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Investment
Management & Timing |
| Where you are trying to go Investment Planning: Investor's CalcStation | How you are going to get there Portfolio Management: Investor's WorkStation | How well you have done Modified Dietz Performance Calculator: PerfCalc | mhj3.com Home | Contact Us | Free 30-Day Software Trials | Prices/Order Management and timing are everything; when you choose to walk across the street, what and when you buy at the store, the best time of year to buy a car, when to/not to stick your hand in the press, when to buy a house, the selection of a play in football when the outcome of the game is on the line, when a golf club releases when trying to hit a golf ball, and, most certainly and most importantly, what stock you buy and when you buy it and what stock you sell and when you sell it. The very notion of 'timing' is an active instinct in all of us as we seek the best price and certainly is a more desirable thought process than simply passively deciding to succumb to the notion that you will simply get what you get on the day you just happen to buy/sell and that there is little or nothing you can do about when, the time, you should try to do it. Timing implies that at least the effort is being made to buy/sell on your terms and not the sellers/buyers terms; your best price not theirs; over the long term, a significant edge. Most of all, those who do strive or just happen to act at the best time achieve the best results. Yes, Brinson's Asset Allocation states, "It was further concluded that the selection of individual investments and investment timing, an investment strategy, had little to do with investment performance." Absurd! Sure, Websites are replete with statistics about how most money managers cannot time investing and do not beat the averages.
Therefore, the conventional and (un)inspired investment advising and investing wisdom of the day is to have investment advisors and investors, in effect, concede that neither one of them has the management skills nor the qualifications to manage investments and time investing and that, therefore, the best solution is that investors should buy unmanaged investments to eliminate investment management and timing; great concept, take all of your hard earned capital and invest it for the future without managing your capital or timing your buy/hold/sell investing decisions. Imagine the medical profession or, better yet, the NASA space shuttle program concluding that all management and timing considerations will forthwith be scuttled for all surgeries and for all efforts to reach the moon and beyond. Present the concept at your next office meeting (maybe the best timing would be just when you are up for a promotion to upper management) or put it in the suggestion box, unsigned of course, that the corporation should eliminate management entirely and forget about being concerned about the timing as to when a new product is to be introduced or when an acquisition should be made. Try explaining that "market and investment timing is a fools game," that "trying to time the market sucks in a lot of suckers," as stated by the new breed of Wall Street wizards, or that timing is a waste of time to those who owned Enron or to those who still own GM or F who might have been aware, not easy, that investment timing is as important as investment time and that they could have, by recognizing those facts, had a better time by selling and owning, let's say, Goggle (I know, an exceptional case but just for illustration purposes) rather than to hold investments whose time had come and gone; at least for the time being. Imagine going to Warren Buffett and suggesting to him that to improve investing performance he should no longer manage or attempt to time his investments. Finally, to say that investment timing cannot be done, therefore, don't try and, therefore, investors will be better off with untimed, unmanaged investments is to conclude that the variables that determine how well investment timing is done, can't be (learned) done. Those very 'manageable' and very learnable investment selection, portfolio management, and and investment timing control variables to mention a few include investing judgment, knowledge, and skills, investment selection and portfolio management disciplines, rules, and procedures, market and investment strengths, weaknesses, directions, and momentum, deteriorating or improving investment fundamentals, allocate, rebalance, blend, and reallocate investment portfolios, and buy and sell, accumulate and distribute, dollar-cost-average, price alerts, investment sector alerts, and stop orders.
Based on the unmanaged, untimed investing theory, a better investing performance solution for the advocates of such wisdom would be that rather than don't manage investing and don't time investing...don't invest! Those who suggest that timing is not possible are the masses of undisciplined investment advising and investing weak who have given little substantive or procedural thought about when to buy or when to sell, who are unwilling to accept all of the responsibilities of advising and investing, who are willing to accept being average, and who are unwilling to accept that they can make an investment mistake—as they watch their investments plummet—while seeking solace by stating that statistics have determined that investment timing cannot be done in order to avoid having to make an investment timing decision as to when to buy or when to sell an investment. Remember, the greatest perk of the financial markets is liquidity—the best of the 'investment timing tools' of the financial markets; the ability to buy and to sell in moments; patience, price trends, market trends, company growth and profits, and economic cycles being the other investment timing tools. Liquidity enables investors to 'time' the markets because they can buy and sell at any time as they try to take action at the best time to minimize the impact of timing mistakes and to try again when the time seems better. The results, more often than not, will be doing better than the stubborn investor ('I've got to save that commission; so, I'll put 99% of my capital at extreme risk so as not to have any risk that I will have to pay a 1% commission.') who does not try to time the markets and who sticks with his/her initial investment decision—regardless of the fact that the reasons for making the investment in the first place have changed—with the long-term hope that time will somehow come to the rescue and bail him/her out; which may or may not ever happen. Remember, 50% down means 100% back up just to break even; a daunting task and an unnecessary, unpardonable, and undisciplined investment performance error. Investing is more about timing, markets and individual investments, than any other investment selection consideration because it is the primary determinant of investment success. |