Active v. Passive - The Secret to Winning the Loser's Game

This is the final post on active v. passive investing but before moving on let me briefly summarize.

• Academic evidence points overwhelmingly to indexing being the best way for the vast majority of people to invest. Index funds should form the biggest part of every portfolio.
• Mathematically, after costs, the average returns of a passive investor have to exceed the average returns of an active investor.
• The market cap-weighted index reflects the consensus view of the market and therefore is the ideal starting point for a passive investor.

But the cap-weighted index isn’t perfect and, depending on how much risk you’re prepared to take, you may want to tilt the portfolio towards other types of risk, or beta, such as small company or value stocks.

Again beta is a measure of overall market risk. But what about alpha? That’s the name given to any return provided by an investment over and above the benchmark index.

First and foremost you should be indexing. Alternatively you could tilt your portfolio towards different types of risk.

But is there ever a case for chasing alpha - either by choosing stocks yourself or by employing an active fund manager?

Professor Ken French from Tuck School of Business says: “That’s a great question. Does it make sense for the average investor to invest in an active fund? What I know is that the active investor who does invest in an active fund has to expect to lose relative to a passive strategy.”

Professor John Cochrane from the University of Chicago says: “I take a dim view of active management. For any investor to invest, you have to understand why the person you’re giving your money to is in the half that’s going to make money, and not the half that’s going to lose money. What’s special about him? What’s special about you that you know how to evaluate him?”

Much evidence is stacked against active fund management. But, say for example, in spite of everything academia has said, you still want to take a gamble with part of your portfolio, how do you choose an active fund from the thousands of funds available?

Daniel Godfrey from the Investment Management Association says: “Well certainly not just by looking at past performance. A consumer would need to do a number of things. Firstly they can just offset the decision-making altogether and go to an independent financial adviser, and many do. And they will select funds for them, and that may be a mix of active and passive funds, and that’s a perfectly sensible thing to do.”

Value investing is particularly worth investigating - as are the writings of the man usually credited with founding it - the British-born American academic and professional investor Benjamin Graham.

Like Sharpe and Fama, Graham’s aim was to take the guesswork out of picking stocks. He famously inspired one of his pupils, Warren Buffett. And Buffett’s subsequent success is testimony to the validity of Graham’s approach.

Buffett has described Graham’s book The Intelligent Investor as by far the best book about investing ever written. In it Graham wrote that investment is most intelligent when it is most businesslike.

In his preface to the fourth edition of the book, Buffett said: The sillier the market’s behavior, the greater the opportunity for the business-like investor. Follow Graham and you will profit from folly rather than participate in it.

Whichever route you go down - passive, active or somewhere in between - your behavior is absolutely critical - particularly at times when emotions are running high. Everyone knows the idea is to buy low and sell high, but time and again we do the precise opposite.

Many investors pile in just as the market reaches a top. Then, even worse, they bail out just as prices reach the bottom and are bound to rise again. That kind of behavior is sadly all too typical, and even the professionals are prone to it. The effect on the long-term value of our investments can be catastrophic.

So, how do we as investors curb that sort of self-destructive behavior? Well, one way is to have an automated approach to investing. So, once you’ve chosen a strategy and the level of risk you’re prepared to take, you leave your investments exactly as they are. Either once or no more than twice a year you should rebalance your portfolio to realign it with your risk tolerance. But again, this can be done automatically.

Merryn Somerset Webb from MoneyWeek says, “There are lots of styles that work over the long term. Value works, dividend investing works, momentum investing works if you get it right. All sorts of things work. But they only work if you stick with them."

It also helps to have a financial adviser to keep you on track. Charles Ellis says: “There are two main roles for an adviser. One is to help individuals understand themselves and what their real financial purposes are, and what their anxieties would be. And the second is to hold the client’s hand and encourage them to stay in it for the long term.”

Vanguard founder Jack Bogle says: “Why in the name of peace do we pay any attention to the stock market? It's a giant distraction to the business of investing.”

Of course it doesn’t help that we’re constantly hearing about the markets. There are specialist magazines. Almost every major newspaper has a money section. There are radio shows and, of course, entire television channels devoted to the latest on the markets and where the so-called experts think they’re heading.

And that, in a nutshell, is the secret to winning the loser’s game. First, choose a strategy that’s based on evidence - ideally one designed to capture the returns of the whole market - and then tailor it to your attitude to risk. Secondly, stick to your strategy through thick and thin. Rebalance your portfolio, yes, but most important of all, stay the course.

CBlakely CFP®, CTFA        02/2015

Sources: Winning the Loser’s Game – Charles D. Ellis;  Robin Powell: How to Win the Losers Game – SensibleInvesting.tv Link to the video

Is What Warren Buffett And Charlie Munger Thought In 1996 Relevant Today?

I was looking at some past Chairman’s Letters from Berkshire Hathaway (penned by Buffett and Munger) and thought you might enjoy some insightful excerpts from the 1996 letter. What was relevant for intelligent investors eighteen years ago remains so today.

On Investment Fees

   “Seriously, costs matter.  For example, equity mutual funds incur corporate expenses - largely payments to the funds' managers - that average about 100 basis points, a levy likely to cut the returns their investors earn by 10% or more over time.  Charlie and I make no promises about Berkshire's results.  We do promise you, however, that virtually all of the gains Berkshire makes will end up with shareholders.  We are here to make money with you, not off you.”

(They are talking about actively managed mutual funds and the current average expense ratio for actively managed funds is about 1.3 percent or 130 basis points. Also worth noting, only 39 percent of active managers beat their benchmarks in 2012. So for the majority of investors in actively managed funds you not only made less than the average index fund investor you paid more for the privilege.)

On Taxes

   “In 1961, President Kennedy said that we should ask not what our country can do for us, but rather ask what we can do for our country.  Last year we decided to give his suggestion a try - and who says it never hurts to ask?  We were told to mail $860 million in income taxes to the U.S. Treasury.”

     “Here's a little perspective on that figure:  If an equal amount had been paid by only 2,000 other taxpayers, the government would have had a balanced budget in 1996 without needing a dime of taxes - income or Social Security or what have you - from any other American.  Berkshire

Shareholders can truly say, ‘I gave at the office.’”

     “Charlie and I believe that large tax payments by Berkshire are entirely fitting.  The contribution we thus make to society's well-being is at most only proportional to its contribution to ours.  Berkshire prospers in America as it would nowhere else.”

(This is not relevant to this blog post but with more U.S. companies changing domicile to foreign countries to avoid paying U.S. corporate taxes – which are the highest – I found Berkshire’s perspective interesting.)

On Common Stock Investments

    

“Our portfolio shows little change:  We continue to make more money when snoring than when active.”

     “Inactivity strikes us as intelligent behavior.  Neither we nor most business managers would dream of feverishly trading highly-profitable subsidiaries because a small move in the Federal Reserve's discount rate was predicted or because some Wall Street pundit had reversed his views on the market.  Why, then, should we behave differently with our minority positions in wonderful businesses?  The art of investing in public companies successfully is little different from the art of successfully acquiring subsidiaries.  In each case you simply want to acquire, at a

sensible price, a business with excellent economics and able, honest management.  Thereafter, you need only monitor whether these qualities are being preserved.”

“Let me add a few thoughts about your own investments.  Most investors, both institutional and individual, will find that the best way to own common stocks is through an index fund that charges minimal fees. Those following this path are sure to beat the net results (after fees and expenses) delivered by the great majority of investment professionals.”

     “Should you choose, however, to construct your own portfolio, there are a few thoughts worth remembering.  Intelligent investing is not complex, though that is far from saying that it is easy.  What an investor needs is the ability to correctly evaluate selected businesses. Note that word "selected":  You don't have to be an expert on every company, or even many.  You only have to be able to evaluate companies within your circle of competence.  The size of that circle is not very important; knowing its boundaries, however, is vital.”

     “To invest successfully, you need not understand beta, efficient markets, modern portfolio theory, option pricing or emerging markets.  You may, in fact, be better off knowing nothing of these.  That, of course, is not the prevailing view at most business schools, whose finance curriculum tends to be dominated by such subjects.  In our view, though, investment students need only two well-taught courses - How to Value a Business, and How to Think About Market Prices.”

     “Your goal as an investor should simply be to purchase, at a rational price, a part interest in an easily-understandable business whose earnings are virtually certain to be materially higher five, ten and twenty years from now.  Over time, you will find only a few companies that meet these standards - so when you see one that qualifies, you should buy a meaningful amount of stock.  You must also resist the temptation to stray from your guidelines:  If you aren't willing to own a stock for ten years, don't even think about owning it for ten minutes.  Put together a portfolio of companies whose aggregate earnings march upward over the years, and so also will the portfolio's market value.”

(To summarize their thoughts on common stock investments: Buy and hold with a long-term time horizon and unless you really know how to value a business and understand market pricing, buy index funds. I might add that using the services of an accredited advisor to help you reach your future goals and manage expectations with regard to financial planning and portfolio construction may be the best idea of all.)

CBlakely, CFP®             06/2014

Source: BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC., Chairman's Letter, 1996