European trackers

European trackers


Seeing the weak performance of the trackers managed by my main bank, I decided to follow the old investor's wisdom that very few funds or investors do better than the market, so I invested in a number of European funds (e.g. DAX, CAC, ...)


However rather than purely following the market, I decided to still actively manage when I bought & sold those trackers, typically keeping them for about half a year and selling them at an almost arbitrary high moment.

• Average result: +13%
• Average annualized result: +30%
• Result over the entire period: ca. +30%
• Average annualized result Euro Stoxx 600 over the entire period: +10%
• Result Euro Stoxx 600 over the entire period: +40%

Conclusion: one can obviously not time the market and plenty has been written about that pitfall. If I would have invested in the Stoxx 600 and kept this investment for the full 4 years, I would have achieved 40% rather than the 30% I made selling & buying in short sprints.That being said, the strength of geographical trackers (i.e. not focusing on a single industry) and the law of averages are both very clear.