like (currently a little over 1% of total portfolio value). I’m definitely not a “gold bug” – never owned a fund like this until this year. Of all the funds I own, I might need to call this fund gambling instead of investing (I don’t know the rational of why it does what it does except for emotion or maybe the roll of the dice). The volatility it has shown this year is fun, so I’ll keep it for the sheer entertainment value. It didn’t help at all for this dip, but I still think it offers a diversification potential for upward movement if (make that when) something happens to really rattle the markets.
I took no action, other than yawning.
