Trading Techniques  |  OCT 2000

Enhanced Fund Switching by Jack Singer

Enhanced Fund Switching by Jack Singer Jay Kaeppel published a highly successful fund switching strategy in July 1999. Here ’s how to make it even juicier. In March 1999, I lost a client to a stockbroker because I was too conservative in my investing style, using the accepted strategy of buy/hold on a diversified portfolio of funds. Asset allocation and diversification, for those who don’t know, is where money is spread over a variety of assets, some of which will outperform and others of which will underperform. All are at various stages of cyclical performance, the underlying strategy being that over the long run, they will balance each other, and the average trend of the portfolio will be growth. However, on March 27, 1999, an article appeared in The Economist questioning the asset allocation theory. Jim McNulty and Max Ziff, two bankers at Warburg Dillon Read, had found that their clients believed that the capital asset pricing model (CAPM), the textbook standard, was no longer effective. They then asked the question, “Has theory lost touch with common sense?”

by Jack Singer