Investment Portfolio Rebalancing
- Besides asset allocation, portfolio rebalancing has more impact on total return than any other aspect of investment policy.
- All investment portfolios should have an investment policy that includes asset allocation target percentages and allowable ranges around those targets.
- Bull Markets in equities are relatively steady, long lasting, and hence create an “upwardly biased” long term pattern.
- Bear Markets are sudden and sharp, but comparatively brief.
- Equity markets exhibit a “Central Tendency” that may be unpredictable in the short run, but ‘revert’ to their mean of a 10 – 12% return per year over time.
- All rebalancing methods involve marginal selling of out-performing assets and re-deploying into under-performing investments.
- Age-old questions: When do we rebalance and by how much?
Why Dynamic Rebalancing?
- By rebalancing based on the ‘calendar’ (every month, quarter or year etc.), investors may not be able to take advantage of long running bull markets or rapidly rebounding bear markets.
- By rebalancing when an investment is ‘out of balance’ by a fixed %, investors may lose their chance to capture profits or take advantage of extraordinary investment opportunities.
- Dynamic Rebalancing uses markets cycles monthly to tell us:
- When to Rebalance: use the momentum of the markets to capture larger returns as the market moves between bull and bear phases
- How much to Rebalance: use the strength of market moves to enhance the probability of achieving greater returns by allowing over and under weighting in addition to rebalancing “to target”.
- Dynamic Rebalancing reviews asset class-specific trends each month and only takes action on “outlier” signals which reduces turnover. In most months there are no trades made.
Dynamic Rebalancing in Action
Technology Bubble
Credit Crisis
A service of Insightful Ideas, Inc.
Past performance provides no assurance of future returns