The Intelligent Investor: General Portfolio Policy for the Defensive Investor

Chapter 4 - General Portfolio Policy: The Defensive Investor
Graham opens the chapter defining two different kinds of investors: the “active” investor, which is the kind of investor that actively seeks new investments and invests serious time into studying investments, and the “passive” or “defensive” investor, the kind of investor that wants to invest once (or on a highly regular basis) and just let his or her portfolio run on autopilot.

Regardless of the activity that you apply to your investments, Graham sticks hard with his recommendation from the earlier chapter: 50% stocks, 50% bonds (or a close approximation thereof, with an absolute maximum of 75% in either side). It’s important to remember with a recommendation like that that Graham is very conservative in his investing, dreading the idea of an actual loss in capital. Only in the most dire of down markets (like 2008, for example) would such a portfolio actually deliver a loss to the investor.

Much of this chapter is spent talking about the various types of bonds that a person can buy:

• savings bonds,
• treasury notes/bills,
• municipal bonds, and
• corporate bonds

dominate most of the chapter, with most of their ins and outs described. Graham doesn’t really come to a conclusion about any of them, merely pointing out that there is a huge diversity of options when it comes to the bond portion of your portfolio -

• some short term,
• some long term,
• some free from taxes,
• some not.

Commentary on Chapter 4
So, how can you tell whether you should be 75% stock and 25% bonds or 50/50 or 25/75? Or somewhere in between? Zweig argues that it mostly comes down to

• your goals,
• the stability in your life,
• your other savings, and
• your tolerance for risk.

The more stable things are and the longer term your goals are, the higher your proportion of stocks can (and probably should) be.

Zweig also covers several additional options for the bond portion that didn’t exist in Graham’s day, such as bond funds, mortgage securities (no, no, no, no, NO!), and annuities. More importantly, Zweig actually looked at holding cash as an investment option in such things as high-interest online savings accounts and CDs. All of these can be a big part of the conservative half of one’s portfolio, sharing space with (or replacing) bonds.

Most interestingly, though, Zweig suggested that buying stocks solely for the dividends might be considered something that could be a part of the conservative side of a portfolio. Zweig points out that many common stocks pay out 3% or more of their value in dividends each year, so if you select a high-dividend stock from a very stable company, it could potentially serve as part of the conservative side of a defensive investor’s portfolio. I don’t know if I agree with this, given the inherent riskiness of owning individual stocks, that companies reset their dividends annually, and that even the most stable of companies can fall apart quicker than you might expect.


(Comment: In the absence of easy access to bonds for individual investors in Malaysia, the FDs and selected high-dividend stock from a very stable company are the 'equivalent' alternatives to the bond portion of the portfolio.)

Ref: The Intelligent Investor: General Portfolio Policy for the Defensive Investor