Topic: How To Invest

The potential pitfalls of a sector rotation strategy

sector rotation stategy

Some investors follow a “sector rotation” approach to investing. That’s when you try to hop from sector to sector, underweighting or overweighting their holdings in certain sectors of the stock market depending on a forecast of the stage of the economic cycle, or other factors.

Sector rotation can work in any one year, say. However, it’s difficult if not impossible to produce consistent longer-term returns. Here are 2 reasons why:

  1. You need to guess right three times to profit in sector rotation: You have to pick the top sectors, then pick the stocks that will rise within those sectors, then sell before the sector stumbles. It’s virtually impossible to consistently succeed at all three over long periods. But that’s not the only problem with sector rotation.
  2. Sector rotation can overweight you in the worst-performing sectors: There are many theories about which sectors will outperform at any given stage of the economic cycle. But trying to pick winning sectors — and staying out of other sectors — seldom works over long periods. Investors who attempt to do so often wind up with heavy holdings in the worst-performing sectors. That would be devastating to your portfolio, even if you confine your investments to well-established companies.

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Our investment advice: Instead of sector rotation, we recommend that you diversify your portfolio by spreading your money out across most, if not all, of the five main economic sectors (Manufacturing & Industry, Resources & Commodities, the Consumer sector, Finance and Utilities).

(This is a key part of our three-part investing program. The other two parts are to invest mainly in well-established, dividend-paying companies and to avoid or downplay stocks in the broker/public-relations limelight.)

If you diversify as we advise, you improve your chances of making money over long periods, no matter what happens in the market.

For example, manufacturing stocks may suffer if raw-material prices rise, but in that case your Resources stocks will gain. Rising wages can put pressure on manufacturers, but your Consumer stocks should do better as workers spend more.

If borrowers can’t pay back their loans, your Finance stocks will suffer. But high default rates usually lead to lower interest rates, which push up the value of your Utilities stocks.

You can get our investing advice, plus buy/sell/hold advice on stock market picks you may be considering buying in our Successful Investor newsletter. Click here to learn how you can get one month free when you subscribe today.

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