Buy high, sell low?

Pengana Capital is closing their Global Resources Fund, Fairfax Media reported yesterday. Given the five-year bear market in resources, this comes as no major surprise. What was interesting, however, was the timing of fund withdrawals. As of May last year, the fund had around $30m of assets; by January this year, this figured had more than halved. If you watch resources, you might notice that this is around the time that resources began to recover. Gold, silver, lithium, oil, iron ore, zinc, and more have all posted strong gains since January. This is supported by Dalbar’s annual report, which shows that equity investors consistently underperform the funds they are invested in - buying high and selling low. “In 2014, the 20-year annualised S&P return was 9.85%, while the 20-year annualised return for the average equity mutual fund investor was only 5.19%, a gap of 4.66%” On a $100,000, this equates to a $419,680 difference at the end of 20 years.