Even if today was not Friday, it would not be a bona fide RBD.

[livesoft]

Strange as it seems, today is not a bona fide RBD. Not only is today a Friday, but also various ETFs have not dropped enough to qualify.

[Atticus]

For those of us who haven't been around the forum as long as you, how do you define a RBD?

(Also, are you referring to a Really Bad Day or a Rebalancing Day?)

[cresive]

For those of us who haven't been around the forum as long as you, how do you define a RBD?

(Also, are you referring to a Really Bad Day or a Rebalancing Day?)

Really Bad Day

[anon_investor]

Recently a 3% drop is no big deal... agreed not RBD.

[rossington]

For those of us who haven't been around the forum as long as you, how do you define a RBD?

(Also, are you referring to a Really Bad Day or a Rebalancing Day?)

From the archives:

"A livesoft-defined RBD meets all of these criteria:
1) VFINX drop of 2.5% or more
2) Drop greater than the 4th largest drop within the previous 150 days
3) Not a Friday

An RBD in 'all RBDs' meets only criteria (1) above."

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=194427

[livesoft]

The above only applies to VFINX the way it was originally written by someone else, so might properly be written as:

A livesoft-defined RBD [for VFINX] meets all of these criteria:
1) [VFINX] drop of 2.5% or more
2) Drop greater than the 4th largest drop within the previous 150 days
3) Not a Friday

[rossington]

The above only applies to VFINX the way it was originally written by someone else, so might properly be written as:

A livesoft-defined RBD [for VFINX] meets all of these criteria:
1) [VFINX] drop of 2.5% or more
2) Drop greater than the 4th largest drop within the previous 150 days
3) Not a Friday

So other indexes have different triggering criteria? (Unless that's what this: "An RBD in 'all RBDs' meets only criteria (1) above" means.)

[livesoft]

So other indexes have different triggering criteria? (Unless that's what this: "An RBD in 'all RBDs' meets only criteria (1) above" means.)

Each ETF will have a different number for the "4th largest drop ....", right?

[rossington]

So other indexes have different triggering criteria? (Unless that's what this: "An RBD in 'all RBDs' meets only criteria (1) above" means.)

Each ETF will have a different number for the "4th largest drop ....", right?

So only VFINX requires 1, 2 and 3 above. All others only require 2 and 3...

[livesoft]

What? No.

[jjface]

I'm having a rbd Don't tell me I'm not

[MathWizard]

Why is a Friday exempted?
Is it because an order might not be executed until Monday?

[livesoft]

Why is a Friday exempted?
Is it because an order might not be executed until Monday?

Backtesting.

[caklim00]

Finally had a good price point to put more into AVUV. (you will see me at 12:20 on google) Might go down from here, might go up, who knows...

[dru808]

Why is a Friday exempted?
Is it because an order might not be executed until Monday?

Backtesting.

Can you explain in a little more detail? Has money invested on a friday rbd, only worked out better 1% of the time vs mon-thr coming out ahead 50% of the time?

Do you have a theory why Friday does not wrk?

[rossington]

What? No.

So the 2.5% applies to all ETF's.

[livesoft]

Do you have a theory why Friday does not wrk?

I can only guess. I think RBDs are more about investor falling into behavioral finance traps than anything else. I think that investors might look over the weekend at their portfolio and make decisions about their portfolio. Or maybe there is simply 2 days of news between Friday and Monday. Or maybe there was a particularly bad Friday followed by a really bad Monday. Who knows? Do you have any ideas to share?

[balbrec2]

Strange as it seems, today is not a bona fide RBD. Not only is today a Friday, but also various ETFs have not dropped enough to qualify.

Volatility is usually higher when the market trades below the 200dma. This is to be expected IMO.

[celia]

Do you have a theory why Friday does not wrk?

... Do you have any ideas to share?

My idea is that since there are 7 days in a week and it is right before a weekend (and sometimes a 3-day weekend), there is a 3/7 chance that the ‘financial’ month or quarter or year will land on a Friday. For those people and funds who waited until the last minute to Tax Loss Harvest or re-balance, this would put ‘artificial’ pricing/demand on the final day of the month/quarter/year.

Of course, that doesn’t account for other Fridays in the year.

Just an idea, that I may not have defined clearly.


After thinking about it some more, I think there may be some other artificial demand on all Fridays for people who have set up automatic buys or sells on dates that ended up falling on a weekend so they’re executed on Friday instead (I assume).

Another example is called to mind when I did taxes for the AARP Tax-Aide program. We had a client who came in and couldn’t understand why another tax pro had calculated a huge CG Loss for her—bigger than the value of her trading account. For some unknown reason she was buying the same company every Monday, then selling it the following Friday. She was paying lots in commissions and apparently adding money to the account every so often. Her January 1 and December 31 balance were similar, so she couldn’t see how she had a huge loss. (I suggested she find out how much she added to the account and withdrew each year.). I don’t know if lots of market timers get out before the weekend, but if so, that could make Fridays be ‘artificially’ high or low days, not to be used for normal comparisons, such as “new lows”.

[MadHungarian]

Well it's obviously not one of my paycheck alternate Fridays (401k auto-purchase), because the market dropped. The market always spikes EOD on my paycheck Fridays. And it's not driven by the size of my paycheck either, more's the pity!

[sometimesinvestor]

A reason for not Friday is that there are often sales on Friday by traders who have short term gains because theyty are afraid of bad news over the weekend when they can't get out. Since Bogleheads are not supposed to be short term traders they ignore the sale.

[celia]

Well it's obviously not one of my paycheck alternate Fridays (401k auto-purchase), because the market dropped. The market always spikes EOD on my paycheck Fridays. And it's not driven by the size of my paycheck either, more's the pity!

We were posting at the same time, but maybe we’re onto something. Have you considered depositing on another day of the week?

[MadHungarian]

I don't have that choice, because it's an automatic-deduction from my paycheck and so always goes in every fortnight on Friday EOD.

At times i've though of doing a matching sell to compensate, but my 401k allows only a small number of transactions each year.

It's not usually a significant problem, but one paycheck Friday several weeks ago, the market did a 10% (!!!!!!!!!!!) spike right at EOD, which then of course immediately collapsed Monday morning. That one cost me a more than few dollars and really pissed me off. There was clearly some successful market manipulation going on there, no doubt made possible by the abnormal market conditions then. Oh well, what can you do?

[ARoseByAnyOtherName]

Nowadays today was a Really Average Day™

[ARoseByAnyOtherName]

Well it's obviously not one of my paycheck alternate Fridays (401k auto-purchase), because the market dropped. The market always spikes EOD on my paycheck Fridays. And it's not driven by the size of my paycheck either, more's the pity!

We were posting at the same time, but maybe we’re onto something. Have you considered depositing on another day of the week?

I wonder if it really matters over the long term. Probably not.

[livesoft]

Nowadays today was a Really Average Day™

You are right, unfortunately.