Net Net Working Capital (Value Investing)

What is Net Net Working Capital?

Net Net Working Capital = Cash + Short Term Marketable Investments + Accounts Receivable * 75% + Inventory * 50% – Total Liabilities

“Net Net Working Capital” (NNWC) is one of the first stock valuation screening methods to be defined in the value investing world.  Benjamin Graham also referred to this as Net-Current-Asset Value (NCAV).

The Net Net Working Capital formula may help identify undervalued stocks.  Benjamin Graham actually used the term “Net Working Capital” but current value investors and Graham followers use the terms “net nets” or “Net Net Working Capital” interchangeably.

One value investing strategy of Graham was to purchase stocks that were trading at less than two-thirds of the Net-Current-Asset Value per Share (i.e. less than two-thirds of the Net Net Working Capital Value per Share).  This type of value investing strategy could be thought of as a “liquidation value investing strategy”.  In other words, Graham is proposing that the stock is so cheap that even under a situation where the business was wound down, that the investor would have a such a suitable margin of safety that a return could still be earned.  Of course, Graham is not counting on a liquidation since there are costs associated with that action.  Rather, Graham is satisfied that he is paying nothing for the fixed assets of the business nor is he paying anything for any potential earnings.

According to Graham, “The type of bargain issue that can be most readily identified is a common stock that sells for less than the company’s net working capital alone, after deducting all prior obligations.* This would mean that the buyer would pay nothing at all for the fixed assets—buildings, machinery, etc., or any good-will items that might exist.  Very few companies turn out to have an ultimate value less than the working capital alone, although scattered instances may be found.”  (Source:  The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham).

Of course, stocks that are trading below their NNWC may be trading at such low multiples for various reasons (e.g. pending bankruptcy, misstated financial statements, or a host of reasons why investors may be shunning a particular stock).  Regardless, we present the Net Net Working Capital formula and provide further discussion.

Net Net Working Capital = Cash + Short Term Marketable Investments + Accounts Receivable * 75% + Inventory * 50% – Total Liabilities

Once the NNWC is determined, this amount divided by the number of shares outstanding will provide the NNWC per share.  NNWC per share that is less than the current share price may be an indication of an undervalued stock or a deep value stock.  Graham advocated buying a basket of stocks whose prices traded significantly below NNWC per share (or Net Current Asset Value per Share – NCAV per Share).

The NNWC formula considers that not all balance sheet amounts may reflect current reality.  A 25% discount is applied to accounts receivable as these amounts may not actually be collectible.  In addition, a 50% discount to inventory is applied given that it may be stale or obsolete.  Of course, this is a first screen and potential investors should consider whether further discounts would be prudent.

The estimation or calculation of intrinsic value is as much art as science.  Any investor can run a mathematical screen to identify stocks trading at various metrics that could indicate potential value.  However, it must take keen business sense and deep curiosity to ask why a stock may be trading at the level it is, whether there actually is business value and how much, and what potential catalysts could emerge to unlock value.  The Net Net Working Capital formula is one more value investing tool.

Net Net Working Capital Formula – Further Analysis and Discussion:

Net Net Working Capital is a subset of Graham’s Net Working Capital is a subset of Net Working Capital (also known as Working Capital).

1) Net Working Capital = Current Assets – Current Liabilities

2) Graham’s Net Working Capital = Current Assets – Total Liabilities

3) Net Net Working Capital = Cash + Short Term Marketable Investments + Accounts Receivable * 75% + Inventory * 50% – Total Liabilities

Note that the results of each formula are presented in a decreasing order.  That is to say Net Net Working Capital will provide the lowest and hence, most conservative, value.  In other words, all else being equal, of the three formulas above, a stock trading below Net Net Working Capital provides the investor with the largest margin of safety.

Value investing is about buying a stock at a sufficient discount to intrinsic value.  Graham’s “Net Working Capital” or the “Net Net Working Capital” formulas can be used as preliminary screens to identify potentially undervalued stocks or deep value stocks.

http://deepvalueinvestor.com/net-net-working-capital/

Margin of Safety

'Never count on making a good sale. Have the purchase price be so attractive that even a mediocre sale gives good results.'

Source: "Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist" (1995)

'If you understood a business perfectly and the future of the business, you would need very little in the way of a margin of safety.'

Source: 1997 Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting

So, the more vulnerable the business is, assuming you still want to invest in it, the larger margin of safety you'd need. If you're driving a truck across a bridge that says it holds 10,000 pounds and you've got a 9,800 pound vehicle, if the bridge is 6 inches above the crevice it covers, you may feel okay, but if it's over the Grand Canyon, you may feel you want a little larger margin of safety.'

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101000052

http://www.cnbc.com/id/33608379/page/17

Debunking 5 Common Investor Dilemmas

FORBES | 2/13/2013

Hundreds of investors ask me questions each year about the dilemmas they confront. Their worst problem? Uncertainty. They are traumatized and become emotional or confused to the state of inaction. Even worse, they try to solve a short-term problem in a way that hurts them financially in the long run.

My solution is to keep it simple: Buy the stocks of great companies at reasonable valuations.

Here are five everyday investor dilemmas and my easy stock solutions.

Dilemma: You need cash flow, but it’s a scary world. A ten-year Treasury pays just 1.8%. If you are prepared for some risk, junk bonds pay about 5%, but they tend to get whacked when interest rates rise. Same with lower-yielding but higher-quality corporate bonds.

I have long advocated a safer approach if yield is what you crave. Buy big-cap stocks. I like America’s largest wireless carrier, Verizon (VZ, 44), which has a 4.75% dividend yield. With Verizon, you can expect single-digit growth from a diversified group of consumer and business offerings, plus a boost from added wireless spectrum.

Like any stock, Verizon isn’t immune to short-term volatility, but in the long term it will deliver. It’s cheap at 1.1 times annual sales and 15 times my estimated 2014 earnings. Beats T bonds by a mile.

Dilemma: The Federal Reserve is printing money, and the country’s going to hell. Your daughter just got a nose piercing and a facial tattoo. The prospect of inflation has you terrified. How can you invest in the ugly realities of neo-America?

Not with gold—it doesn’t actually do anything, and during 85% of its long history it has lost money. Do you flee America? Poland is doing great, but the language is difficult. Mexico? Better take your gun.

The solution, of course, is to diversify globally, and one of the best ways I know to stave off inflation is buying in Deutschland. The Germans have little tolerance for inflation. I like Germany’s fast-growing SAP (SAP, 80). It’s the global market-share leader in enterprise software for business operations and customer relations.

Crowd-think sees faltering growth due to competition. That was also the view one, three, five and ten years ago. Don’t fall prey to the doubters—the stock sells for 20 times my estimate of 2013 earnings with a 1.2% dividend yield.

Dilemma: Your other daughter—the good one, from wife No. 2—is adorable, just 7, and you want to put away something for her college years that she will appreciate.

In a decade we may think back on Facebook as a great fad, but Coca-Cola KO +0.11% (KO, 38) is a stock with staying power!

It’s truly one of the original global buys, but it’s as American as apple pie. It should continue to grow at low rates until long after your daughter proudly gives you grandkids. It sells at 16 times my 2013 estimated earnings with a 2.6% dividend yield.

Dilemma: You’re intrigued by exciting, fast-growing emerging markets, but you’re also worried about terrorists, drug dealers, corruption and lousy roads.

Buy Ecopetrol (EC, 61), one of the largest petroleum companies in the world, based in Colombia. But don’t worry about Colombia’s narco issues. Ecopetrol is an experienced local operator. I last recommended it Sept. 21, 2009 at $26, but it should continue to prosper. It sells at 13 times my estimated 2013 earnings.

Dilemma: how to find another great stock despite a well-diversified portfolio.

Buy Walt Disney DIS +2% Co. (DIS, 55), the world’s largest media firm by revenue. It’s big and easy to understand. Slow growth, but superbly managed and diverse in its field, and by definition fun! It’s just 13 times my estimated September 2014 earnings with a 1.4% dividend yield.

Money manager Ken Fisher’s latest book is Markets Never Forget (But People Do) (John Wiley, 2011). Visit his home page at www.forbes.com/fisher.


http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenfisher/2013/02/13/debunking-5-common-investor-dilemmas/

Ken Fisher: The Only Three Questions that Count: Investing by Knowing What Others Don't

The Only Three Questions that Count: Investing by Knowing What Others Don't is a book on investment advice. It was released in December 2006 and spent three months on The New York Times list of "Hardcover business bestsellers" .^[1] It was also a Wall Street Journal and a 'BusinessWeek best seller.^[2]

In the book, Fisher says that because the stock market is a discounter of all widely known information, the only way to make, on average, winning market bets is knowing something most others don’t. The book claims investing should be treated as a science, not a craft, and details a methodology for testing beliefs and uncovering information not widely known or understood. The book’s scientific method consists of asking three questions:

1. What do I believe that’s wrong?
2. What can I fathom that others can’t?
3. What is my brain doing to mislead me?

The first question addresses common investing errors, the second shows how to try and find bettable patterns which others may misinterpret, and the third deals with behavioral finance, pointing out cognitive errors such as overconfidence and confirmation bias.

Other issues covered include high P/E ratios; debt; the federal budget, trade, and current account deficits; the U.S. dollar; high oil prices; emerging markets; gold; and the U.S. economy.

Book reviews have also appeared in the Financial Times, which stated "you get the impression that its author, Ken Fisher, does not often find himself short of things to say. The stream of consciousness that flows through the book can be distracting but it is impressive and certainly never dull."^[3] Forbes Magazine which said "Fisher's key insight is that investment is not a craft that can be mastered by merely accumulating information."^[4] and Canada's National Post which says that the book " dispels more than a dozen ... myths".^[5]

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

References[edit]

1. Jump up^ The New York Times list of "Hardcover business bestsellers"
2. Jump up^ BusinessWeek best seller
3. Jump up^ Financial Times book review
4. Jump up^ Forbes Magazine book review
5. Jump up^ National Post book review

Not all REITS are good enough to invest in.

You must learn to avoid investing in sub-par REITS.  These have:
1.  overly high level of debt, and
2.  inconsistent or declining income for distribution.

Here are 6 screens for finding the best REITs:

1.  High distribution yield (at least 5%)
A low distribution yield (less than 5%) tells you that the REIT is currently too expensive to buy.

2.  History of consistent growth in DPU.
You need to ensure that the REIT you invest in has a history (at least 4 - 5 years) of consistent increase in their distribution per unit (DPU) (i.e dividend per share).

3.  High expected DPU growth in the next 1 - 2 years
You have to ensure that the REIT you buy is expected to generate increased income and distribution in the next 1 - 2 years.  This comes from expected increase in property prices, increase in rental or acquisition of new properties.

Cyclical REITs like office, industrial and residential REITs should not be bought when the economy is entering a recessionary phase.  This is a time when these property prices and rental income are expected to decline.  They should only be bought when the economy is recovering from a recession or in an expansionary phase.

4.  Low gearing ratio (< 40% )
Since REITs must pay out 90% of their income in dividends, most REITs can only acquire new properties by taking bank loans.  When a REIT takes on too much debt, it exposes itself to interest rate risk and even defaut risk (when it is unable to service the repayments).

5.  REIT stock price is fairly valued
As an investor, you would want to buy a REIT at a time when its price is below its NAV (undervalued).  Such opportunities arise when there is a lot of pessimism in the market.  At the same time, when the price has risen too high above its NAV (overvalued), you may want to avoid buying the REIT.

6.  REIT must be on a confirming uptrend.

DPU = Distribution per unit.



Ref:  Adam Khoo

How to Look for Values in Companies

All you need is to have certain tools to look after your own investing.

@ 3.00  The moment my son turned 18, I invested with him and he is now competent in looking after his own investing.  I believe when he reaches my age, he will be wealthier than I am.

@8.30  US, Japan, Europe, and UK.  Quantitative Easing - To Lower Interest Rates, Lift Asset Prices and Lower Exchange Rates

@ 11.00 My Currency - Your Problem
National Debt solutions - Service it, Default on it, or Inflate it away.

@ 12.40:  Buy inflation beating assets for the long term:  Properties and Shares.

@ 14.18:  How do you value?  PYAD - P/E, Yields, Assets and Debts

@ 16.00:  Cheap rubbish is still rubbish.   What do you do?  Hold or Sell?

@ 17.00:  Benjamin Graham vs Warren Buffett

@ 20.30:  Growth and value are joined at the hip.

@  21.20:  Coca Cola company

@  23.15  Concept of Yield on Cost.

@ 26.20:  "The harder I work, the luckier I am." (Biosensors International)

@ 28.00:  A Healthy Culture


www.fool.sg

The Powerful Chart That Made Peter Lynch 29% A Year For 13 Years

6/26/2013 

In his excellent book One Up on Wall Street, Peter Lynch, the best mutual fund manager ever, revealed a powerful charting tool that helped him to achieve a gain of 29.2% in his portfolios for 13 years. In this chart, Peter Lynch drew the stock price and the earnings per share together and aligned the value of $1 in earnings per share to $15 in stock price. He wrote in pages 164-165 of the book:

“A quick way to tell if a stock is overpriced is to compare the price line to the earnings line. If you bought familiar growth companies – such as Shoney’s, The Limited, or Marriott – when the stock price fell well below the earnings line, and sold them when the stock price rose dramatically above it, the chances are you’d do pretty well.”

To see how this Peter Lynch Chart works, we applied it to the top holdings of Warren Buffett, the most successful investor ever: Wells Fargo (WFC), Coca-Cola (KO), IBM (IBM), American Express (AXP) and Wal-Mart (WMT). The Peter Lynch Chart of Wells Fargo is below, where the green line is the Price Line, and the blue line is the Peter Lynch Earnings Line. When the Price Line is well below the Peter Lynch Earnings Line, the stock is a buy.

Among these top five holdings of Warren Buffett, we found that Wells Fargo is the most undervalued. Wal-Mart and IBM are about fair valued. We then compared this result with the trading activities of Warren Buffett. To our surprise, we found that Warren Buffett was buying Well Fargo heavily and adding to Wal-Mart and IBM.

Is this just a coincidence? Does Warren Buffett only buy the stocks that are undervalued as measured by the Peter Lynch Chart? Is Warren Buffett using this powerful tool, too?

We don’t know the answer to the question. But we know that great minds think alike!

Now this powerful charting tool is available at GuruFocus.com. You can create it in just two clicks for any of the more than 50,000 stocks covered by GuruFocus.com.

We applied this tool to the portfolios of George Soros, Carl Icahn and other investment Gurus tracked at GuruFocus.com. We even developed a screen for this strategy that makes it easy to find stocks that are traded well below Peter Lynch’s Earnings Line.

Certainly buying stocks that are traded well below their Earnings Line is not the only criterion Peter Lynch used to achieve his 29%-a-year results. We also added his other requirements such as strong balance sheet and solid growth into the screener. When I limit my Peter Lynch screen to only the stocks that are owned by Warren Buffett, I found eight other companies that Warren Buffett owns and Peter Lynch would be buying. All of these eight companies have strong balance sheet, solid growth and reasonable valuations. One of them is of course Wells Fargo. Warren Buffett loves it so much that he made it his largest holding.

Now both Warren Buffett and Peter Lynch are working for me! I have added these stocks to my watch list.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gurufocus/2013/06/26/the-powerful-chart-that-made-peter-lynch-29-a-year-for-13-years/

The Six main types of REITs

There are 6 main types of REITs

1.  Office REITs - own and operate office buildings
2.  Retail REITs - own and operate retail properties like shopping centres and shopping malls.
3.  Industrial REITs - own and lease out industrial properties that include light industrial properties, factory space, warehouses, business parks and distribution centres.
4.  Hospitality REITs - own and lease properties to hotels and serviced residences.
5.  Health Care REITs - own health care facilities that are leased to health care providers like hospitals, nursing homes and medical offices.
6.  Residential REITs.- own and operate multi-family rental apartment buildings as well as manufactured housing.

Health care and industrial REITs have the highest yields but the lowest potential for capital gains.
Retail, residential and office REITs have relatively lower yields but greater potential for price appreciation.
Office, hospitality and industrial REITs are highly sensitive to the economy (that is, their business performances are cyclical).

What is a Market Maker?

You probably take for granted that you can buy or sell a stock at a moment's notice. Place an order with your broker, and within seconds, it is executed. Have you ever stopped to wonder how this is possible? Whenever an investment is bought or sold, there must be someone on the other end of the transaction.

If you wanted to buy 1,000 shares of Disney, you must find a willing seller, and visa versa. It's very unlikely you are always going to find someone who is interested in buying or selling the exact number of shares of the same company at the exact same time. This begs the question, how is it that you can buy or sell anytime? This is where a market maker comes in.

A market maker is a bank or brokerage company that stands ready every second of the trading day with a firm ask and bid price. This is good for you, because when you place an order to sell your thousand shares of Disney, the market maker will actually purchase the stock from you, even if he doesn't have a seller lined up. In doing so, they are literally "making a market" for the stock.

How do Market Makers make their Money?

Market Makers must be compensated for the risk they take; what if he buys your shares in IBM then IBM's stock price begins to fall before a willing buyer has purchased the shares? To prevent this, the market maker maintains a spread on each stock he covers. Using our previous example, the market maker may purchase your shares of IBM from you for $100 each (the ask price) and then offer to sell them to a buyer at $100.05 (bid). The difference between the ask and bid price is only $.05, but by trading millions of shares a day, he's managed to pocket a significant chunk of change to offset his risk.

Historical and Performance F.A.S.T. Graphs™

Channeling Peter Lynch

http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424052748704382404578571404089572628.html

What can F.A.S.T. Graphs™ do for you and your investments?

http://www.fastgraphs.com/

www.fastgraphs.com

Business Buyers and Sellers

A business buyer's task can be stated simply:  to buy a good company at a good price.

Buyers usually have many alternatives, and time is often on their side.

The job of the buyer is to make sure that a company is "as good as it looks" by analyzing financial statements and the competitive landscape of the industry.

The buyer should also question whether a company can successfully navigate a change in ownership, as companies sometimes lose key employees or customers in time of transition.


A business seller's task can be stated simply as well:  to position his company to receive the best possible price in the marketplace.

Sellers need to anticipate the sale of their company well before it actually happens so that they have enough time to sell unused assets or make other necessary changes.

Early consideration of important issues will allow sellers to capitalize on favourable conditions in their industry or in the capital markets.


Both buyers and sellers need to think carefully about the extent to which a company has created an economic moat - a sustainable competitive advantage -within its industry.  Business with wide moats tend to be more valuable.

Rubber gloves sector downgraded to neutral

PETALING JAYA: Maybank Investment Bank Research has downgraded the rubber gloves sector from “overweight” to “neutral” as the valuations of the stocks are fairly reflective of fundamentals now.

Analyst Lee Yen Ling said price-to-earnings (PER) valuations had risen from eight to 16 times end-2012 to 11 to 19 times currently.

“Though new supply (for nitrile gloves) looks aggressive, near-term price competition is likely to be mild, for new capacity will just about match demand, we believe, with the latter expanding by about 20% year-on-year,” she said.

Demand for nitrile glove sales were also driven by a shift in customer preference from latex powder-free to nitrile gloves, she said, adding that margins for nitrile gloves remained higher compared with latex gloves by more than 6 percentage points as a result of higher pricing and lower raw material cost.

Lee pointed out that glove manufacturers usually did not gain or lose significantly on foreign exchange volatility as most of them bought forward contracts which expired in two to three months to sell US dollars when they delivered the products as a way to hedge their US-denominated receivables.

She added that the recent fuel price hike, which led to higher transportation costs for the companies, had insignificant impact on them as transportation accounted for only 2% to 3% of total costs, thus they were not adjusting glove prices.

The research house’s top pick was Kossan Rubber Industries Bhd on the back of its better value proposition compared with its peers.

She has given a higher target price of RM7.60 to the counter as she revised Kossan’s PER upwards to 16 times from 15 times.

Meanwhile, she maintained a “hold” rating on Hartalega Holdings Bhd with the same target price of RM6.71 whereas the target price for Top Glove Corp Bhd was re-rated downwards to RM6.40 with a downgraded “hold” call as weaker latex powder-free glove sales were factored in.

http://www.thestar.com.my/Business/Business-News/2013/09/25/Rubber-gloves-sector-downgraded-to-neutral.aspx

A Dozen Things I’ve Learned About Investing From Peter Lynch

1. “Nobody can predict interest rates, the future direction of the economy, or the stock market.  Dismiss all such forecasts and concentrate on what’s actually happening to the companies in which you’ve invested.” It is far more productive for an investor to focus their time and energy on systems which are potentially understandable in a way which might reveal a mispriced asset. George Soros said once: “Unfortunately, the more complex the system, the greater the room for error.” The simplest system on which an investor can focus is an individual company. Trying to understand something as complex as an economy in a way which outperforms the markets is not a wise use of time and is unlikely to happen.    

2. “The way you lose money in the stock market is to start off with an economic picture. I also spend fifteen minutes a year on where the stock market is going.” and “If you spend more than 13 minutes analyzing economic and market forecasts, you’ve wasted 10 minutes.”  The media’s objective is to convince you that obsessively following the news cycle is necessary for an investor. In short, the media’s interest is to to convince you to watch their advertising. While you don’t want to be oblivious to the state of the economy, listening to talking head pundits and incessantly following the news cycle is actually counterproductive to profitable investing. Instead, focus on the companies  you chose to follow.

3. “The GNP six months out is just malarkey. How is the sneaker industry doing? That’s real economics.” The difference between the predictive power of microeconomics and macroeconomics is “night and day” since with the former vastly fewer assumptions are required and the systems involved are far less complex. The best investors make investing as simple as possible, but no simpler.  Lynch is saying he may pay attention to the economics of an industry, but only to understand the economics of the companies he chooses to follow. 

4. “To make money, you must find something that nobody else knows, or do something that others won’t do because they have rigid mind-sets.” It is mathematically certain that you can’t beat the market if you *are* the market. You must find bets that are mispriced, be right about that mispricing and when you do find a mispriced bet, by definition, your view will be contrarian.  

5. “A share of a stock is not a lottery ticket. It’s part ownership of a business.” Many people love to gamble since it gives their brain a dopamine hit. They gamble even though it is a tax on people with poor math skills. The right thing for an investor to love is the process of investing, not the bet itself.  The right process for an investor is to understand the value generated by the underlying business.  

6. “Investing without research is like playing stud poker and never looking at the cards.” You can’t understand a business and its place in an industry without doing research. And in doing research you must find something that the market does not properly discount into the price of the stock or bond. If you spend more time picking out a refrigerator than researching a stock, you should instead be buying a low fee index fund.

7. “Owning stocks is like having children—don’t get involved with more than you can handle. The part-time stock picker probably has time to follow 8-12 companies.” The time in any given day, week etc. is a zero sum game. If you work at a day job and you have a life, only so much time is left to follow stocks and bonds.  It is better to be a mile deep in understanding 8-12 companies than an inch deep on many more.

8. “Everyone has the brainpower to follow the stock market. If you made it through fifth-grade math, you can do it.” Addition, subtraction, multiplication and division is all the math skill you need. Investors should ignore formulas with Greek letters in them.

9. “People seem more comfortable investing in something about which they are entirely ignorant.” Suspending disbelief about an investment is easier for many people for some reason when you know less rather than more, especially if the story is well crafted and told by the promoter.  When confronted with someone touting a stock, imagine them holding a megaphone at the circus and then think about what they are saying.  

10. “If you can’t convince yourself ‘When I’m down 25 percent, I’m a buyer’ and banish forever the fatal thought ‘When I’m down 25 percent, I’m a seller,’ then you’ll never make a decent profit in stocks.” and “Bargains are the holy grail of the true stock picker. We see the latest correction not as a disaster, but as an opportunity to acquire more shares at low prices. This is how great fortunes are made over time.” Who doesn’t like it when something like a hamburger is cheaper to buy? Stocks and bonds are no different.  Also, don’t put yourself in a position where you may need to sell at the wrong time.

11. “A market player has 50 percent of his portfolio in cash at the bottom of the market. When the market moves up, he can miss most of the move.” Markets over long period of time inevitably rise. They always have and always will. That is the good news. The bad news is that you can’t “time” when the rise in a market will happen. By trying to “time” the market you can miss a big move up and if you do, your returns will show it.   

12. “Only invest what you could afford to lose without that loss having any effect on your daily life in the foreseeable future.” Nothing is worse than not being able to care for people you love. Don’t take that risk. And don’t put yourself in a position where you are likely to panic more than usual due to the pain of something normal and inevitable (e.g., a 20% correction in the stock market). Peter Lynch said once: “Small investors tend to be pessimistic and optimistic at precisely the wrong times.”

http://25iq.com/2013/07/28/a-dozen-things-ive-learned-about-investing-from-peter-lynch/

Day trading: only two out of ten make money; fewer do so consistently

Conclusion

We analyze day traders in Taiwan.

1. Day trading is prevalent in Taiwan – accounting for more than 20 percent of total trading volume during our sample period.
- Individual investors account for virtually all day trading (over 97 percent).
- Day trading is heavily concentrated. About one percent of individual investors account for half of day
trading and one fourth of total individual investor trading volume.

2. Our analysis of performance indicates day trading is treacherous, but not entirely a fool’s game.
- Heavy day traders, as a group, earn gross profits (before transaction costs).
- Thus, heavy day traders do appear to have a trading advantage over other investors.
- The stocks bought by the most active day traders outperform those sold by 31 basis points per 21 day.
- Unfortunately, the gross profits of heavy day traders are not sufficiently large to cover reasonable estimates of transaction costs.
- Thus, as a group, they lose money.
- In contrast, occasional day traders experience both gross and net losses.
- The stocks bought by occasional day traders actually underperform those sold, even before considering
transaction costs.

3. There is considerable cross-sectional variation in the performance of day traders.
- Over the typical six month horizon, using lower range assumptions regarding transaction costs, less than 20 percent of day traders earn profits net of transaction costs.

4. These results paint a rather dim portrait of day traders. However, we do document a select few are able to consistently earn profits sufficient to cover transaction costs.
- We identify day traders who earn substantial profits over a six-month period and analyze the performance of their subsequent trades.
- These profitable day traders continue to earn stellar returns.
- The average day trader in this group earns a semi-annual income of over $NT 1 million from his day trading activity, though the group’s median income is a more modest $NT 126,000.
- The stocks they buy outperform those that they sell by 62 basis points per day.
- These profits survive transaction costs.
- In other words, there is strong evidence of persistence in the ability of day traders.

Our analysis makes clear the need for comprehensive risk disclosure.
Prospective day traders should be apprised of their likelihood of success: only two out of ten make money; fewer do so consistently.


http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/odean/papers/Day%20Traders/Day%20Trade%20040330.pdf

Most day traders, especially heavy day traders, lose money trading. Why do investors engage in such a wealth reducing activity?

Question:

There are more than 100 million people in the world engaging in trading everyday.
If trading do not work, why would there be so many people engaging in this activities everyday over long period of time?

WHY? I am puzzled too.


Most day traders, especially heavy day traders, lose money trading.
Why do investors engage in such a wealth reducing activity?

1. One possibility is that investors simply find day trading entertaining.
- Undoubtedly some investors do find day trading entertaining, but can entertainment account for the extent of day trading that we observe?
- Do day traders knowingly and willingly accept such large expected losses for fun?
- For all but the wealthiest investors, this would be a very expensive form of entertainment indeed.


2. Another reason why day trading might entice investors would be if it provided an appealing distribution of returns.
- People often display an attraction to highly skewed investments, such as lotteries, that have negative expected returns but a small probability of a large payoff.
- However, the day trading profits that we document are similar in magnitude to, and far less prevalent than, losses.
- Unlike lottery winners, day traders must succeed on repeated gambles in order to achieve overall success.
- Such repeated gambles do not tend to generate highly skewed distributions.


3. A final potential explanation for the prevalence of day trading is that most day traders are overconfident about their own chances of success.
- Several papers (e.g., Odean (1998, 1999), Barber and Odean (2000, 2001)) argue that overconfidence causes investors to trade more than is in their own best interest.
- Overconfident day traders may simply be bearing losses that they did not anticipate.
- While day traders undoubtedly realize that other day traders lose money, stories of successful day traders may circulate in non-representative proportions, thus giving the impression that success is more frequent that it is.
- Heavy day traders, who earn gross profits but net losses, may not fully consider trading costs when assessing their own ability.
- And, individual day traders may believe themselves more likely to succeed than the average day trader.
- We are unable to explicitly test whether day traders are motivated by overconfidence rather than the desire for entertainment.
- Our opinion is that the average losses incurred by day traders are more than most would willingly accept as the cost of entertainment and that, by and large, day traders must hold unrealistic beliefs about their chances of success.


http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/odean/papers/Day%20Traders/Day%20Trade%20040330.pdf

Golden rules for losing money. To make money, sometimes it's better to first concentrate on not losing it.

This article explains the classic investment mistakes that, to be successful, you should avoid at all costs.

To make money, sometimes it's better to first concentrate on not losing it. 

Investing successfully poses many challenges. Here are some of the techniques that can help you to rise to these challenges but first, one of our favourite tools, from mathematician Carl Jacobi.

He was fond of saying, 'invert, always invert' and that's what we're going to do here.  Instead of looking at how to make money, we're going to look at great ways to lose it. That way you can aim to minimise your mistakes-a vital part of investing successfully.

So here they are, classic investment mistakes guaranteed to ensure woeful performance.

1. Trade fast and trade often

Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's business partner, often refers to the huge mathematical advantages of 'doing nothing' to your portfolio. Let's blindly ignore the very large tax benefits of holding stocks for the long term and just consider the impact of brokerage.

Someone who 'turns over' (buys and sells) all the stocks in their portfolio several times a year is at least a few percent behind the eight ball, even with internet brokerage rates as low as 0.3%. Add up the brokerage from your last tax return to see what we mean.

There's also an important, but less measurable, benefit to taking a longer-term approach. It makes you think long and hard about which stocks to include in your portfolio. When you are considering buying a stock for 10 years or more, you tend to pick quality businesses. And that can only be a good thing.

So, if your intention is to lose money (and enrich your broker), trade fast and frequently.

2. Follow the mainstream media

Hopefully, you are somewhat against this particular human folly.  Most people, though, aren't so resistant.

Munger refers to a human condition known as 'incentive-caused bias' and it explains the functioning of media quite nicely. There's a widely held belief, and it may be correct, although declining newspaper circulations suggest otherwise, that emotional, confrontational, dramatic coverage sells more papers than rational, factual reporting. Hence the tendency to induce panic in investors when calmness would better serve their interests.

But incentive-caused bias doesn't just affect the media. Just look at how honest managing directors can first convince themselves, then their board, then their shareholders, how an offshore acquisition or hostile takeover will be great for everyone, especially themselves. Generous options packages offer a fitting explanation for many examples of corporate foolishness.

To lose money, avert your eyes from a factual assessment of a situation and bury yourself in the opinions and arguments of those with a vested interest in convincing you of the veracity of their own opinion.

3. Follow fads or 'hot stocks'

In his highly recommended book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion , Robert Cialdini talks about another human condition known as 'social proof'. The evolution of the human species, and sheep, was greatly assisted by a tendency to follow the crowd-safety in numbers and all that.

Anyone who thinks that social proof is solely the preserve of the historian should study the mania of the dot com boom. Millions, gulled with the fear of standing apart from the crowd, played a huge role in firing the mania. Conformity still dictates many areas of life but following the stockmarket crowd can be a costly mistake. As Buffett says, 'you pay a very high price in the stockmarket for a cheery consensus.'

That's why we are most often excited when others are depressed and fearful when others are optimistic (see our review of FKP on page 6). And it explains why we're worried about China, nickel stocks and other areas like the spate of listed investment company floats that are currently running hot.

If you're intent on seeing your net worth dwindle, follow hot stocks and sectors.

4. Beat yourself up over lost opportunities

'Right decision, wrong result'. In an imperfect activity like investing, mistakes are absolutely inevitable. But, odd as it may sound, sometimes even when you're right, you're wrong.

To call tech stocks overvalued in mid-1999 was undoubtedly correct. But for the next six months, as speculators pushed prices higher still, it sure didn't feel correct. It's a fact of life that someone will always be getting rich a little quicker than you are. But then again, they may become poor just as quickly by adopting the same approach.

If you take the conservative decision not to invest in a stock, and it goes up anyway, don't fret. Just be patient-other opportunities are often just around the corner. But if you are interested in blowing your capital, now's a good time to capitulate and buy at these higher prices.

5. Buy cyclical stocks at the top

There is the natural human tendency to extrapolate recent events. So when a cyclical stock like a steel company or property developer has a few tough years, investors tend to make the assumption that the bad times will last indefinitely. This can sometimes offer good opportunities for the canny investor.

In the same way, when these stocks show a few years of good results, thanks, for example, to strong Chinese metal demand, a booming property market or some other factor, the market tends to extrapolate the good times. It's the same mistake made at different ends of the cycle. Just at the peak of a cycle, investors can confuse a cyclical stock with a growth stock and bid the shares up, perhaps to a very high PER. But when earnings are at a peak, that's exactly when cyclical stocks should be selling on a low PER. When earnings fall, as they inevitably do with a cyclical downturn, the shares come crashing down. Farmers-who are used to the feast/famine cycle of a life on the land-seem less susceptible to this folly than most.

6. Follow overly acquisitive management

In his comprehensive book, Two Centuries of Panic , Trevor Sykes says that 'more companies are ruined by bad management than by bad economies'. We'd most definitely agree. Overly acquisitive managements-those hell-bent on growth, seemingly at any cost, are especially prone to getting into trouble. How so?

Acquisitions often involve large amounts of debt which thereby increase risk. As interest rates rise, for example, a growing portion of cashflow has to be diverted to service debt rather than deployed in the business or paid out as dividends. Secondly, acquisitive managements, often suffering from delusions of grandeur, can overstretch themselves. And, finally, acquisitions tend to cloud the company's financial accounts. This can fool bankers and shareholders for a while but by the time the gravity of a tough situation comes to light, it's too late. The collapse of speedily built empires like Austrim, Quintex and Adelaide Steamship are stark reminders of what can go wrong. Backing such management is almost bound to help lighten your wallet.

7. Invest in rapidly expanding financial institutions

Depending on the riskiness of the borrower, a financial institution might make a 'spread' or 'margin' on loans of anything from 1% to 5% per year. But when a loan goes bad, it can lose 100%. It's a risk that must be managed very, very carefully. Warren Buffett once remarked that a bad bank manager can flush all your equity down the toilet in your lunch hour.

And watching the accounting ratios like a hawk won't always save you either. In banking, growth can actually be used to hide bad loans temporarily (as, perhaps, we are about to see). A bank that is experiencing a high rate of loan delinquencies can easily halve that rate temporarily by writing new loans and doubling the size of its loan book-after all, a new loan takes time before it can go bad. But hastily made new loans are likely to be of poorer quality than existing ones.

This is why we get worried when financial institutions aim for rapid growth. Bank of Queensland, on which we have a negative recommendation, has targeted a 5% share of the national home loan market in 3-5 years, compared to its current 2.5% share. To achieve that, we suspect it will have to offer lower rates, or take on riskier business, to wrestle market share from the other banks-especially as it tackles markets outside its home state. If you want to improve your chances of ending up in the financial poorhouse, put your money into fast-growing financial institutions.

8. Work to the 'greater fool' theory

Some investors seem happy to buy expensive stocks, knowing full well they're overvalued, because they feel confident that someone else will come along and pay an even higher price. That's what happened in the dot com boom and it's what seems to be happening in the current nickel boom. Many investors buying nickel stocks now believe them to be overvalued, but assume they'll get even more overpriced-as in the Poseidon boom of the early 1970s. It's financial musical chairs for suckers and is likely to end up costing many investors a bundle.

9. Buy 'gunna' companies rather than 'doer' companies

'Gunna' companies are those that are 'gunna' do this and 'gunna' do that. Such unproven companies, and their attendant management teams, are a great way to lose capital. But even well-established companies can be 'gunna' companies. Management will explain away the poor performance of the last few years and concentrate on what it will do in the future. Chances are it will be putting on a similar show a few years down the track. While those sticking with proven companies and managements should do well, if you're aiming to lose money, buy 'gunna' companies.


http://shares.intelligentinvestor.com.au/articles/140/Golden-rules-for-losing-money.cfm#.UkN5yssayK1

The Growth Stocks of Peter Lynch

Peter Lynch

From 1977 through his retirement in 1990, Peter Lynch steered the Fidelity Magellan Fund to a total return of 2,510%, or five times the approximate 500% return of the Standard & Poor's 500 index. In his 1989 book One Up on Wall Street, Lynch described a variety of strategies that individual investors can use to duplicate his success. These strategies divide attractive stocks into different categories, each characterized by different criteria. Among those most easy to identify using quantitative research are fast growers, slow growers and stalwarts, with special criteria applied to cyclical and financial stocks. (The latter, for example, should have strong equity-to-assets ratios as a measure of financial solvency.)

Peter Lynch's Company Categories:

Fast Growers

These companies have little debt, are growing earnings at 20% to 50% a year, and have a stock price-to-earnings ratio below the company's earnings growth rate.

Investing in these types of stocks makes sense for investors who want to find solidly financed, fast-growing companies at reasonable prices.

Slow Growers

Here Lynch is looking for companies with high dividend payouts, since dividends are the main reason for investing in slow-growth companies.

Among other things, he also requires that such companies have sales in excess of $1 billion, sales that generally are growing faster than inventories, a low yield-adjusted price/earnings-to-growth ratio, and a reasonable debt-to-equity ratio.

Investing in these types of stocks makes sense for income-oriented investors.

Stalwarts

Stalwarts have only moderate earnings growth but hold the potential for 30%-to-50% stock price gains over a two-year period if they can be purchased at attractive prices. 

Characteristics include positive earnings; a debt to equity ratio of .33 or less; sales rates that generally are increasing in line with, or ahead of, inventories; and a low yield-adjusted price/earnings-to-growth ratio. 

Investing in these types of stocks makes sense for investors who aren't willing to pay up for high-growth companies but still want the chance to enjoy significant capital gains.

Read more: http://www.nasdaq.com/investing/guru/guru-bios.aspx?guru=lynch#ixzz2fsOsMVsc

Invest Using Strategies of Wall Street Legends - Peter Lynch and Warren Buffett

Published on 26 Jan 2013
John Reese discusses his guru-based investing system and outlines the strategies of Warren Buffett, based on the book "Buffettology", and Peter Lynch, which is based on the book "One Up on Wall Street". Reese also discusses the Validea investing framework and how investors can be utilize systematic strategies like the ones outlined in the presentation.

http://www.youtube.com/user/valideavids/videos

http://www.validea.com/home/home.asp