Investmentiming


	Home PRESS COMMENTS INVESTMENTmatters NEWSLETTER WEEKLY MARKETS NEWSLETTER Information on this Site Provided by:- Money Management (Bermuda) Ltd.			Buy & Hold OR Investmentimer To be a successful investor, you need a long term perspective and the ability to ignore short term movements, sometimes known as market noise. However, markets move in cycles and one investor's long term perspective may be somewhat different from another investor. Furthermore, after an extended up trend, shorter term 'noise' may be the warning of an extended downtrend developing or vice versa, a downswing developing into a new bull market. Buy and Hold advocates state that it is near impossible to market time and that over a long time horizon, most investments provide superior real returns and also save on dealing costs involved with shorter term trading. Tell that to the US investor of who had to wait 25 years until 1954 in inflation adjusted terms to retrieve the capital invested. Other examples would be the UK investor of 1973 who, in inflation adjusted terms had to wait until 1984 to retrieve the capital invested or, in the not too distant past, the Japanese investor who, having invested in 1989 when the Nikkei 225 index was approaching the 40,000 level is still down 50% some 11 years later! Click to view the US 1966-1994 Buy & Hold graph Investmentiming fans believe in their ability, usually aided by Technical Analysis, to trade markets or securities many times during a bull or bear phase, hence maximizing the profits whilst avoiding the inevitable corrections. This may be true for the investor who is continually glued to the computer screen and market ticker, who never take vacations or have any kind of life, but for most investors this commitment is unacceptable. Critics of Investmentiming state that past history has shown that markets often recover quickly, even from quite dramatic falls and that missing the sharp rises in the market by just a few days can significantly reduce your returns. By sympathizing with both of these views, Investmentimer.com seeks to combine a shorter term and longer term perspective, enabling the astute investor to achieve adequate reward, with low volatility and less stress. As the following chart demonstrates, a buy and hold strategy of an investor tracking the UK's FTA All Share Index, would have turned a £10,000 investment made in June 1997 into £12,720 by October 1999. Hover your mouse cursor over different areas of the graph for detailed information:- By executing four in number trades, as provided by Investmentimer.com, the result over the same period would have been to turn £10,000 into £14,345, an improvement of £1595 or put another way, a 43% gain vs. 27% (Dealing Costs excluded). Furthermore, had the 3rd Quarter 1998 correction been something worse, then Investmentimer.com would have kept you out of the carnage!

Buy & Hold OR Investmentimer