“Drawdown” has become the most feared word in the 401k vocabulary, just as “Total Return” has become the most worshipped phrase. OMG, how will plan participants be able to retire if their portfolio market values stop rising!
“Well, yeah,” you might say, “isn’t that what investing is all about. If you’re in the right sectors and the right funds, your drawdown will be minimized.” Well , yeah, that could be a viable drawdown minimization scenario if we had a crystal ball that could identify the “right” vehicles.
We don’t, and a litany of supportive sector correlation statistics just doesn’t change the basic facts of investment life that still are referred to respectfully by some as the “Market Cycle”.
Can you remember how easy portfolio management once was, simply by applying basic “QDI” principles to portfolio content selection and profit taking disciplines? It was a time when navigating an investment portfolio through the unpredictable, cyclical, undulations was indeed, a labor of love and respect for economic fundamentals… with strategies based on cyclical realities.
MPT charlatans, with “Frankensteinian” creativity, have transformed text-book-defined speculation into a passive sector-timing process based on probabilities… games of chance yet to be tested through any form of market correction.
In a program with no promise of income and no concern for fundamentals, is it any wonder market value drawdown is so feared.
Place today’s ETF and Mutual Fund equity content into the three Major Meltdowns of the past 30 years, and it’s likely that you’ll see the very same drawdown numbers… or worse, because of the artificial demand for a finite supply of real securities.
Drawdown happens; corrections are inevitable. The same MPT hocus pocus that, theoretically, is placing 401k dollars in the right sectors is, perversely, exacerbating the problem by blowing up the highest security price balloon ever, even higher.
Keep in mind as well, advisors and fiduciaries all, while we wonder at the brilliance of those who have created this ethereal (surreal), market fantasy land, that it is they (not you and I) that wield the fatal “pin”.
When the bubble bursts, remember these thoughts:
Drawdown minimization is accomplished by: investing only in “investment grade”, high quality, securities (fundamentally speaking); then diversifying among them sensibly within two “purpose delimited” security buckets; and regarding realized “base income” as the primary purpose of the income allocation and the secondary purpose of the equities.
With strict buy, hold, and reasonable profit-taking disciplines governing portfolio operations, drawdown minimization, continual income growth, and rapid recovery is virtually a sure thing… a sure thing that isn’t possible in a 401k environment that has kicked fundamental quality and income growth principles to the curb.