The Third Pig: All-Stars Archives

November 13, 2009

The Results of Lazy Investing

After finding my post about “lazy investing”, a reader of The Third Pig suggested following such an approach would eventually lead to financial ruin. The reader suggested to be a successful investor one had to be unnaturally gifted in analytic ability and/or spend countless hours researching and trading his portfolio. I cannot speculate on where this reader developed his point of view but what I can say is the evidence does not support him. Warren Buffett has often said that successful investing requires three things: a 5th grade understanding of mathmatics, a sound investment philosophy and the right temperament. Never does he say you have to be a genius or you have to stay up all hours a night trading your portfolio.

Legg Mason Capital Management performed a study in an attempt to find the common characteristics of mutual funds that beat the S&P 500 Index during the period of 1992 to 2002. What was found was a few common attributes of the outperformers which are strickingly similar to a lazy investing approach. Those funds were/are/have:

Portfolio concentration: These portfolios have, on average 37% of assets in their top-10 holdings, versus 24% for the S&P 500 and a 28% median for all U.S. equity funds.

Portfolio turnover: As a whole, this group of investors had about 30% turnover, which stands in stark contrast to turnover for all equity funds of 110%. They are truly, lazy investors (how we like to define it).

Value Investment Style: Most if not all of the funds listed seek stocks with prices that are less than their value. These fund managers recognize that price and value are not the same, often diverge and then converge again. They take advantage of this consequence of investing in the stocks of companies.

Off Wall Street: Only a small fraction of high-performing investors are located in the financial centers of New York or Boston. There location allows them to quiet the noise of Wall Street, dampening the temptation to trade frequently or with reckless abandon. They can take a more methodical and rational approach.

The chart below shows how some of those funds have fared against the S&P 500 in the 10 years ending September 30, 2009. As you can see, most of them beat the market and had positive returns in a period that experienced the worst economic times since the great depression. Oakmark Select in particular had a bad run as a result of owning a large piece of Washington Mutual during the subprime crisis (article) but it hardly mattered over the long term. The funds that didn't have been a little more volatile than the market and measured over different but similarly long periods, also outperformed the market. Although I cherry-picked the funds I follow most, the sample is representative of the group listed in the Legg Mason white paper.

Following this approach, our Core Model Portfolio Average has performed well over a similarly long period of nearly 7 years (ending 9/30/2009) returning an annualized 10.7% versus the S&P 500's 3.8%. Bottom line, it pays to be lazy when it comes to investing.

Disclosure: I and the clients of Brick Financial Management, LLC did not own shares in any of the the companies or funds mentioned in this post at the time of this writing. But positions may change at any time.

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Posted by Benjamin Taylor at 03:00 PM |
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July 13, 2009

All Star Singing The Same Tune About Cheap Market

A few weeks back we introduced you to Bill Nygren, manager of the Oakmark Select fund. In the video Nygren plainly states his belief the market is presenting investors with a lot of opportunity to purchase undervalued but high quality companies. In his 2009 semi-annual letter to his fund holders, he reiterates this view. He says,

We continue to believe that today’s long-term investors will increase their capital more by investing in stocks than by investing in other assets. Further, we believe that the long-term return for stocks purchased today is likely to be higher than historical average returns. Here are a few of our main reasons for such optimism.

In his letter, Nygren sites three factors that influence his position - valuation, historically high levels of cash, and lots of skepticism amongst investors. In regard to valuation, Nygren points out that with the S&P 500 trading at about 900, and operating earnings in 2009 expected to be in the $60s, stocks appear reasonably valued with a mid-teens P/E ratio. But Nygren strongly suggests a $60 range for earnings is not normal. Nygren argues that operating earnings were nearly $90 in 2006 thus normal earnings are probably somewhere north of $60.

Nygren also talks about cash, the amount of money market balances which remain historically high. These funds have to go somewhere and the stock market is its most likely destination. The following graph illustrates this point:

In regard to the market's skepticism, Nygren says:

As value managers, we’re used to having people disagree with us. In fact, we prefer it that way. The consensus opinion, almost by definition, is usually reflected in current prices. So when we differ from consensus, we’re excited by the opportunity. We believe that today’s consensus stock market opinion is that the magnitude of the market increase since March has not been matched by fundamental improvement in the economy. The implication is that an investor should wait for the market to fall before increasing their investment in stocks. While we applaud the effort to tie stock price movements to fundamentals, we have to ask, where were these fundamentalists when the market was in freefall?

All in all, Nygren makes for a good fundamental argument to be an investor in today's market.

Disclosure: none

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Posted by Benjamin Taylor at 03:34 PM |
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May 29, 2009

All Star Investor Says The Market Is Still Cheap

We follow several investors whom we respect and share our value investing philosophy. These investors tend to deviate from the crowd in their opinions whether the market is cheap or overpriced (video), how to approach buying, how to value companies, and whether or not it's time to buy or sell. Bill Nygren of the Oakmark Funds is one of those investors.

In a recent interview with CNBC (video) Nygren says (actually he's quoted as saying):