Has anyone been able to time ETF’s for a long period?

See Change said:

Hi all

Long term member but inactive as have been investing in property for the last 25 years .

If you read all the property experts they say it’s time in the market that’s important not timing .

Myself and a few similarly minded people over at the property chat forum have been able to effectively time the property market for a long period of time , but it’s an inherently inefficient market compared to the share market / ETF’s .

Recently retired and looking at put spare money in our SMSF into ETF’s .

Doing a whole pile of reading and all the experts seem to be saying that it’s not possible to consistently outperform the index ETF’s and it’s time in the market that’s important .

They point out that while some will outperform for a period of time , those often underperform for the next time frame and a different set will then outperform .

They will then point out that active managers tend to underperform index ETF’s .

So are there any long term ETF investors out there who have been able to consistently outperform index funds ?

Not interested in investing in shares at this stage .

Cheers

Cliff

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divs4ever said:

welcome to posting

firstly not all ETFs are index funds ( or reverse index funds ) there are some exotic mixes in there so please research each target CAREFULLY ( those little differences can make a BIG difference in your outcome )

an index fund is designed to track to index but will under-perform slightly due to leakage of the fees ( taken out before got your dividends )

now timing

i started buying VAS March 2011 and kept adding for the rest of 2011 ( and still hold some )

so i am up 77% ( roughly ) over those 13 years which doesn't seem so flash after you calculate inflation , BUT on the way there have been dividends/distributions ( and franking credits )

now 2011 was a down year and i kept adding ( cheaper ) in the down trend

now IF the ASX was going to fall markedly ( by more than 20%) in 2025 you would have your chance at 'timing the market ' ( instead of buying at recent record highs )

oh by the way .. the wiggle word ' is 'consistently ' .. if you did buy in obvious downtrends in the market , i think you would find a better result than just buying some every month .. the market bounces around a fair bit but trends up long term partly fueled by inflation

property vs index funds , the BIG difference is , you can reduce/exit an index fund relatively quickly no waiting for contracts to settle ( well OK you should have your cash in the bank 3 days after selling your ETF and you don't have to sell it all at once , like a block of land )

now i lost patience ( and sold out of ) an index fund the focused on property stocks ( REITs ) since you understand property you might find comparing such a fund , against your experiences in property say over the last 10 years as some sort of guide

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