LOL!'s Market Timing Newsletter

Equities are overweighted, so exchange some FUSEX (S&P500 index) to FBIDX (total bond index) today.

VSS (bought on 12/27) is up 11.9%
FSEMX (sold on 12/27) is up 08.6%
 
perrytime said:
thanks for post, keep them coming. Do you look at stoch charts to influence when you trade?
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No, I do not look at stock charts. I have an asset allocation plan and follow that. It is really very simple. The plan forces me to buy on bad days and consider selling on good days.
 
With portfolio reaching a new all-time round-number, it is time to rebalance over the next few days. It just seems that my need to take risk is lower than last month.

Today submit order to exchange some money from S&P500 index fund to US Bond Index fund in the 401(k), so no tax consequences. This is the first transaction in 3 months.
 
A stock I have held since 2005 hit my target on Friday and I sold half. The other half is on the block if it goes another $5 a share higher.
 
LOL! said:
With portfolio reaching a new all-time round-number, it is time to rebalance over the next few days. It just seems that my need to take risk is lower than last month.

Today submit order to exchange some money from S&P500 index fund to US Bond Index fund in the 401(k), so no tax consequences. This is the first transaction in 3 months.
Click to expand...

Funny, I'm just $3K short of my "new all-time round number" too. Congrats to us both!
 
I just rebalanced and took some money off the table and topped up my living expenses "bucket" to about 2 years worth of expenses. I'll admit that I'm concerned the market will be stagnant for the rest of the year given its recent run and that view, along with my AA being a bit out of whack, prompted the rebalancing.
 
fun reading the postings of the past year or so.......I just buy a little each month, double down when the market drops......I think of it like buying extra at the supermarket when they have a sale......heavy in TE bonds, they've done well.....heavy in index funds.....they've done well....low taxes, low fees, low worries....am I missing anything?
 
With yesterday's 3.6% drop in VWO (emerging markets index fund) along with the overall drop in things since the last transaction on May 1, and no good news on the horizon, it's time to buy. So bought some a moment ago.
 
I have been buying VSS. It pays a dividend of 3%.

Soon, will need to raise cash by selling some high-fliers. Like Kimberly-Clark for example.

I do not have problems with buying low, but selling high is difficult. So, I compromise by selling call options, trying to squeeze a few more % out of well-performing stocks that I keep clinging on to.
 
NW-Bound said:
So, I compromise by selling call options, trying to squeeze a few more % out of well-performing stocks that I keep clinging on to.
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I love doing that, but it takes some time to figure out what the price of the call option "should" be.
 
LOL! said:
With yesterday's 3.6% drop in VWO (emerging markets index fund) along with the overall drop in things since the last transaction on May 1, and no good news on the horizon, it's time to buy. So bought some a moment ago.
Click to expand...
Sold these new VWO positions at the close today for about 4% gain.
 
[-]Day[/-] Week trading, aren't we?

I am not selling nor buying anything today. I do not do that well even "month trading". My shortest holding periods have been around 6 months to a year. And I often wished I held some stocks quite a bit longer. In fact still held some stocks I acquired ever since I started buying individual stocks instead of MF, more than 10 years ago.

My portfolio turnover is even lower than Wellesley. But I look at the market daily, and constantly ponder the question of buying/selling. It is not the actual buying/selling, but market watching with the potential trade in mind that I call myself "market timing".
 
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I am not complaining.

It's just that I realized your scale of time was shorter than mine, though we are both timing the same thing.
 
Had a 401(k) loan "come due" as my spouse's company was bought out. So sold some equity shares to raise cash to pay it off.

Chose shares from VSS (small-cap foreign), VWO (large-cap emerging markets) and an S&P500 fund to sell in order to keep the net realized cap gain as small as possible.
No taxes will be due since carryover losses will offset any gains anyways, but I think it's best to save carryover losses until you really need them.

The timing part is that I did this today when the market was having a great DJIA +200 points day even though I could've waited a few days. If the market had been down today, I would've waited to sell.
 
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LOL! said:
With portfolio reaching a new all-time round-number, it is time to rebalance over the next few days. It just seems that my need to take risk is lower than last month.

Today submit order to exchange some money from S&P500 index fund to US Bond Index fund in the 401(k), so no tax consequences. This is the first transaction in 3 months.
Click to expand...
Deja vu. Time to rebalance again with portfolio at new all-time high plus news of Romney's VP choice.

Today submit order to exchange some money from S&P500 index fund to US Bond Index fund in the 401(k), so no tax consequences.
 
Deja vu too! Hit a nice round number and all time high two weeks ago. Small rebalance for now.
 
Astute readers will note that the last 2 sales of equities noted in this newsletter on 7/13 and 8/13 were ill-timed.

Since 7/13, the S&P500 is up about 6.7%, VWO is up about 7.7%, and VSS is up about 9.5%.

Since 8/13, the S&P500 is up about 2.9%.

The market has been roughly flat for the past 2 weeks. Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure readers are sitting on all-time portfolio-highs right now.

What to do? Take some winnings and spend it on a nice vacation. :)
 
Not I. I am still below my all-time high set back in April/May 2011, having too much of material and foreign stocks.

Of course I am way above the low of November 2011. Man, looking back, I was down several hundred Gs between the above time marks. It just aches to think what I could have had if I knew how to time the market, even if imperfectly.
 
As noted in this other thread http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f28/any-upside-in-the-next-6-months-63244.html I will be changing my asset allocation from 31% fixed income to 40% fixed income. I started the process a moment ago by submitting an order to exchange from an S&P500 index fund to a US Total Bond Index fund in my 401(k). The amount is about 1% of net worth, so it will take a few more exchanges to complete the move to 40% fixed income.

I will try to sell equities on "up" days, though today may not end that way. I plan to move not only US large-cap (like today's exchange), but also US small-cap, Foreign large, and Foreign small-cap to bonds over the next while.

And if there are any big single-day drops in equities, I will buy equities with the intention of holding only for a short while in order to catch a pop back up.
 
With yesterday's drop in VBR (small-cap value) of more than 2.5%, I was compelled to purchase some shares. I sold some VCSH (short-term corporate bond index) in order to raise money for the VBR shares.

I intend for this to be a short-term trade and will sell these VBR shares within a week or two whether they go up or down.
 
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