INVSTR037 Waiting in cash until share markets fall (521 words)

This article uses a case study to demonstrate the strategy of holding in cash and waiting for market opportunities (or volatility) before investing. It demonstrates the key benefits as well as consequences and urges clients to seek professional advice from a qualified financial planner.

As any long-term share market investor knows, markets can go up and they can go down. While most people view a falling market as a bad thing, some investors see it as a buying opportunity. After all, it’s better to pay, say, $60 for a share after a market dip than $100 for the same share at the market peak.

Of course, to be able to exploit these buying opportunities, the cash needs to be available. That means hoarding some extra cash while markets are happy in anticipation of a rainy day. It also means having a strategy around when to invest, how much to invest, how long to hold and what to invest in. There isn’t a single, off the shelf solution to this, but 58-year-old Barry provides an example of what the rainy day investor needs to think about.