Gyroscopic Investing

I contributed a large sum to PRPFX and LTT this morning to rebalance to 82.5% PRPFX, 10% LTT and 7.5% Cash. Gold and Silver are up, Long-Term treasuries are slightly lower and the Swiss Franc is flat. Equities (S&P500) on the other hand are down over 1%.

I never know whether I am buying on a good day or a bad day. Commodities up, equities down and treasuries flat. Is this a down day or an up day? Will it matter 25 years from now?

That sounds pretty good to me.

Which assets were you selling and which were you buying, or were you deploying new cash to this allocation?

MediumTex wrote: That sounds pretty good to me.

Which assets were you selling and which were you buying, or were you deploying new cash to this allocation?

I was deploying new cash.

buddtholomew wrote: Will it matter 25 years from now?

No.

buddtholomew wrote: I never know whether I am buying on a good day or a bad day. Commodities up, equities down and treasuries flat. Is this a down day or an up day? Will it matter 25 years from now?

By the way, I want to add something else to this.  I always go through exactly the same thing when I am moving large chunks of money around.  "Is today a good day? Is this the right hour?  The right MINUTE?  The right SECOND?"  Always go through that, even though I know it's utter nonsense.

One of the reasons we like the PP is because we believe you can't time the market.  There have been times that the market was up like 2%, so I decide "oh, I'm going to wait until tomorrow to buy, because surely it will be down tomorrow."  Much to my dismay, the market continues to go up for 5 days straight, and by the time it finally has a down day, it's still far more expensive than if I had just bought the first day.

So yeah, I empathize with your anxiety, and I go through exactly the same thing every time I buy.  But you can be fully confident that nobody knows what the market will do, and that if you try to time it there is a pretty good chance that you will end up wishing you had just pulled the trigger  :)  Oh, and you can also be fully confident that 25 years from now it's not going to matter whether you bought it today or tomorrow.*

*Unless some event of cataclysmic proportion occurs in the next 24 hours!

I think Craig's investor psychology/stock price graph is a great one to look at... I can't find it, but it really illustrates the foolishness and wasted effort that goes into timing the market.

One needs to overcome psychological factors to succeed in investing. At this moment, I am ecstatic with my purchase yesterday 

82.5% PRPFX - up .21%
10% VUSTX - down 1.19%
7.5% Cash - flat

Market (Dow) up 191 points on Thursday, with PRPFX down .02%
Market (Dow) down 88 points on Friday, with PRPFX up .23%

At first glance, it appears as though equities in PRPFX are unable to overcome days when Gold and Long Term treasuries/bonds decline. On the other hand, when equities decline and Gold and LTTs rally, PRPFX produces a positive return. I've witnessed this behavior in the past and am concerned that the fund will fail to produce positive returns if/when equities rally and Gold/Treasuries retreat.