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Should you stop investing in a sinking fund when it is sinking?

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  • Mingers, John
  • Parker, Kim T.

Abstract

Many people invest regularly in sinking funds that track stock market indices. When stock markets themselves sink significantly, as in the current credit crunch, investors face a decision as to whether they should continue paying into a falling fund, or switch payment to a risk-free deposit account until the market recovers. Most financial advice is to keep investing on the grounds that as the unit price falls more units can be purchased and that this is ultimately beneficial (dollar-cost averaging, DCA) However, most academic studies show that DCA is sub-optimal, at least to a lump sum strategy. In this paper we consider a specific, tax-free fund - the Individual Savings Account (ISA). We demonstrate, both analytically and numerically, that in a situation of perfect information a stop and restart policy can beat DCA. From these results we test some heuristics that could be used by an everyday investor under real-world conditions of uncertainty and volatility.

Suggested Citation

  • Mingers, John & Parker, Kim T., 2010. "Should you stop investing in a sinking fund when it is sinking?," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 207(1), pages 508-513, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:207:y:2010:i:1:p:508-513
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Ballestero, E. & Gunther, M. & Pla-Santamaria, D. & Stummer, C., 2007. "Portfolio selection under strict uncertainty: A multi-criteria methodology and its application to the Frankfurt and Vienna Stock Exchanges," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 181(3), pages 1476-1487, September.
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    4. Constantinides, George M., 1979. "A Note on the Suboptimality of Dollar-Cost Averaging as an Investment Policy," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(2), pages 443-450, June.
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    1. Zhou, Yuzhou & Zhai, Qiaozhu & Yuan, Wei & Wu, Jiang, 2021. "Capacity expansion planning for wind power and energy storage considering hourly robust transmission constrained unit commitment," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 302(C).

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