Transcript Is it true that “If you own a stock, bond or actively

If you own a stock, bond or actively
traded mutual fund, you are losing
money
Len Shapiro [email protected],
Neveh Shalom Men’s Club
Dec 18, 2011
http://shapirosite.org/m/F.pptx
1
Outline
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Introduction
Terminology
Data
Anecdotes
Modern Portfolio Theory
Rebalancing
The Bottom Line
2
Intro: Bio
•
•
•
•
•
Reed BS in Math, Phi Beta Kappa
Yale PhD in Math
Mathematical Economist
Computer Scientist
Former chair of CS Dept at PSU
– Currently Emeritus Professor
• Former VP of Neveh, chair of Ritual
Committee and Chevra Kadishah
3
Yidden
• You are welcome to ask questions during my
presentation because that’s the Jewish way:
• Genesis 32:28, Jacob triumphs in his struggle
with an angel and is renamed Israel.
• Exodus 32:9, G-d calls the Jews Am K’shei Oref,
a stiff-necked people
4
Outline
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Introduction
Terminology
Data
Anecdotes
Modern Portfolio Theory
Rebalancing
The Bottom Line
5
Asset Classes: Types of Stocks
• (Partial Listing)
1. Domestic (=US) stocks
–
–
Large, middle and small capitalization (cap)
Each category could be one asset class, for example,
domestic midcap is one asset class.
2. Bonds
–
–
–
US Treasuries, US corporate, international treasuries and
corporate
Each category has various terms, like one year, or 3-5
years, etc, and various ratings, like AAA, junk bonds, etc.
Each category could be one asset class, for example, US
Corporate 3-5 year junk bonds.
6
Asset Classes, Ctd.
3. EAFE: Europe, Asia, Far East stocks
– Britain, Japan, France, Germany, Australia,
Switzerland,Sweden, Italy, etc.
– An asset class may or may not include large,
medium or small cap.
4. Emerging country stocks
• China,Brazil,S.Korea,Taiwan,India,S.Africa,Russia,Mexico
,etc.
• Again, an asset class may or may not include large,
medium or small cap.
7
Asset Classes, ctd.
5. REIT: Real Estate Investment Trusts
– Typically invests in large commercial, residential
multiunit properties
6. Commodities: metals, foods, energy
– An asset class may own companies, futures, or
assets themselves
– Futures are complex because of contango
8
Asset Classes, ctd.
• Asset Classes vary hugely in their rates of
returns and risks.
• See the chart on the next slide
9
Asset Class Variation
• From Bernstein, “The Investor’s Manifesto”, 2010, pg. 15
10
Mutual Funds(MF)s vs.
Exchange Traded Funds (ETF)s
• An ETF is bought and sold like a stock
– bought and sold with the usual stock commission
• An ETF is bought through a stock broker
• Some brokers sell some ETFs commisson-free
– Allows powerful strategies like covered calls
• A Mutual Fund
– May have a front end purchase fee
– May have an early redemption penalty
– May have a minimum investment
• ETF prices change in real time, MF prices change daily
• ETFs have significant tax advantages over MFs
– http://finance.yahoo.com/etf/education/06, http://tinyurl.com/5gpu33
11
More info on ETFs
• Several sites are available to provide info on ETFs
– Etfdb.com, etfresearchcenter.com, efttrends.com, etc.
• Using these sites, one finds that the largest ETF in some of
the asset classes above is
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Large cap domestic: SPY
Med cap value domestic: IWS
Small cap growth domestic: IWO
Investment grade US Corporate bonds: LQD
EAFE: EFA
Emerging Equities: VWO
REIT: VNQ
Commodities: DBC (DBA for less oil focus)
• There’s the start of a sample portfolio for you.
12
MFs, ETFs
• Some MFs and ETFs specialize in areas other
than asset classes, for example
– High dividend stocks
– Specific assets, e.g. gold, or Brazilian stocks
– Hedge funds
– Target retirement dates
– Merger Arbitrage
– Israel stocks
13
More terminology: Active, Passive
• Active vs. Passive Exchange Traded Funds and
Mutual Funds
– Active: Experts pick what they consider to be the
“best” holdings, often in a single asset class
– Passive: Nonexperts pick a representative sample of
holdings in an asset class
– There are active and passive Mutual Funds and ETFs
• You might think active funds perform better
– You are in for a surprise!
14
Index Funds
• An index is defined by an organization, describing “a
representative sample of holdings in a single asset class”
• A passive fund holding stocks representing an
index is called an index fund.
– Essentially all passive funds are index funds
• Most ETFs are index funds, most MFs are active
funds
– For historical reasons
• Many books and people say “ETF” when they
mean “Index Fund”
15
What is an Index
• It is not clear how to define an index in an asset class
– especially in asset classes as complex as commodities
• So indexes are typically defined by major organizations
– The definition of an index can be multiple paragraphs
• Examples: Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, S&P 400, etc
– Dow Jones Industrial Average: created by by Wall Street Journal editor
and Dow Jones & Company co-founder Charles Dow and statistician
Edward Jones. It is now owned by the CME Group. Consists of 30
stocks.
– S&P 500: Essentially the 500 largest US stocks. This represents 2/3 of
the capitalization of all domestic stocks.
– S&P 400: 400 midcap domestic stocks, covering 7% of domestic stocks.
– Wilshire 5000: 6700 stocks, essentially all domestic stocks
• Index funds identify themselves as following a specific index
16
Management Fees
• MFs and ETFs each have an annual management
fee
– Why do active funds typically have much higher
management fees?
• Hint: “experts”
– On the next slide you will see some management fees
of some of the most popular ETFs. Notice how low
they are. Fees of active MFs can be close to 1%;
professional fees are typically over 1%.
– The table is From Malkiel, “A Random Walk Down Wall
Street”, © 1973-2011, pg. 400
• Over 1.5 million copies sold
17
ETF Management Fees
18
Active vs. Index Funds
• An active fund is managed by one or a few
humans using their judgement.
• Each active fund must continually be creative,
nimble, better than the rest.
• Every active fund has a horror story about a
period when it went bad.
• Will you be lucky enough to avoid the horror
story when it is time to cash out?
19
Outline
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Introduction
Terminology
Data
Anecdotes
Modern Portfolio Theory
Rebalancing
The Bottom Line
20
Cold, Hard Facts
• One aspect of the Efficient Markets
Hypothesis: Most active funds underperform
their benchmark indexes.
• The table on the next page is from Malkiel, pg
292.
21
22
More Efficient Markets Hypothesis
• Even the Winners Are Losers: Another Table
from Malkiel, pg 181
23
More “Winners Are Losers” Evidence
• According to a Wall Street Journal article:
• “Heading into 2008, 14 stock and balanced
mutual funds had beaten the S&P 500 for nine
years in a row … just one of those has stayed
ahead” in 2009.
– http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123111222434752379.html
• Of course, the important measure is
cumulative return.
– If we have time, we’ll look at that at the end.
24
Double Whammy
• So when you buy an active mutual fund you
get a double whammy
• You are paying a higher management fee
• And your manager is typically
underperforming the MF’s benchmark index.
• You are losing money twice over.
• Paying a front end fee? Triple whammy.
25
Do it yourself?
•
•
•
•
Do you buy individual stocks and bonds?
Think you can beat the MF experts?
They do investing full time
They are trained and chosen especially for this
craft
• And they underperform the indexes
26
The good news
• Indexes, which outperform the experts, are
available to each of you, and cheaply, through
indexed ETFs and MFs. See the previous
sample portfolio.
27
I know this great stock…
• A standard practice among investors who buy
individual stocks is to buy stocks that have
shown terrific performance recently.
• But the cold, hard truth is that investing in
poorly performing stocks, so-called “value”
stocks, is a wiser strategy.
• The tables on the next slide are from
Bernstein, pages 40 and 41.
28
Don’t buy great stocks!
29
Active MFs are profit centers
• Bernstein, pg 139.
30
Timing the Market
• You can’t. From Goldie and Murray, “The
Investment Answer”, 2011
31
Outline
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Introduction
Terminology
Data
Anecdotes
Modern Portfolio Theory
Rebalancing
The Bottom Line
32
Some Anecdotes
• “October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous
months to speculate in stocks in. The others are July,
January, September, April, November, May, March,
June, December, August and February.” Mark Twain,
Pudd’nhead Wilson
• “There are two times in a man’s life when he should
not speculate: when he can’t afford it, and when he
can.” Mark Twain, Following the Equator
• “How could I have been so mistaken as to have trusted
the experts?” JFK, after the Bay of Pigs fiasco
33
More Anecdotes
• “It’s far more profitable to sell advice than to take
it”, Steve Forbes, publisher of Forbes magazine
• “In 30 years in this business, I do not know
anybody who has done it [Market timing]
successfully and consistently, nor anybody who
knows anybody who has done it successfully and
consistently. Indeed, my impression is that trying
to do market timing is likely, not only not to add
value to your investment program, but to be
counterproductive.”, John Bogle, founder of the
Vanguard Group. Remember this guy hires many
many successful fund managers.
34
But I’ve always beaten the Market!
• Peters and Waterman, in In Search of Excellence,
report that a random sample of male adults were
asked to rank themselves in terms of their ability
to get along with others. One hundred percent
ranked themselves in the top half of the
population. Twenty five percent ranked
themselves in the top one percent. Even in
athletic ability, an area where self-deception
would seem more difficult, over 60% of male
subjects ranked themselves in the top quartile.
Only 6% ranked themselves below average.
35
I beat the market, ctd.
• An October NYT article by Nobel Prize winner
Daniel Kahneman makes these points:
– Investors, who trade more, are less successful.
– Men tend to trade more, and lose more, than
women.
– We tend to ignore evidence of our failures.
– http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/magazine/
dont-blink-the-hazards-of-confidence.html
36
What about those MF Ads?
• Here are some tricks they use
– Create 10 mutual funds. Close those that
underperform their benchmark indexes, then
advertise the ones that are left, if any.
– Given an MF, claim it was a number one
performer for a short period, or compared to a
small set, say of funds with asset values between
$250 and $500 million.
37
Outline
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Introduction
Terminology
Data
Anecdotes
Modern Portfolio Theory
Rebalancing
The Bottom Line
38
Modern Portfolio Theory
• We don’t have time to go into this. It’s
explained in Malkiel, pages 202-213.
• It says, basically, that a portfolio containing
widely diversified asset classes yields higher
returns and lower risks than one containing
fewer or similar asset classes.
39
Outline
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Introduction
Terminology
Data
Anecdotes
Modern Portfolio Theory
Rebalancing
The Bottom Line
40
Rebalancing
• You should decide on a percentage allocation
of your portfolio into asset classes based on
your personal risk tolerance.
• Every 6 months to 2 years you should buy
and/or sell assets to recapture this allocation.
• Rebalancing can reduce risk and increase
returns.
41
Rebalancing Example, Malkiel Pg 370
42
Outline
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Introduction
Terminology
Data
Anecdotes
Modern Portfolio Theory
Rebalancing
The Bottom Line
43
From This We Learn?
• Don’t buy individual stocks or bonds, or active
mutual funds. Instead, buy index ETFs or
index mutual funds.
• Buy index funds with low management fees.
• Buy index funds in a widely diversified set of
asset classes.
• Rebalance
• Don’t try to time the market. Buy and hold.
44
Questions?
• The remaining slides are to be used only if
there is time. They cover:
• The most popular mutual funds
• For those that are no-load and actively
managed, comparisons with corresponding
index funds
• Modern Portfolio Theory
45
Most Popular Mutual Funds
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
American Funds Grth Fund of Amer A (AGTHX) - $79 billion
Vanguard 500 Index (VFINX) - $71B
American Funds Invmt Co of Amer A (AIVSX) - $71B
Fidelity Contrafund (FCNTX) - $67B
American Funds Washington Mutual A (AWSHX) - $65B
Dodge & Cox Stock (
) -- $64B
PIMCO Total Return Instl (
) - $59
American Funds Capital Inc Bldr A (CAIBX) -- $56B
American Funds Capital World G/I A (CWGIX) -- $55B
American Funds EuroPacific Gr A (AEPGX) -- $52B
Fidelity Magellan (
) - $45B
Vanguard 500 Index Adm (VFIAX) - $44B
Fidelity Diversified International (
) - $44B
Vanguard Institutional Index (VINIX) - $43
46
47
48
49
50
Modern Portfolio Theory
Umbrella
Manufacturer
Resort Owner
+50
-$25
Sunny Weather -$25
+50
Rainy Weather
51
MPT: Example
• Assume half of days are rainy, half are sunny
• If you own one share of Umbrella Manufacturer
– Average profit is (50-25)/2 = 12.5
– But your investment has high risk = high variance
• Same results if you own one share of Resort.
• What if you diversify and own one share of
each?
– Rainy day: profit is (50-25)/2 = $12.5
– Same for sunny day
52
MPT: Results
• In our example, you initially owned just one
stock, a profitable but risky investment.
• Then you diversified.
• You got the same expected return
• But with no risk
• This worked because the two stocks had a
covariance of -1.
53
MPT in the real world
• Real asset classes don’t have negative
covariance.
– However, their covariance is often significantly
less than one
– See slide 10 above
• However, diversifying over asset classes with
covariance less than one will reduce risk.
• Bottom line: Owning a diversified portfolio will
reduce your risk while preserving your profit.
54