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Thursday, December 3, 2009

DCA studies

* DCA requires lots of patience. Strategy is to keep buying no matter what market is doing & MUST sell all at the place you think is top. best is to keep buying small amounts in distressed assets. wait for 3-5years & then sell when asset class recovers. this is similar to buy low sell high strategy except DCA gives a better place to stash your cash.
* it doesn't help to time getting in & out long term returns are same as keep dca'ing & waiting to sell lumpsum at peak
* when to start dca in particular class - look at monthly returns through out the year of a class & decide on when to put lumpsome in play.

DCA when you bought at high price might help you recover your money faster, but don't deploy DCA for ever esp when markets are high.
* accademia is correct that you can't time the markets, so its pretty hard to say when you are at peak or valley

Here is data I ran & found SPY hardly made any money for last 16 years. Pundits will argue that you should do it with asset allocation, doesn't work either. They will recommend international should have been part of your port. Investing in internationals became popular only in 90s/00s

ROR from Jan - 93 till date held
ROR from Jan - 93 till date held
December-93 9.13%
December-94 2.94%
December-95 20.39%
December-96 21.01%
December-97 24.84%
December-98 25.90%
December-99 24.68%
December-00 16.94%
December-01 11.06%
December-02 4.60%
December-03 8.07%
December-04 8.46%
December-05 7.99%
December-06 8.83%
December-07 8.41%
December-08 2.23%
December-09 4.50%


Look at EFA after huge run, returns are near 1% if you kept buying in 2005-7 after runups in 2008!
December-01 2.5%
December-02 -13.7%
December-03 23.1%
December-04 27.6%
December-05 23.9%
December-06 25.1%
December-07 21.7%
December-08 1.0%
December-09 9.4%

FFNOX, buying at lows was good but should have sold at high!

December-99 85.48%
December-00 -6.94%
December-01 -7.78%
December-02 -12.08%
December-03 3.46%
December-04 5.96%
December-05 6.20%
December-06 8.36%
December-07 7.85%
December-08 -1.78%
December-09 2.73%


Here is rolling DCA returns for large number of portfolios. In this study, I assumed investment of $1000 per month from Jan of particular year till date (Dec5, 2009). Investments are made at end of month prices.
I added returns from Madsinger as well, not sure if methodology used by madsinger matches with mine or not. Anyhow, here are results:

Return Since 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
XLF
-7.73% -8.60% -9.50% -10.99% -12.88% -14.10% -14.80% -12.22% 1.94% 64.05%
FSNGX
8.07% 7.90% 7.67% 5.68% 1.62% -2.71% -5.55% -6.98% -1.55% 35.36%
ICF
6.19% 4.97% 3.59% 1.64% -1.11% -3.35% -4.60% -1.59% 13.77% 90.46%
Hot Hands 10.87%
8.27%

5.46%
-3.70%

20.75%
SPY
1.02% 1.46% 1.60% 0.92% -0.39% -1.23% -1.90% -1.05% 8.40% 46.18%
XLU
4.92% 5.19% 5.70% 4.89% 2.58% 0.09% -1.67% -3.43% 1.06% 25.43%
EFA


5.44% 4.34% 1.96% 0.21% -1.50% -0.70% 10.93% 56.77%
VFINX 0.63%
-0.31%

1.70%
-1.24%

24.07%
ffnox
2.77% 3.17% 3.21% 2.53% 1.27% 0.47% -0.28% 0.40% 8.95% 41.49%
Newsletter G-IND 2.89%
3.26%

4.27%
-0.19%

28.30%
Sheltered Sam 5.27%
4.35%

4.66%
-0.11%

26.69%
LS G 2.64%
2.05%

3.35%
0.25%

23.35%
Newsletter G 7.68%
3.56%

5.14%
1.10%

30.10%
Newsletter CG 5.67%
3.32%

4.35%
1.16%

25.30%
Newsletter Inc 3.43%
3.53%

3.30%
1.32%

20.80%
OAKGX
9.16% 8.34% 7.52% 6.12% 4.04% 2.77% 1.63% 2.66% 14.17% 56.57%
LS MG 3.50%
3.09%

3.86%
1.76%

19.74%
XLV

2.43% 2.34% 2.16% 1.82% 1.71% 1.81% 2.94% 10.93% 37.62%
s&d 5.98%
5.16%

5.58%
1.84%

23.60%
3 fund 3.79%
3.40%

5.08%
2.32%

24.51%
STAR 5.22%
4.38%

4.79%
2.46%

23.40%
LS CG 4.05%
3.74%

3.96%
2.83%

17.11%
coffeehouse 5.89%
5.47%

5.24%
2.88%

18.44%
FGBLX
6.83% 7.25% 7.23% 6.62% 5.39% 4.56% 3.80% 4.00% 9.92% 33.55%
Wellington 6.00%
5.70%

5.84%
4.28%

21.75%
oakbx
7.62% 7.06% 6.80% 6.27% 5.42% 4.94% 4.32% 4.06% 7.74% 27.13%
QQQQ

4.54% 5.42% 4.85% 4.09% 4.12% 4.40% 5.84% 16.92% 53.34%
Wellesley 5.94%
6.04%

5.45%
5.42%

16.04%
PRPFX
10.35% 10.34% 10.10% 9.65% 9.21% 9.05% 8.76% 9.50% 13.29% 31.56%

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