patrick.net

I've been considering the same thing. I made a good timing play pulling out of stocks right before the Great Recession hit and dollar cost averaging back in around the bottom. But I still wanted to take advantage of market swings somehow. So I came up with another method.
Put most of your 401k money in stocks of your choice. Save out a percentage (I do a third) to keep in bonds or money market. Then when a big sell-off hits like did during the Brexit, buy in with the reserve money and take advantage of the inevitable upward swing. Then when things level off again, move the third back to bonds and await the next panic.

Quigley says

Then when a big sell-off hits like did during the Brexit, buy in with the reserve money and take advantage of the inevitable upward swing

Interesting idea!

Ironman says

The bottom line, you need to be in it, so max out your contribution.

Of course. I do that by summer. I'm wondering if the first half is the worst half to invest in, or the best, or if you're better off equal parts every month throughout the year based on cycles.

Ironman says

The other question, what type of match do you get from your employer, and when is it added to your account?

I get a profit sharing deal mid year, fairly substantial, but no matching.

Ironman says

Of course, if you have a crystal ball, you can make a lot better guesses.

Where can I get one? :)

Ironman says

What has the S&P done in the last year or two?

Went down, then record highs? I went to an Index fund due to low fees. My new 401k plan has much, much lower fees in ETFs.

CL says

I guess though, indirectly I've selected timing by virtue of the fact I'm loading it up every year in the earliest months. Should I go with a flat rate throughout the year instead?

The sooner you contribute, the longer it has to work for you. So I guess the "timing" is to contribute as much as possible as early as possible.

CL says

My question is, is there a "better" time of year to put your contributions in

The real answer is "NO" there isn't a better time. If there was, everyone would buy and sell accordingly, making the system self defeating.

You might break it into two: one at the earliest and one sometime in October. There's almost always a very good buy point in October. Research "seasonality". In the end it all comes down to time and rate of return. The rest is luck.

CL says

My question is, is there a "better" time of year to put your contributions in, a la "buy low, sell high"? "Sell in May", would seem to indicate that the 2nd quarter might be a good time to be "buying" via contributions.

You are better off buying stocks when the full moon is going into a Lunar Eclipse as the moon crosses Sagittarius A.

For added returns on top of your "ok gains", you would need to get a few virgins to sacrifice on the alter of your local bank for the sole purpose of pleasing the sky wizards. Make sure you collect the blood of the sacrifice victims and bath in it 14 days later when the new moon arrives. Your profits would easily double!

That my friend is the only logical way of timing today's stock market.

If I could time the market, I would be retired by now. That goes for everyone else here too.

Feb 15 to March 7th. The flow of money is the highest for various reasons:

* Pre-tax contributions can be made by March 15 so there is more cash in than normal.

401K matches. A lot of companies do once a year so More $$ flows in than normal

Bonus'. Most annual bonus are paid by March 15. so more $$ will flow in then otherwise.

SFace says

Feb 15 to March 7th. The flow of money is the highest for various reasons:

So that would imply to buy in the 2nd half, right? Since that money likely floods in the first half?

It's impossible to lose in any retirement/pension vehicles!
Hope no one totals your car.

Interesting question. I downloaded 8 years of historical data for SPY from
http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/spy/historical & http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/spy/dividend-history
and then wrote a quick program to simulate how I would have performed over the past 10
years if I purchased in various parts of the year.

The sim lets me specify which months to buy in, using exactly 1 purchase per month. I decided
to compute the average stock price on a per month basis. Stock purschases were
made using this average price, and they were executed on the 15th of the month if a purchase was
made that month.

I also assume enrollment in dividend reinvestment, and purchase more shares on the divident payment date. If the
data is missing the payment date, I pick a date about 2 weeks after the EX date, and purchase the DRIP shares
at that day's price.

You set a yearly contribution, and it splits that equally into purchases amoung the months you specified.

The sim works by just looping through all days from start to end, at each day it checks if it should buy stock
or collect a dividend, and prints out event messages along the way. It also prints how many shares you have
at the end, and higher is better of course.

I ran the sim using $5500 per year, and here's the results vs which months I bought in:

months, num shares at the end
1,2,3 410.86
4,5,6 392.32
7,8,9 391.06
10,11,12 390.83
1 412.73

As you can see, the sim says it's better to buy at the start of the year. Although, that might just be due to collecting a few more dividends the first year and letting that compound over the years.

I attached the verbose output if anyone's interested.

c1561490 says

Interesting question. I downloaded 8 years of historical data for SPY from

http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/spy/historical & http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/spy/dividend-history

and then wrote a quick program to simulate how I would have performed over the past 10

years if I purchased in various parts of the year.

That's awesome! I don't know if I'll change anything, but it's cool to know!

Is the bottom one, simply "all shares bought in January"?

Ironman says

The bottom line, if the money isn't invested, it's not working for you. Just put it in, because you'll never time it right.

No question. Not to dwell too much, but that's not the issue for me. I already max out on it in the first half, I just wonder if I should change that to equal 12ths all year, or move to the 2nd half kind of thing.

But, on a related note, I have other dollars I need to get growin', maybe in Betterment or some shit.

Thanks for the insights!

CL says

Is the bottom one, simply "all shares bought in January"?

yup.

CL says

I've maxed out since back when I was poor, and continue to do so. As time progressed, what used to be a same sized contribution each month has turned into getting all of it in in the first half of the year.

Is there employer match? Does it stop when your contributions stop? You need to make sure you don't leave any of these money on the table when you max out early.