What's your VIAC/Finpension 3A strategy for the next months?

Banks, Insurances & Third Pillar
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I have 3A with VIAC.
It was a no-brainer to have the max portion in equities till this year.

On end Feb, I woke up and realized the stock market has been dropping this year. so I switched to Swiss real estate, just to NOT invest in equities and I thought it would go up.
I just logged in to my account and noticed the Swiss real estate has also been dropping year to now.

When the stock market touches the bottom, I will switch back to equities. But before that happens, what is a relatively safe strategy which provides a bit return? What is your 3A “strategy” for the next months?

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This won’t work.

There is already a thread and I think there is no need to discuss the 3rd pillar separately: What's your strategy for 2022?

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Don’t put your money into stocks if you can’t bear the downside. Panic selling when stock markets tank is the worst strategy. Better just hold cash then.

And no, market timing doesn’t work, it’s been scientifically proved so many times. Unless you’re a fortune teller, that is.

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Stay the course. I know it’s hard but it’s part of the game bears markets happens. Historically they are more bull than bears markets, as I say historically. I hope like everyone else that bulls will be back.

If you don’t feel comfortable maybe allocate more cash in your portfolio

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If your goal is to not have any losses on your portfolio, you shouldn’t invest on equity. That’s what the bank 3a are for. Anything above the risk free rate will be more risky by definition and can drop in value (but you should hopefully be rewarded for this risk with a higher long term return).

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Money market or cash.
At current interest rates, they’ll still provide close to zero, if not negative return.

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As others have pointed out: equities going down and being able to do so deeply and for a prolonged period of time was part of the deal from the start. One thougt I find useful to keep in mind is that there are smart investors investing on the same markets as I do: no decision should ever be a no-brainer, if it was, they’d already have profited from it and taken all potential profits out of it.

This may already have happened, or may happen shortly, or not. The bets people have already made based on current information are already reflected in the current price of assets.

What I mean by that is not “do not try to time the market” but “be aware that trying to time the market is part of a risk/reward assessment strategy”. You always give up something in order to get some other thing you desire, success is achieved by sacrificing things you don’t care for in order to get things that have extra value for you. In this case, by getting out of the market, you’d sacrifice any upside that may be coming our way in order to be spared the potential downside we may still experience.

As far as I’m concerned, my 97% invested in stocks VIAC account has already lost too much for me to change allocation now: it’s too late. My best bet is to ride the wave down, then back up (however long it takes for that). Doing otherwise would be locking in my losses, which doesn’t strike me as a particularly effective investment strategy.

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But isn‘t that
 you know
 kind of
 timing the market as well? :face_with_peeking_eye:

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My strategy is to do exactly nothing. I have an investment horizon of around 25 years.

On the contrary:
I am praying for a bear market. It will give me better returns in the long run.

Be glad you have a great buying opportunity, like an unexpected discount of your favorite product at the store. Your money buys more shares that will later rise in value.

If you have a shorter horizon and have other funds, just wait it out. Don’t realize losses unless you have literally no other choice.

Welcome to investing for the long run.

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Humans are wired to “don’t just stand there, do something” – whereas here it’s “don’t do something, just stand there.”

Probably goes back to our very roots: Go out and hunt and gather, don’t just sit around and wait.

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Love it. Passive investing is a bitch. Goes against human nature.

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Thanks for everyone who participated.
I am confused as it seems most of you haven’t replied my question :sweat_smile:: your planned strategy for your 3A for the next months(of course subject to change).

I have put way more money on my IBKR account than 3A but I have not asked anyone’s strategy when it comes to active investment. With 3A we have so many limits, this is why I think it’s totally 2 different types of things and it doesn’t make sense to compare these 2.

I agree we can’t time the market, but My understanding of “you can’t time the market” means you can’t know the exact moment when the S&P 500 or Nasdaq touches the bottom. But as the stock market goes up most of the time, if we are not very picky to find this exact moment, it’s possible to “time the market” with a monthly or quarterly granalurity(at least to see the likelihood/probability): like what I did on Feb, I haven’t checked the stock market at all till end Feb, and it was obvious for me that it will drop in the following months. Do you define this judgement as “time the market”?

But I don’t know much about the Swiss real estate market, anyway you can see that I don’t check my VIAC account frequently. not even once per month.

As our 3A provides us the possibility to change our portfolio on a weekly basis, I think it’s not too much to think about changing it say each month/quarter

Yes, I thought we could discuss 3A separately in a thread, but if there is already a 3A strategy thread or if the moderator doesn’t agree, please feel free to merge my thread


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Sticking to the initial plan and continue to DCA it every month if possible (in my case). I have 3 Global 100 strategy :slight_smile:

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I moved over my Postfinance75 portfolio to Finpension. This chunk will migrate to 30% equities with a minimum volatility fund, hedged to CHF, 30% cash and 30% real estate. It’s not gonna make much profit (if at all), but at least it’s gonna protect my capital. It’s gonna stay like this until the SP500 reaches below 3500 (weekly 200MA) then I’ll reconsider to slowly increase equity exposure.

I’m leaving the other chunk in 99% Quality factor equities.

I think the post opener is right with trying to protect your wealth. If you only have 3-4 years in equities it doesn’t really matter much, but if your 3a is already 100k+ it’s worth considering the downside protection. And also I believe a good chunk of the current forum population was not living through the 2000 and 2007 crash so they don’t really have a psychological experience of a 50% drop with 6-7 years of full savings.

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You might be in the wrong forum for this. You’ll mostly get answers like “the same strategy as before”, which would be my answer, too.

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First to answer neutralname’s questions:

My strategy:
VIAC: do nothing, ride the wave.
Frankly: keep having fun timing the market based on momentum indicators (for the entertainment value and the learning experience).

Yes. To me, it doesn’t mean it’s bad by itself but it means it’s “know what you are doing” territory. We’re one statement from the FED away to stocks either skyrocketing again, or diving toward lower belows, depending on the content of the statement. Other assets would be affected as well. In my opinion, we live in uncertain times and predicting the future is hard.

Then, the rant:

I’m kind of on the side of “market timing is ok if you know what you’re trying to achieve by that and accept the risks of doing so” so, yes. :wink:

It could also be seen as a risk assessment, though: I can’t predict where the bottom is and won’t know it when it happens, I’ll know it only in hindsight and it will probably take some time for me to get enough confidence in it. So it could have happened yesterday, it could happen next week, next month, next year or it could even never happen and stocks could never reach that high a peak as we have had last year (and even go all the way to zero).

Acknowledging that, I’m balancing the risk of missing a quick recovery if it is around the corner, to the one of taking more apparent losses for some time as things go down more. I’m confident that stocks will recover and don’t need that money for a long time, so my account keeping its value in the short term has no import to me, I’m glad to trade it for a shot at something that do matter to me, higher returns, as was the case when I chose my allocation.

The baseline being: know what you want to achieve and what matters to you before choosing an allocation/strategy.

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I’ll toast to that one :clap:

That said, does this rule of thumb hold true: the older you get, the less allocation to stocks (and more to bonds)? If so, what allocation at what age? Should it be a linear or rather exponential change of allocation to bonds over time?

The reason for this strategy, as far as I’ve understood it, is to avoid retiring right before a stock market crash possessing a 100% stock portfolio. Also, fixed income from bonds might play a role

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My retirement is in 40 years or so
 So I certainly won’t worry about what happens in the next few months.

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@Bojack Please merge to the other “strategy for crash/2022” topic or delete.

@neutralname Please stop opening a topic for each question you have, and use search to find a convenient one to think whether it fits somewhere before you do.

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Well, I think it is a legimate question if one should have a different strategy for 3a. My answer is no, but I am happy to see other arguments.

My feeling is that most forums have a support style “one question, one topic” habit, what is common here is actually rather unusual.

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