UK Index

For the UK Index fund (FTSE 100), Slack Investor is IN!

Slack investor has a “soft sell” approach when I gauge that the market is not too overvalued. Even if there is a stop loss breach, I will not sell against the overall trend but monitor my index funds on a weekly basis.

Slack Investor has been running his “index-timing” strategy since 2004. Although, till recently, the method has proved to be an improvement on the “buy and hold” strategy, the benefits work out to be a few percent per annum for the UK Index (i.e. 1.3% p.a outperformance for Slack market timing strategy over the FTSE100).

These relatively small gains might have been offset by share dividends if I was using the alternative “buy and hold” strategy. Market timing works well when there are sustained periods of bull and bear markets and the changes between the two are not too rapid. The short transitions and the recent speed of market fluctuations has forced a bit of a rethink on Slack Investor’s timing the markets strategy – and have decided to keep the experiment going till 2024 – then probably go for the more appropriate Slack Investor method of doing nothing and adopting a “buy and hold” technique for index funds.

Monthly Chart and Monthly Updates for the FTSE 100 Index (Click on chart for a much better resolution – from Incredible Charts)

DATE	ACTION	FTSE100	MONTHLY STOPLOSS	FTSE100 CYCLE CHANGE	VALUE OF $10K SLACKINV sinceJUN04	VALUE OF $10K FTSE100 sinceJUN04	SLACK INV OUTPERF	SLACK INV OUTPERF (p.a.)
31-Oct-24	LATEST	8110	7793	10.6%	$22,763	$18,168	25%	1.2%
30-Sep-24	LATEST	8237	7793	12.3%	$23,120	$18,452	25%	1.2%
30-Aug-24	LATEST	8376	7793	14.2%	$23,510	$18,763	25%	1.3%
31-Jul-24	ADJUST SL	8367	7793	14.1%	$23,484	$18,743	25%	1.3%
28-Jun-24	LATEST	8164	7302	11.3%	$22,915	$18,289	25%	1.3%
31-May-24	LATEST	8275	7302	12.8%	$23,226	$18,537	25%	1.3%
30-Apr-24	LATEST	8144	7302	11.0%	$22,859	$18,244	25%	1.3%
28-Mar-24	LATEST	7952	7302	8.4%	$22,320	$17,814	25%	1.3%
29-Feb-24	LATEST	7630	7302	4.0%	$21,416	$17,092	25%	1.3%
31-Jan-24	LATEST	7630	7302	4.0%	$21,416	$17,092	25%	1.3%
29-Dec-23	LATEST	7733	7302	5.4%	$21,705	$17,323	25%	1.3%
30-Nov-23	LATEST	7435	7302	1.4%	$20,868	$16,655	25%	1.3%
31-Oct-23	LATEST	7321	7302	-0.2%	$20,549	$16,400	25%	1.3%
30-Sep-23	LATEST	7608	7302	3.7%	$21,354	$17,043	25%	1.3%
31-Aug-23	LATEST	7439	7302	1.4%	$20,880	$16,664	25%	1.3%
31-Jul-23	LATEST	7699	7302	5.0%	$21,609	$17,247	25%	1.3%
30-Jun-23	LATEST	7531	7302	2.7%	$21,138	$16,871	25%	1.3%
31-May-23	LATEST	7446	7302	1.5%	$20,849	$16,680	25%	1.3%
28-Apr-23	LATEST	7870	7302	7.3%	$22,089	$17,630	25%	1.3%
31-Mar-23	LATEST	7631	7302	4.0%	$21,419	$17,095	25%	1.3%
28-Feb-23	LATEST	7876	7302	7.4%	$22,106	$17,643	25%	1.4%
31-Jan-23	ADJUST SL	7771	7302	6.0%	$21,812	$17,408	25%	1.4%
30-Dec-22	LATEST	7451	6707	1.6%	$20,913	$16,691	25%	1.4%
30-Nov-22	LATEST	7573	6707	3.3%	$21,256	$16,965	25%	1.4%
04-Nov-22	BUY	7334	6707		$19,911	$15,892	25%	1.4%
14-Oct-22	SELL	6858	6989	19.0%	$20,585	$15,363	34%	1.9%
30-Sep-22	SELL ALERT	6983	6989	21.2%	$20,960	$15,643	34%	1.9%
31-Aug-22	LATEST	7284	6989	26.4%	$21,863	$16,317	34%	1.9%
29-Jul-22	LATEST	7423	6989	28.8%	$22,281	$16,629	34%	1.9%
30-Jun-22	LATEST	7169	6989	24.4%	$21,518	$16,060	34%	1.9%
31-May-22	LATEST	7607	6989	32.0%	$22,833	$17,041	34%	1.9%
29-Apr-22	LATEST	7554	6989	30.9%	$22,644	$16,900	34%	1.9%
31-Mar-22	LATEST	7515	6989	30.4%	$22,557	$16,835	34%	1.9%
28-Feb-22	LATEST	7485	6989	29.9%	$22,467	$16,767	34%	1.9%
31-Jan-22	ADJUST SL	7464	6989	29.5%	$22,404	$16,720	34%	1.9%
31-Dec-21	LATEST	7384	6813	28.1%	$22,164	$16,541	34%	1.9%
30-Nov-21	LATEST	7059	6813	22.5%	$21,188	$15,813	34%	2.0%
29-Oct-21	LATEST	7237	6813	25.6%	$21,722	$16,212	34%	2.0%
30-Sep-21	LATEST	7086	6813	23.0%	$21,269	$15,874	34%	2.0%
31-Aug-21	ADJUST SL	7119	6813	23.5%	$21,368	$15,948	34%	2.0%
30-Jul-21	LATEST	7032	6263	22.0%	$21,107	$15,753	34%	2.0%
30-Jun-21	LATEST	7037	6263	22.1%	$21,122	$15,764	34%	2.0%
31-May-21	LATEST	7022	6263	21.8%	$21,077	$15,730	34%	2.0%
30-Apr-21	LATEST	6969	6263	20.9%	$20,918	$15,612	34%	2.0%
31-Mar-21	LATEST	6713	6263	16.5%	$20,149	$15,038	34%	2.0%
26-Feb-21	ADJUST SL	6483	6263	12.5%	$19,459	$14,523	34%	2.0%
29-Jan-21	LATEST	6407	5525	11.2%	$19,231	$14,353	34%	2.0%
31-Dec-20	LATEST	6460	5525	12.1%	$19,390	$14,471	34%	2.1%
30-Nov-20	ADJUST SL	6266	5525	8.7%	$18,808	$14,037	34%	2.1%
30-Oct-20	LATEST	5577	5351	-3.2%	$16,740	$12,493	34%	2.1%
30-Sep-20	LATEST	5866	5351	1.8%	$17,607	$13,141	34%	2.1%
28-Aug-20	LATEST	5963	5351	3.5%	$17,898	$13,358	34%	2.1%
31-Jul-20	LATEST	5897	5351	2.3%	$17,700	$13,210	34%	2.1%
30-Jun-20	LATEST	6169	5351	7.0%	$18,517	$13,819	34%	2.1%
29-May-20	LATEST	6076	5351	5.4%	$18,237	$13,611	34%	2.1%
01-May-20	BUY	5763	5351		$17,298	$12,910	34%	2.1%
29-Feb-20	SELL	6580	7079	-9.6%	$17,298	$14,740	17%	1.1%
29-Mar-19	BUY	7279	6536		$19,136	$16,306	17%	1.2%
31-Dec-18	SELL	6728	6866	-7.4%	$19,136	$15,072	27%	1.9%
13-Apr-18	BUY	7264	6866		$20660
29-Mar-18	SELL	7056	7196	4.9%	$20,660	$15,806	31%	2.2%
29-Jul-16	BUY	6724	5788		$19,688.19	$15,063	31%	2.5%
30-Jun-15	SELL	6521	6693	17.6%	$19,688	$14,608	35%	3.2%
31-Oct-11	BUY	5544	4868		$16,738	$12,419
31-Aug-11	SELL	5394	5644	27.1%	$16,738	$12,083	39%	5.4%
30-Apr-09	BUY	4244	3460		$13,170	$9,507
31-Jan-08	SELL	5879	6026	31.7%	$13,170	$13,170	0%	0%
30-Jun-04	STARTBUY	4464	4291		$10,000	$10,000

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Below are the legacy charts – for historical record! – when Slack Investor used the ISF.UK ETF as a proxy to base his buy/sell decisions on the UK FTSE 100 Index … I have now started using the FTSE 100 directly (see above).

DATE	ACTION	ISF	~ FTSE	MONTHLY	ISF (CYCLE)	VALUE OF 10K	VALUE OF 10K	SLACK INV	SLACK INV
		(GBp)	100	STOPLOSS	GAIN/LOSS	SLACK INV sinceJUN04	INDEX sinceJUN04	OUTPERF	OUTPERF (pa)
30-SEP-17	LATEST	727.6		660	9.4%	$21,570	$16,351	32%	2.4%
26-Feb-17	Adjust SL	721.4		660	8.5%	$21,386	$16,211	32%	2.5%
31-Dec-16	LATEST	701.2		570	5.4%	$20,787	$15,757	32%	2.6%
29-Jul-16	BUY	665.1	6724	570
30-Jun-15	SELL	650.7	6520		17.7%	$19,717	$14,622	35%	3.2%
31-Mar-15	Adjust SL			666
29-Aug-14	Adjust SL			652
28-Feb-14	Adjust SL			637
31-Oct-13	Adjust SL			630
28-Jun-13	Adjust SL			602
31-May-12	Adjust SL			523
31-Oct-11	BUY	553	5544	483
31-Aug-11	SELL	539.1	5394		26.5%	$16,756	$12,115	38%	5.3%
30-Jun-11	Adjust SL			564.7
31-Mar-11	Adjust SL			523.1
30-Jul-10	Adjust SL			481
30-Jul-09	Adjust SL			411
30-Apr-09	BUY	426.2	4243	376.8
31-Jan-08	SELL	589.5	5879		32.5%	$13,247	$13,247	0%	0.0%
30-Nov-07	Adjust SL			609.2
31-Aug-07	Adjust SL			589
30-Jun-06	Adjust SL			550
31-Aug-04	BUY	451	4459	412
30-Jun-04	STARTBUY	445		412		$10,000	$10,000