Investment Research - The Dalbar Study
Very few people, even professionals, have heard of the Dalbar Study that originated in 1995. Its purpose is to determine the profitability of trading for the small investor of mutual funds. Their results are even worse than I thought. The BuyNHolders will love the results as it "proves" that buying and holding is better than trying to switch to so-called "hot" funds. My readers know I think that mindless buy and hold is a guaranteed loser - and I can prove it. During the greatest bull market of all time from 1984 to December 2002 the study came up with an annualized return of 2.57% compared to 12.22% for those who bought and held an S&P500 index fund. These dummies did not even keep up with inflation. The reason was they were switching from fund to fund after it had made its major move and they had no exit strategy if it did not make money. I would guess it that they paid commissions which immediately put them in the hole. My recommendation is never to buy anything except a no-load mutual fund that does not have a redemption fee. They also did not have a method to buy a fund with an excellent performance, but also had no plan as to when to sell. Every successful professional trader will tell you that you must have an exit plan as soon as any purchase is made. During any bull market there will be rotations among sectors. During periods of time, usually about 6 to 10 months, a particular sector will outperform all the others. For example, Asian funds might do well for 6 months and then fade, internet funds will do well for 10 months and then telecommunications will take the lead, and so forth. A sector will do well and as more and more people find out about it the value of the stocks within that sector run to their valuation peak and go no further. That sector runs sideways or starts to fade. Very few investors realize that mutual funds will only make money during a long term bull market. That bull ended in 2000. Going back in history as far as you want to you will find that every bull market has been followed by a bear market of equal length. During these bear periods there will be short-term opportunities to buy, but they must be held for only brief periods. The key to these is learning to time the market and pick the strongest sector funds. You can learn to do it on your own or subscribe to a proven timing service. To me the Dalbar Study has proven that you (not your broker or financial planner) must learn market basics if you plan to profit from the stock market. Al Thomas' book, "If It Doesn't Go Up, Don't Buy It!" has helped thousands of people make money and keep their profits with his simple 2-step method. Read the first chapter at http://www.mutualfundmagic.com and discover why he's the man that Wall Street does not want you to know. Copyright 2005 al@mutualfundstrategy.com; 1-888-345-7870 |
Other Online Trading Articles
W D Gann – Made $50 Million Dollars - What Was The Secret Of His Success? W D Gann is one of the most famous traders of all time.If you have never looked at his trading methods then this article is for you.Gann's innovative approach to trading is outlined in this article and we will give you an insight into how his trading methods can help you become a more profitable trader.W D Gann was a technic ...Earn Risk Free Profits With Arbitrage Trading Arbitrage trading is a well-unknown thing. Not many people know about arbitrage trading or how amazing it is. Arbitrage trading can earn a very good stream of income. Imagine taking $200 and turning it into $1000 in a month. Sounds good doesn’t it. Well with arbitrage trading you can do exactly that.Arbitrage trading is taking two bookkee ...Trading with Root Cause Analysis If you have read my article on Pareto charts this will probably make more sense to you.Root cause analysis is another tool that traders could benefit from. I know that some of these things do not seem trading related, but you can improve results with them. When all is said and done results are what matter anyway.On your pareto char ...How to Place Stop Loss Orders We have established why a stop loss order is a requirement for the successful investor. Now let’s look at some of the simpler methods.There are 3 basic methods (and many more we will not discuss here) for stops that almost anyone can master. They are percentages of the price action, moving averages and support areas. These cannot be cover ...More Window Dressing Two weeks ago I wrote about what the Securities and Exchange Commission was doing to regulate the mutual fund industry to help the small investor, the “poor folks”. It really added up to zero.Now the SEC is going to make new regulations for hedge funds to protect the rich folks. And it is more window dressing. In fact, it looks downright ...Why In The World Would I Want To Trade Stocks? That’s an excellent question. The quick answer is to make money but if we dig a little deeper we will see that the stock trader doesn’t just want to make money, he wants to make a lot of money. In fact, the stock trader is looking for larger returns that he would otherwise get by simply investing in a stock or a mutual fund.It is true, ho ...The Best Free Currency Trading Courses If you are just starting out in currency trading, or looking to sharpen your trading skills, there are plenty of currency trading courses to choose from - and this article will help you find the information you need to make big profits.One advantage of the Internet, is that most of the information is available free of charge – once you kn ...Japanese Candlestick Charts When asked to time about the advantage of japanese, I stated that I they definitely had a positive impact on my account. Candlesticks make trading a lot easier for me. To draw a comparison, I would say that plain bar charts are to candlesticks, as radio is to color television. They are a movie playing out in front of you, the key is learning to ...Day Trading Securities - How To Make Money Day Trading Online What is day trading?Day trading is an extremely risky way of investing in the stock market. Day trading is carried out by day traders who rapidly purchase and sell stocks over a single day period in the hope that for the very short period over which they hold the stocks (ranging from just a few seconds to a couple of hours) the value will ...What are Your Options Regarding Forex Options Brokers? Forex option brokers can generally be divided into two separate categories: forex brokers who offer online forex option trading platforms and forex brokers who only broker forex option trading via telephone trades placed through a dealing/brokerage desk. A few forex option brokers offer both online forex option trading as well a dealing/brokera ...FX Currency Trading If you have ever traveled outside the United States, you have probably traded in a foreign currency. Every time you travel outside your home country, you have to exchange your country’s currency for the currency used in the country you are visiting. That’s why it is very important that you should know the exchange rate of various currencies use ...Do I Need To Learn Forex Trading To Make Money? Once you have decided to enter the Forex market, you must decide how you will go about starting to learn Forex trading. Indeed when you do begin to know more on Forex trading you have three different ways to go about it. You can either join an online, or even one that isn't, Forex school, become an apprentice for a Forex trader or broker or go i ...Buy Prescription Drugs Online: Save Time And Money Get online, point your cursor, click and order. Open your door and find the ordered products at your doorstep. Buying prescription drugs online is now very easy and popular. Ordering discount prescription drugs from an online pharmacy not only saves time and money but also gives you the convenience of purchasing medicines from home. The number o ...Futures Trading FAQs Futures trading are trading of commodities that are e delivered in the future. The goods delivered can be grains, livestock or metals. These contracts help both the producer and the buyer by protecting them from unfavorable price fluctuation. In the U.S. treasury bills and guaranteed government mortgages are included in the futures market. There ...Make Money Fast – An Investment That's Making Huge Gains! At the start of May we warned of a huge price move coming in natural gas and as predicted prices exploded to the upside last week and this is only the start of the move.Natural Gas is a great long term investment, supply is simply out stripping demand and it’s an easy investment to understand and trade.Let’s look at this fantastic ...Internet Footprints - Leaving Your (Brand) Name on the Web - Really a Benefit? It’s a morning ritual, where a few people are walking or running down the beach, the bulldozers are cleansing the sand, erasing all trials of the previous day. Cleansing your internet prints is hardly possible, after a day of surfing they are all over the web world and there is no way to erase them.Some companies leave their print, some o ...Buying Mutual Funds It looks like the market is ready to start up again so it is time to buy mutual funds, but you only want to invest your money in funds that go up. First, you don't want to start with a loss so be sure to purchase no-load mutual funds. There is no need to ever pay commissions as there are several thousand funds that have no commission whatsoever ...Option Trading for the Beginner Any journey starts with a single first step. Everyone agrees that this is true, but what is the first step for the beginning option trader? The vast amount of information can appear to be overwhelming, and is full of terminology that might as well be ancient Greek for all the sense it makes. Everyone you meet, and every website you visit has ...Aerobics At Home Staying fit and working out is something we all want to do but it normally stops there. We may have the desire but there are always excuses to not workout. Time and money are the big two but even if those are not issues, we can normally find some. Aerobics is a great workout to increase your heartbeat and burn calories. You are not lifting h ...Currency Exchange: How To Use It and What It Can Do For You I can tell you this, this is definitely not a business that will make you rich overnight, so if your sitting there in your lazy chair hoping that you can just throw in $25 and expect to be a millionaire in a week this is definitely not for you!. I CAN tell you this though given a little patients and time you can profit substantially over the l ...Trading Currency Through Online Forex Brokers Access to foreign exchange (forex), the most extensive market on the planet, is generally through an intermediary known as a forex broker. Similar to a stock broker, these agents can also provide advice on forex trading strategies. This advice to clients often extends to technical analysis and research approaches designed to improve client forex ...The Truth Behind Stock Market Trading If you happen to watch a business show or business news on TV, you’d probably hear words or phrases like “stock market,” ‘trading,” “stocks” or “stock market trading.” What are these things and what is their significance? To answer your questions, here’s an overview on what stock market trading is.DefinitionIn simple terms, stock m ...Boiler Room 7/17/00 On Friday or Saturday evening my wife gets a movie from Block Buster and after dinner we sit, hold hands and watch. This week she brought back one that I think every investor or anyone contemplating investing in the market should see. It is called "Boiler Room".How many times have you been called out of the blue by some no-name broker who ...Online Currency Trading Strategy – The Insider Secret If you have an online currency trading strategy, then you should incorporate the advice given in this article to make bigger profits - and maybe even change a losing system into a winning one.The advice we’re giving here is contrary to almost everyone else on this subject - keep in mind however that 90% of traders lose! So, let’s stay awa ...Beating the Market with Forex Charts As you read forex charts, remember that the two fundamental approaches for online forex trading: fundamental analysis and technical analysis.Fundamental analysis doesn’t rely on forex charts. It scrutinizes political and economic indicators to determine trades. Charts here are deployed as used as a secondary reference.Technical a ...What To Buy? Now that you have some money burning a hole in your pocket and the stock market is going up you have decided to buy some stock or maybe a mutual fund, but you have the momentous decisions to what to buy.At this point you have three decisions to make besides which equity to buy:1. How much to buy. 2. When to buy. 3. When t ...The Tale of Technical Analysis in Forex Trading Technical analysis may be used as either an alternative to or as a supplement for fundamental analysis. Technical analysis looks at the past performance and history of an investment. It relies on data showing this history and current trends and patterns to make predictions of future market activity. It ignores the intrinsic value of the investme ...Christmas Shopping - Tips and Advice Its that time of year again when everyone hits the high street to do their Christmas shopping. There are a few Christmas shopping strategies.Start in June This saves you panicking in a number of ways You don't get into debt because you are spreading the cost of Christmas over 7 months. You get to buy presents at bargain prices and take ad ...Forex Trading Software If you are looking to get started trading the Forex, you will find that there are numerous software programs available (both web based and desktop based) for you to use in your trading. In fact, most brokers offer clients a software package for free or as part of their trading account. Usually the software that comes with your trading account is ...Dispelling Illusions of the Stock Market How can you dispel an illusion unless you look directly at it? The magician distracts the eye with one hand while he does his manipulation with the other. You are looking in the wrong place and not seeing what is actually happening.Wall Street has mastered this move even beyond the wildest dreams of Houdini. Investors have become so mesme ...Stock Trading In simple terms, stock is a share in the ownership of a company representing a claim on the company's assets and earnings. The more the stock you acquire, the greater your ownership stake in the company.Stocks are mostly traded on exchanges in two basic ways: on the floor of the exchange or electronically. The trading floor of an exchange ...Cash Is A Position I go to the Money Show every year to visit with friends who have booths and are speakers. Then when folks are filing out of lectures I listen to their comments on what I know the speaker has been saying.The Money Show is for investors from all walks of life; however, my guess is the median age is close to 60. Those who go have accumulated ...Is Arbitrage Trading a Sam Did you ever here of sports arbitrage trading? Well if not let me just say it is a great way to make money. Sports arbitrage trading is a way to trade and NEVER lose. You always come out on top no matter what the out come is. It’s very easy to learn and easy to understand how it works, and once you understand it you can use it to earn amazing pr ...Online Trading Brokerage Online Trading Brokerage has been starting to hit big as a business brokerage career. Some newer brokerage companies in the market now offer transaction services in the form of a website-interface. It’s easy to go online. Low commissions are usually offered in as low as one to two US-dollars. This online trading brokerage also provides fast tran ...
|