When ‘buying the dip’ pays off – and when it doesn’t

[SINGAPORE] Over coffee, a colleague beamed as he announced that his US equities portfolio had chalked up an impressive 35 per cent time-weighted return over the past five years.

Another colleague offered a hearty “that’s not bad”, while I couldn’t resist checking what inflation had done over the same period. Turns out, about 17 per cent.

So, after five years in the markets, his real return was roughly 18 per cent – not exactly the champagne-popping outcome he’d imagined.