Sunday 18 August 2019

Possibly The Worst Time to Invest – 5 Years On

US-China trade wars, Hong Kong protests, US yield curve inversion, etc. You probably would be thinking now is a bad time to invest. I had the same feelings 5.5 years ago in Dec 2013, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average was then near an all-time high and interest rates near an all-time low. You can read more about it in Possibly The Worst Time to Invest. Nevertheless, I still went ahead to initiate a plain vanilla passive portfolio comprising 70% in global equities and 30% in global bonds. In 2015, I also added a more spicy passive portfolio comprising 70% in US equities and 30% in Asian bonds.

Each year, I would blog about whether that decision in Dec 2013 turned out to be correct or not. Each year, the blog post would say the passive portfolios were up and there is inherent defence mechanism to manage the fearsome stock market crashes through portfolio rebalancing. These once-a-year blog posts on this series almost sound like a broken record.

This year, the plain vanilla portfolio is up by 39.5% since inception 5.5 years ago, while the spicy portfolio is up by 34.7% since inception 4 years ago. You can read about last year's figures in Possibly The Worst Time to Invest – 4 Years On.

Each year, there are bound to be events that worry us and stop us from investing. But each year, the stock market would somehow manage to shrug off the worrisome events and continue its upwards march, reaching new highs which previously seemed unimaginable along the way. A couple of years later, would you still remember the events that stopped you from investing? Do you still remember the taper tantrum in 2013, the threat of Grexit and yuan devaluation in 2015, the shock Brexit vote and US presidential election in 2016? Some of these events have faded from memory, and some people might wonder what was the fuss that stopped anyone from investing in 2013/ 2015/ 2016, etc. But when these events were playing out, the mood was cautious and the stock markets were falling. A couple of years from now, would most people still remember the US-China trade wars, Hong Kong protests and US yield curve inversion that are causing the stock markets to drop currently?

There will be a time when the stock market crash really arrives. But no one can predict reliably when it will arrive. The best way to deal with it is not to stop investing, but to have a good defence mechanism in place while investing.


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4 comments:

  1. This is a very good & practical account of how time in the market is better than timing the market. Thank you!

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    Replies
    1. The more boring the better. My friend. Any way to have a look on your later portfolios..

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    2. Hi Andrew,

      The plain vanilla portfolio comprises the following funds:
      - Infinity Global Stock Index Fund
      - Schroder ISF Global Corporate Bond Fund

      The spicy portfolio comprises the following funds:
      - Infinity US 500 Stock Index Fund
      - Fullerton Asian Bond Fund

      You can read more about the plain vanilla portfolio in The Passive Portfolio.

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