Saturday 14 January 2017

Central elements to a Value Investing Philosophy

The three central elements to a value investing philosophy:

1) A "bottom-up" strategy
2) Absolute (as opposed to relative) performance
3) A risk averse approach



Bottom-Up Investing

Most institutional investors use a top-down approach to investing. 

  • That is, they try to forecast macroeconomic conditions, and then select investments based on that forecast. 
  • This method of investing is far too prone to error, and doesn't allow for a margin of safety.
  • For example, a top-down investor must be correct about the big picture, draw the correct conclusions from that big picture prediction, correctly apply those conclusions to attractive areas of investment, correctly specify specific securities, and finally, beat other investors to the punch who have made the same predictions.
  • In addition to these challenges, top-down investors are buying based on concepts, themes and trends. 
  • As such, there is no value element to their purchase decisions, and therefore they cannot buy with a margin of safety. 

On the other hand, bottom-up investors can apply a margin of safety and face a limited number of questions, e.g. what is the business worth, what is the downside etc.



Absolute Performance

Institutional investors are judged based on their performance relative to their peers or the market. 
  • This results in a short-term investing horizon.
  • Thus, if an investment opportunity appears undervalued but the value may not be recovered in the near-term, such investors may shun such an opportunity. 

Absolute investors don't judge themselves based on their performance to the market, which results in a short-term investing horizon. 
  • Instead, they focus on investments that are undervalued, and are willing to wait for that value to come uncovered.



Risk

In the financial industry, returns are expected to correlate with risk. 
  • That is, you cannot generate higher returns without taking more risk. 
  • Downside risk and upside potential are considered to have the same probability (an implication of using beta, a measure of a stock's volatility versus the market).

Value investors think of risk very differently. 
  • Downside risk and upside potential are not necessarily the same.
  • Value investors seek to exploit this key difference by buying stocks with strong upsides and limited downsides.


Read:
Seth Klarman - Margin of Safety




Read also:

The Philosophy of Value Investing and Why It Works

What is Value Investing?

The terms used to describe value investing don't require any accounting or finance background.

Value investing is described as paying 50 cents for a business worth $1. 

Warren Buffett's analogy using the maximum allowable weight of a bridge is used to illustrate how this margin of safety works:

"When you build a bridge, you insist it can carry 30,000 pounds, but you only drive 10,000-pound trucks across it. And that same principle works in investing."




Margin of Safety (buying at a discount) is of utmost importance

What allows value investors to apply a margin of safety while most speculators and investors do not?

Again using a Buffett analogy to illustrate this:

A long-term-oriented value investor is a batter in a game where no balls or strikes are called, allowing dozens, even hundreds, of pitches to go by, including many at which other batters would swing. Value investors have infinite patience and are willing to wait until they are thrown a pitch they can handle—an undervalued investment opportunity.



Value investors do not buy businesses they do not understand, nor ones that they find risky. For example, they will avoid technology companies and commercial banks. 

Value investors will also invest where their securities are backed by tangible assets, to protect them from downside risk.

Because the future is unknown (e.g. a business worth $1 today might be worth 75 cents or $1.25 tomorrow), there is little to be gained by paying $1 for this business.

The margin of safety (buying at a discount) is therefore of utmost importance. 

Value investors gain an advantage when many:

  • do not buy with a margin of safety, 
  • remain fully invested at all times, and 
  • trade stocks like pieces of paper with little regard to the underlying asset values.






Read also:

Philosophy of value investing. Need to have clear strategies too.

Buffett's first two rules of value investing:

1) Don't Lose Money
2) Never Forget Rule #1

While it is easy to say these rules, by themselves they don't help investors. 

The future is uncertain. 

These are always unknown:
  • future GDP growth rates, 
  • inflation rates, and 
  • other relevant factors to stock price returns. 
Furthermore, stocks are junior securities to debt and other firm obligations, making their future values even more uncertain. 

Stocks are certainly not risk free.

The investors need to have clear strategies, which they can follow, that will help them follow the above rules of Buffett's.





Read also:


How Wall Streets can create investment fads? The Junk Bond Market of mid-1980s

How the Wall street created the junk bond market investment fads?

In the early to mid-1980's, Wall Street firms pushed junk bonds on investors.

They touted the positive historical results of high-yield debt. 

There were major differences between the debts of fallen angels versus newly issued bonds from fragile companies.

Debt from fallen angels:

  •  trades at a discount to par, 
  • downside risk is reduced. 
  • at the same time, the potential for capital appreciation is large. 
Newly issued debt from marginal companies 

  • does not share in these above characteristics.


How Wall Street can create investment fads, only to leave investors much poorer when the tide goes out.

That didn't stop Wall Street from pushing this form of debt (newly issued debt from marginal companies), nor did it stop investors from ponying up and falling victim to these issues.

The number and size of junk bond issues grew, despite the fact that this asset class was untested by an economic downturn, which should have made investors cautious. 

Investors were happy to gobble up zero coupon bonds (where the interest accrues to the issuer but is not paid out until the bond comes due) despite the clear risks! 

It took the downturn of the early nineties to wipe out those who were too eager to pay for assets that were risky.



Faulty Logic using EBITDA propelled the Speculation

One way investors were prodded into purchasing such securities were valuation measures based on EBITDA. 

Rather than considering cash flow or earnings, companies were valued using this accounting measure which doesn't include depreciation expenses. 

A company paying its debts from EBITDA is slowly liquidating itself (as it can't make capital expenditures) and leaving itself susceptible to a credit crunch.

Such fads will undoubtedly occur in the future, and those who are able to avoid them will do well.





Read also:


Understanding these changes in the investment world allows investors to earn superior returns

The changing scenario in the investment world

The investment world has changed over the last several decades.

From 1950 to 1990, the institutional share of the market rose from 8% to 45%.

During the same period, institutions comprise 75% of market trading volume. 



The short-term mindset of the institutional investors

The institutions are hampered by a short-term mindset.  

Here are some reasons.

1.   Money managers tend to be rewarded not on what they return to clients, but rather as a percentage of their assets under management. 

A larger base of cash actually makes it more difficult to generate returns.

Thus there is a conflict between what's best for the manager and what's best for the investor.

2.   Institutional investors are also "locked into a short-term relative performance". 

Frequent comparative rankings among institutional investors forces a short-term mindset, as a long-term view can quickly send a manager to the unemployment line. 

As a result, these managers act as speculators rather than investors.

They try to guess what other managers will do, and try to do it first!

Only the brokers, who benefit from frequent trading, win this, as short-term market fluctuations are random


3.   Institutional investors are also constantly compared (and comparing themselves) to index benchmarks. 

Due to this relative comparison, they tend to prefer being close to 100% invested, even if things don't look cheap on an absolutely basis, which hurts investors when stocks are expensive.

4.  Money managers rarely invest their funds along with their clients.

In this conflict of interest situations, it is clear that the management firm wins.



Economist Paul Rosenstein:

"In the build­ing practices of ancient Rome, when scaffolding was removed from a completed Roman arch, the Roman engineer stood beneath. If the arch came crashing down, he was the first to know. Thus his concern for the quality of the arch was intensely personal, and it is not surprising that so many Roman arches have survived."





Read also:


What's good for Wall Street is not necessarily good for investors.


How Wall Street does its business?

It has a very short-term focus. 

For example, Wall Street makes money up-front on commissions (not from long-term performance).

Therefore the Wall Street will always push for churn and will always push "hot" investments.




Is this business model fundamentally wrong?

Some argue that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with this business model. 

After all, many professionals make money in this manner without being responsible for the long-term results. 

It is, however, important that investors recognise this Wall Street bias, or they will be robbed blind.

This business model also encourages very short-term thinking, and a bullish bias. 

If stocks are going up, Wall Street is able to make more in the form of commissions. 

This bullish bias is seen in the percentage of stocks that are recommended by analysts versus those that are deemed "sells".

There are many examples of Wall Street's short-term bullishness that props up prices of various securities, but where those prices eventually fall dramatically. 



Take Home Message for Investors

Investors are advised to keep Wall Street's biases in mind when dealing with the Street.

Investors are to avoid depending on the Street for advice.




Read also:


Speculators, Investors and Market Fluctuations


Speculators versus Investors


Mark Twain mentioned the two times in life when one shouldn't speculate: "when you can't afford it, and when you can!". 

Speculators buy in the hopes or assumptions that others will want to buy the same asset (be it a painting, a baseball card, or a stock) later.

Investors buy the cash flow the investment returns to its owner. (As such, a painting can never be an investment by this definition!)



Stock Market Bubbles

Bubbles in the stock market form due to faulty logic that first propels speculators to bid up prices followed by the inevitable bursting which destroys the wealth of many.



What determines whether an investor will make money in the market or not?  

The answer is his psychological make-up. 

If he does his own stock analysis and views the prices offered by Mr. Market as an opportunity to buy low and sell high, he will do fine. 

If Mr. Market's offering prices guide the investor's outlook of what the stock price should be, he should get someone else to manage his money!



Market fluctuations

Most market fluctuations are the result of day-to-day distortions between supply and demand of particular stocks, not of changes in fundamentals.

Investors who take advantage of these distortions by focusing on the fundamentals will be successful. 

Those who invest with their emotions are sure to fail in the long-run.





Read also:

Thursday 12 January 2017

Various Value Investing Strategies - a Review

Many value investing strategies to employ in the market place: 

Teach yourself to THINK in PROBABILITIES and in MULTIPLE SCENARIOS.

Without question, Buffett's success is tied closely to number.

"One of the advantages of a fellow like Buffett is that he automatically thinks in terms of decision trees and the elementary maths of permutations and combinations."  (Charlie Munger)

Most people do not.

It doesn't appear that the majority of investors are psychologically predisposed to thinking in multiple scenarios.  

They have a tendency to make decisions categorically while ignoring the probabilities.



Thinking in probabilities


Thinking in probabilities is not impossible:  it simply requires attacking the problem in a different manner.

If your investing assumptions do not express statistical probabilities, it is likely your conclusions are emotionally biased.

Emotions have a way of leading us in the wrong direction, especially emotions about money.

But if you are able to teach yourself to think in probabilities, you are well on your way to being able to profit from your own lessons.

Not often will the market price an outstanding business or any other outstanding businesses substantially below their intrinsic value.

But when it does occur, you should be financially (have the CASH)  and psychologically prepared (have the COURAGE) to bet big. 

In the meantime, you should continue to study stocks as businesses with the idea that one day the market will give you compelling odds on a good investment.


"To the Inevitables in our portfolio, therefore, we add a few Highly Probables." (Buffett)




Bet Big when the Opportunity Presents.



It is not given to human beings to have such talent that they can just know everything about everything all the time.
But it is given to human being who work hard at it - who look and sift the world for a mis-priced bet - that they can occasionally find one.
The wise ones bet heavily when the world offer them that opportunity.
They bet big when they have the odds.
And the rest of the time, they don't.
It is just that simple.


Quote:  Charlie Munger

Asymmetric Loss Aversion

The pain of a loss is far greater than the enjoyment of a gain.

Many experiments have demonstrated that people need twice as much positive to overcome a negative.

On a 50/50 bet, with precisely even odds, most people will not risk anything unless the potential gain is twice as high as the potential loss.

This is known as asymmetric loss aversion:  the downside has a greater impact than the upside.

This is a fundamental bit of human psychology.



Applied to the stock market

It means that investors feel twice as bad about losing money as they feel good about picking a winner.

This line of reasoning can be found in macroeconomic theory, which points out that:

  • during boom times, consumers typically increase their purchases by an extra three-and-half cents for every dollar of wealth creation, and
  • during economic slides, consumers will actually reduce their spending by almost twice that amount (six cents) for every dollar lost in the market.



The impact of loss aversion on investment decisions

This is obvious and profound.



1.    Not selling our losers

We all want to believe we made good decisions.   

To preserve our good opinion of ourselves, we hold onto bad choices far too long, in the vague hope that things will turn around.

By not selling our losers, we never have to confront our failures.


2.   Unduly conservative

This aversion to loss makes investors unduly conservative.

Participants in 401(k) plans, whose time horizon is decades, still keep as much as 30 to 40 percent of their money invested in the bond market.

Why?  Only a deep felt aversion to loss would make anyone allocate funds so conservatively.


3.  Irrationally holding onto losing stocks, potentially giving up a gain from reinvesting

But loss aversion can affect you in a more immediate way, by making you irrationally hold onto losing stocks.

No one wants to admit making a mistake.

But if you don't sell a mistake, you are potentially giving up a gain that you could earn by reinvesting smartly.

Wednesday 11 January 2017

Psychology and Investing

You must have faith in your own research, rather than in luck.

Your actions are derived from carefully thought out goals, and you are not swept off course by short-term events.

You understand the true elements of risk and accept the consequence with confidence.

In the business world, you can find huge predictable patterns of extreme irrationality.

This is not talking about predicting the timing, but rather the idea that when irrationality does occur, it leads to predictable patterns of subsequent behaviour.

You should pay serious attention to the intersection of finance and psychology.

The majority of investment professionals have only recently paid serious attention to this.

Your own understanding of this will be valuable in your own investing.


The Psychology of Investing. Emotions affect people's behaviour and ultimately market prices.

The emotions surrounding investing are very real.  These emotions affect people's behaviour and ultimately, affect market prices.

Understanding the human dynamic (emotions) is so valuable in your own investing for these two reasons:

  1. You will have guidelines to help you avoid the most common mistakes.
  2. You will be able to recognise other people's mistakes in time to profit from them.
We are all vulnerable to individual errors of judgement, which can affect our personal success.

When a thousand or a million people make errors of judgement, the collective impact pushes the market in a destructive direction.

The temptation to follow the crowd can be so strong that accumulated bad judgement only compounds itself.

In this turbulent sea of irrational behaviour, the few who act rationally may well be the only survivors.


To be a successful focus investor:
  • You need a certain kind of temperament.
  • The road is always bumpy and knowing which is the right path to take is often counterintuitive.
  • The stock market's constant gyrations can be unsettling to investors and make them act in irrational ways.
  • You need to be on the lookout for these emotions and be prepared to act sensibly even when instincts may strongly call for the opposite behaviour.
  • The future rewards focus investing significantly enough to warrant our strong effort.

Monday 9 January 2017

The importance of high ROE when selecting your stocks for the long term (Warren Buffett)

In his newsletter to Berkshire Hathaway's shareholders in 1987, Warren Buffett wrote a brilliant piece on his focus on return of equity in his selection of his companies.  Here are some of his notes.


1.   Only 6 out of 1000 had ROE > 30% during previous decade

In its 1988 Investor's Guide issue, Fortune reported that among the 500 largest industrial companies and 500 largest service companies, only six had averaged a return on equity of over 30% during the previous decade.  The best performer among the 1000 was Commerce Clearing House at 40.2%.

(Comment:  6 in 1000 is 0.6%)


2.  Only 25 of 1,000 companies had average ROE > 20% and no year with ROE < 15%, in last 10 years.

This Fortune study also mentioned that only 25 of the 1,000 companies met two tests of economic excellence -

  • an average return on equity of over 20% in the ten years, 1977 through 1986, and 
  • no year worse than 15%.
These business superstars were also stock market superstars:  During the decade, 24 of the 25 outperformed the S&P 500.

(Comment:  25 in 1000 is 2.5%)


3.  Companies with durable competitive advantage

These companies have two features.
  • First, most use very little leverage compared to their interest-paying capacity.  Really good businesses usually don't need to borrow.
  • Second, except for one company that is "high-tech" and several others that manufacture ethical drugs, the companies are in businesses that, on balance, seen rather mundane.  Most sell non-sexy products or services in much the same manner as they did ten years ago (though in larger quantities now, or at higher prices, or both). 

The record of these 25 companies confirms that making the most of an already strong business franchise, or concentrating on a single winning business theme, is what usually produces exceptional economics.  

(Comment:  About 20 of 1,000 companies in KLSE, that is, 2%, are investable for the long term.)


4.  Quoting Buffett from his 1987 letter to shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway:

"There's not a lot new to report about these businesses - and that's good, not bad.  Severe change and exceptional returns usually don't mix.  Most investors, of course, behave as if just the opposite were true.  That is, they usually confer the highest price-earnings ratios on exotic-sounding businesses that hold out the promise of feverish change.  That prospect lets investors fantasise about future profitability rather than face today's business realities.  For such investor-dreamers, any blind date is preferable to one with the girl next door, no matter how desirable she may be."



Reference:

Sunday 8 January 2017

Qualitative and Quantitative factors in Valuation of Stocks or Companies.

Both qualitative and quantitative factors are used in the valuation of stocks or companies.

From an extreme perspective:

1.  Qualitative analysis method:  "Buy the right company, do not consider the price."

2.  Quantitative analysis method:  "Buy when the price is right and do not consider the qualitative factors of the company."


Of course, in reality, both factors are considered when valuing and buying a stock or company.

A great company can be a bad investment if you overpay to own it.

Also, a lousy company can be a value trap though you paid a very low price to own it.

My personal approach.

1.  The company has to always satisfy the qualitative criteria first, namely, the right company of the highest quality.

2.  Having passed the qualitative hurdle, then it has also to satisfy the quantitative criteria, namely, the right price.

That is Quality first, then Price!