A Lesson on Locking in Losses: Remember Buy Low and Sell High (or Never)...

-
US REIT Index Fund-FSRVX 1 Year Performance


Towards the end of January I decided to rid myself of my REIT index fund, FSRVX, and exchange half of it for an Emerging Market Fund, FPMIX, and a Total International Market Fund, FSGDX.  At the time I rationalized that I had very little international exposure in my portfolio and I was tired of my REIT fund’s under performance-I believe it was down around 6% at the time I sold.  If I’m honest, I was probably chasing last year’s outstanding returns for international funds. The financial news media’s chatter about Amazon being the death of the American Mall, and thus Retail REITs, finally caused me to give in.  And of course, six months later my Emerging Market fund is down -7.7% YTD, my Total International Fund is down -4.8%, and the REIT I sold is up 1.2%.  So you see-I sold my REIT when it was down, locking in losses, and bought two international funds just as they were about to lose value.  

Emerging Market Index Fund - FPMIX 1 Year Performance

Total International Market Index Fund - FSGDX 1 Year Performance

Learn from my mistake-buying high and selling low is always a losing proposition.  Thankfully I’m pretty diversified in other assets that have helped to counter my mistake-my NASDAQ and small cap funds are doing pretty well YTD.

Investment Rules:
  1. Buy and Hold-I should have kept my REIT fund and put new money into emerging markets
  2. Never sell an underperforming, widely diversified index fund-eventually the market recovers and you just locked in your losses by selling.
  3. I could have bought the underperforming fund-buy low, high-buy when the market is on sale
  4. Never chase last year’s performance-I bought the international funds just after a huge run-up last year.  They'll eventually recover so I won’t compound my mistake by selling them at a loss-I’ll keep buying more shares now that they're discounted.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Million Dollar 401k – Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

-
Image
Every few months the financial press releases an article on the increasing number of 401k millionaires.“Number of 401k Millionaires reaches all time high”“41% increase in number of million dollar 401k accounts”.  The standard advice is offered on achieving this milestone-401k millionaires stay at the same job for years, are high earners, save enough to get a company match-in fact up to 15% of their earnings, and start saving at an early age.Easy right? Of course the ~150,000 401k millionaires at Fidelity represent less than 1% of their total number of retirement accounts.If it’s so easy why is the average American’s retirement savings only $95k?
The average salary in the United States is $56,000 before taxes.Federal taxes drop that number down another 20% (assuming you live in a no state income tax state). After housing-$12,000 rent, transportation $9,000, food $6,000, health care $4,000, and miscellaneous expenses $5-$10,000 there’s not much left for retirement savings.Add in the un…
Read more

Fidelity's New Zero Funds - Free Index Fund Investing Is Here!

-
Image
I have to admit I was excited when Fidelity announced their new Zero Index Funds.  They now offer new Total Market, International, Extended Market, and Large Cap Index Funds with zero annual expenses.  This is a fantastic development for long term passive investors like myself.  Over the long term, the expenses charged by fund managers can significantly eat into an investor’s returns.  For instance, $10,000 invested in the an S&P 500 index fund over 30 years at an 10% rate of return will have a final portfolio value of $174,494.02.  If that mutual fund were to charge 1% in fees, the annual return lowers to 9%.  After 30 years the portfolio would be worth only $132,676.78.  That’s a significant loss incurred by the investor. 
So why is Fidelity foregoing profits to help out the little guy investor?  Trust me they’re not-the idea is steal market share from other brokerages like Vanguard and Schwab.  Also, most investors don’t just invest in a single fund-while they’re perusing the F…
Read more