Financial advisors looking to persuade clients to hold on to their mutual fund shares can offer fresh evidence from Morningstar, which released research Thursday showing that poorly timed transactions led investors to miss out on higher returns.
Over the 10 years ending Dec. 31, 2021, investors earned about 9.3% per year on the average dollar they invested in mutual funds and ETFs, according to a Morningstar study. That may be an enviable gain, but it landed short of the 11% total return their fund investments generated over the same period.
"This shortfall, or gap, stems from poorly timed purchases and sales of fund shares, which cost investors nearly one sixth the return they would have earned if they had simply bought and held," the annual "Mind the Gap" study from Morningstar portfolio strategist Amy Arnott and other researchers said.
The 1.7 percentage point gap between investor and total returns is generally consistent with gaps that Morningstar found for the four previous rolling 10-year periods.
"The persistent gap between the returns investors actually experience and reported total returns makes cash flow timing one of the most significant factors — along with investment costs and tax efficiency — that can influence an investor's end results. But there are a few steps investors can take to improve their results," Arnott said in commentary covering the report.
Investors may be able to capture more of their funds' total returns, Morningstar suggested, by:
- Owning a small number of widely diversified funds and avoiding narrower or highly volatile ones
- Automating routine activities like setting asset allocation targets and periodic rebalancing
- Adopting techniques like dollar-cost averaging — investing the same amount on a regular basis — that put investing on autopilot
"Investors can easily get caught in a cycle of analysis paralysis by fretting over how much to buy or sell at various times. The endless drumbeat of market and economic news can make it tempting — even for professional investors and financial advisors — to feel like they should be doing something to respond to shifting market conditions," Arnott wrote.
