401K: A confession to make - VTINX and MSIQX

Two of the funds followed in the Current signals - VTINX and MSIQX - hit their respective reversal points last Thursday. Click on the charts below to enlarge.

Had the market held the next day, I would have had to buy the funds on Monday despite my rather bearish outlook on the market. I have to admit, I would have hated having to buy at this time and it would've been difficult for me to execute. It would've felt like throwing money into a fire.

There are two distinct issues we should think about.

1. A natural or, at least, common tendency to try to "outguess" the system: It is a completely psychological issue and we have to learn to resist it. In general, trend following systems have low reliability, meaning, only about 40% of trades conducted according to such systems are profitable. That is a given and it needs to be accepted up front.

2. Testing and adjusting the parameters of the system: The parameters of the system can and should be tested and adjusted as needed. A chart below illustrates this.

VTINX hit 10.73 eight months ago and it is still there. Those who have held, have not made any money, but they have not lost money either. On the other hand, those who executed the signals have actually lost about 1% of this position.

For example, if an investor had 100 shares of VTINX, eight months ago his position was worth $1073. He would then have only $1066 after selling his shares for $10.66 in January - see the arrow Down. He would buy 99 shares for $10.76 - arrow Up in March that he would sell for $10.86 in May. He then could have bought no more than 99 shares at $10.80 or above now if we had got a buy signal.

Also, if this is a 401K or other "regulated" plan, then the investor might have been restricted on how often he is allowed to get in and out of a fund (over-trading rules).

One solution to this issues is to adjust parameters to reduce the number of signals. Here is the same chart with three ATR stops.