donzelion

My 13.65 Basis Point ETF Portfolio

Low fees, high losses in 2008...but high fees lead to greater losses over time. I'm not a fan of wealth redistribution - particularly not redistributing it to someone who proceeds to lose it for me (I can do that on my own, thank you very much).

That said, maybe the "couch potato" plans can be improved by:
(1) Placing limit orders on price when buying the ETFs so that you only pick them up at a substantial discount (try that with a mutual fund...)
(2) Placing limit orders on price after obtaining the ETF (sell it whenever it earns more than 20%)
(3) Placing stop loss orders on each ETF (sell it whenever it drops more than 10%)
(4) Adjust the spread (for limit orders and stop loss orders) to keep a target portion of your money in cash at all times

The strategy will miss some big market moves - but we're talking about ETFs here, not stocks. Individual stocks usually rise or fall 10-30% over the course of a year...ETFs shouldn't be so volatile (and you should wind up with a large number of stop loss/buy orders that never hit).