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For the investement gurus

lupi

Lifer
I've got my 401k funds divided into 5 fund accounts. One of those is an Emerging market fund. It is currently running a YTD performance of +19.4%. Except for the drop of '03 (which pretty much all the fund programs experienced), it has consistently been near or over 20% in growth for the decade. How much should I move from my other lesser performing funds to this one and what's the long term forecast for these types of funds.
 
You are thinking about investing backwards.

It seems like you started off well. Choosing 5 funds probably means you diversified. Of course, you could have chosen 5 nearly identical funds, but I will assume you chose 5 completely different ones. If so, good start.

But, here is the key: you must KEEP it diversified. Do not be tempted to sell the poorly performing funds and buy this well performing fund. Why? Think it through. If you sell the poorly performing funds, you are selling low. Then if you buy that Emerging Market fund, you are buying high. You are asking us if you should sell low, buy high. Now, think back at the cardinal rule of investing: buy low, sell high. Your suggestion is to do the exact opposite.

In the short term, you MAY be better off selling low and buying high. But in the long term, that Emerging Market fund will eventually do poorly and the other funds will do well. What happens then? All (or lots) of your eggs are in that one poorly performing basket. Suddenly, you watch your investments go to the crapper. That isn't what you want to do.

This may be hard, but what you want to do is to rebalance your portfolio. Do it maybe once a year. When you rebalance, you make sure it is diversified again. This means selling a bit of the funds that skyrocketed (sell high), and use that money to buy a bit of the funds that did poorly (buy low). Do this and when the Emerging Market fund tanks, you won't have much of it. And when your other 4 funds soar, you will have lots of them.

Note 1: If any of your other 4 funds ALWAYS performs poorly, get out of it. No fund will always do well, but some funds will always suck. If you find you are in one that always sucks (high fees, low short term returns, and low long term returns), then sell it and buy a fund that is doing better.

Note 2: You are really playing the dollar. As the dollar falls in value, foreign stocks appear to go up, even if they didn't move at all. For example, if you have something foreign worth $1000, and then the dollar falls 10%, you can now sell it for $1100, even if in other currencies the value of that item didn't change. The US dollar has fallen ~15% in the last year and a half. Thus, most of the reason your Emerging Market fund went up 20% was because of the dollar falling in value, not because those funds are doing well. If the dollar goes back up OR if the foreign stocks fall, your fund will come back down.

Projections are nearly impossible. Short term, I think you are good to be in that Emerging Market fund. Short term, you may likely do well to have more of it. But, the dollar will eventually come back up, or those foreign stocks will eventually do poorly. When that happens is anybody's guess. So, long term, I wouldn't want too much of it. You do want some of it for diversification, but not too much.
 
dullard's right - you need to rebalance by selling some of the winners and reinvesting into the areas which haven't done so well. A diversified group of funds, rebalanced yearly, is going to be a winner over the long term. But they need to be diversified, not 5 different funds like, say, mid-cap growth funds.
 
Ok, here's a little more data (i.e. with numbers). Yes my plan was more of a diversification of money already in the accounts, not really changing the numbers of monthly inputs as I think overall they are still set best. For a little other background, I work in a rather large US company and these are some (most) of the choices available for our 401 savings. Going to have to do a little cut and past as I upload this, so can't guarantee it looks like an Angelo once done.
 
 

Plan                     2002       2003          2004         2005         2006         2007       Expense
Stable             6.3 5.3 4.7 4.4 4.7 4.8 0.3
Balanced Stock     3.9 -10.0 24.0 6.6 12.8 10.1 0.5
US Stocks          2.0 -24.0 38.0 7.0 14.7 9.4 0.3
Emerging Market    14.6 -25.0 72.0 15.8 49.0 20.9 0.9
Company Stock      30.0 -24.0 14.0 9 26.0 8 0.1
 
 
As you can see none of the individual funds have performed poorly, but as I've only been employed here for a relatively short time I'd like to take advantage of the hi growth for the emerging fund for a couple years to help grow the base a bit.
 
As you can see none of the individual funds have performed poorly, but as I've only been employed here for a relatively short time I'd like to take advantage of the hi growth for the emerging fund for a couple years to help grow the base a bit.

That is the wrong way to think, see dullards post. then reread it a few more times until what he is saying sinks in.
 
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