Sunday, September 7, 2014

401K Sellers Remorse 9/6/14

It is time for my monthly 401K analysis. Having exited my 401K accounts on the last exit signal (shown as a blue bubble in the chart below for SPY), I missed out on about a 3% increase in the markets. And if I had followed the monthly systems recommendations to keep money in the strongest funds, that increase would have been more. Do I have seller’s remorse… yes I do have seller’s remorse. This arises from exiting and then finding the market rises after the dip. It makes me think of ignoring the technical systems.  But after one dip too many the markets can suddenly start ripping downwards and catch me on the wrong side of the tracks. My only salvation is that I am still invested in stocks and funds in my R/IRA accounts based on individual entry signals. Still, I have to do some rethinking as my current approach may be too cautious.

In my current employer’s 401K the strongest funds are Spartan Ext market, WFA SPL MidCap VL and Fidelity Puritan..
In my previous employer’s 401K the top funds are Lazard Emerging market, Cohen & Steers Realty and Domini Social fund.


One approach I will consider is from Taleb. If I were to focus on trading Lazard Emerging Markets using a slow timing signal and a smaller portion of the account could I achieve lower volatility and similar gains than using all my account and putting it all under risk in the event of a catastrophic event? And yes… there is a minor entry signal on LZEMX now.






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