Written by Lance Roberts, Clarity Financial
The Real 401k Plan Manager – A Conservative Strategy For Long-Term Investors
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There are 4-steps to allocation changes based on 25% reduction increments. As noted in the chart above a 100% allocation level is equal to 60% stocks. I never advocate being 100% out of the market as it is far too difficult to reverse course when the market changes from a negative to a positive trend. Emotions keep us from taking the correct action.
Bull Failure – Part Deux
As I noted in last week’s update:
“Last week, the bulls failed to gain control of the market. Early morning bounces were meet with selling each day last week.
The overall market environment remains difficult and dangerous.”
Such remained again this past week, and, once again, it is critically important for the “bulls” to try and rally the market next week.
With the portfolio managers needing to reposition next week for the end of year reporting, a rally, which so far has proved elusive, is once again likely as reward outweighs risk.
However, such a rally should be used to “sell into” as our model allocation percentages need to be reduced given the recent breaks of long-term support.
As I have stated previously, when signals are triggered, the markets are generally extremely oversold. Therefore, we want to use “clearing rallies” to reduce equity risk to the markets. In the coming weeks, any rally that takes the markets back to short-term over “bought” conditions will be used to lower equity exposure to 50% of target or 30% of our 60/40 model.
Continue to use rallies to reduce risk towards a target level with which you are comfortable. Remember, this model is not ABSOLUTE – it is just a guide to follow.
- If you are overweight equities – reduce international, emerging market, mid, and small-capitalization funds on any rally next week. Reduce overall portfolio weights to 75% of your selected allocation target.
- If you are underweight equities – reduce international, emerging market, mid, and small-capitalization funds on any rally next week but hold everything else for now.
- If you are at target equity allocations hold for now.
Unfortunately, 401k plans don’t offer a lot of flexibility and have trading restrictions in many cases. Therefore, we have to minimize our movement and try and make sure we are catching major turning points. Over the next couple of weeks, we will know for certain as to whether more changes need to be done to allocations as we head into the end of the year.
If you need help after reading the alert; don’t hesitate to contact me.
Current 401-k Allocation Model
The 401k plan allocation plan below follows the K.I.S.S. principle. By keeping the allocation extremely simplified it allows for better control of the allocation and a closer tracking to the benchmark objective over time. (If you want to make it more complicated you can, however, statistics show that simply adding more funds does not increase performance to any great degree.)
401k Choice Matching List
The list below shows sample 401k plan funds for each major category. In reality, the majority of funds all track their indices fairly closely. Therefore, if you don’t see your exact fund listed, look for a fund that is similar in nature.
