value investing - why you fail
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Value Stock Guide » Public • Value Investing Tips & Articles » Value Investing – Why You Fail?
Value Investing – Why You Fail?
by Shailesh Kumar on September 2, 2012
Here is a riddle. Despite countless studies proving the superiority of value investing over growth or indexes,
investors do not normally invest for value. Why is that? Don’t they want better performance and greater wealth?
Christopher Browne of Tweedy, Browne in his presentation to the Columbia Business School (Nov 2000) talks
about how most money managers and investors are conditioned to track the benchmarks because of the one
very basic human fear. The fear of standing out from the herd.
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Browne also talks about various other behavioral tendencies people have that doom their aspirations to be a
good value investor. For example, the urge to buy and sell when sitting still is normally more profitable. He cites a
study of over 100,000 stock trades that found that for these investors, the stocks they sold on average out
performed the stocks they bought by 3.4% after a year. Ever thought “the stock always goes up after I sell”. It is
not always just in your mind!
You and most other investors are wired to make wrong decisions at critical times.
It is a good read. Please go ahead and download the pdf document and spend some time with it (after you have
finished reading this article).
Even practicing value investors fail
Successful value investing requires 2 parts in equal measure: one of knowing the techniques to analyze stocks for
value, and the second is the ability to stick to your discipline even when the market and overwhelming investor
sentiment screams you are wrong.
Learning the valuation techniques is the easy part. Discipline is hard – it requires a process, patience, and the
belief in the process. When you bet against the market as a value investor, you often stand alone. It takescourage to stick to your convictions.
For you will be tested. And often.
Over the last 15 years I have been investing for value, I have learned a few things I would like to share. Perhaps
some of these may be unique to my philosophy.
1. Buy for the deal, not for the stock price – Most of the analysis I do is based on comparing marketvalue to the intrinsic value. Using the absolute numbers, instead of the per share amounts helps in many
ways. For example, it gives me a real feel for the business size and sales that can be compared to theindustry. It also helps me remove the influences of such artificial constructs such as share repurchases or
new issues. The stock price is pretty much the last thing I look at.2. When the deal gets better, buy more – At one time, NEI stock was down about 40% after they
announced future revenue declines due to EMC pulling their business away. However, the thesis for NEIwas built on their strong balance sheet and as long as the company stayed profitable, the lower stock price
was a much better deal then the price I initiated my position at. One should realize that the market isirrational in the short term and generally reacts to the extremes. I bought more as the stock price touched40%-50% below the NCAV. Undervalued companies like this attract knowledgeable buyers and the
company ended up being acquired, instantly flipping a 40% loss to a 15% gain.3. A stock may stay undervalued for a long time – Nothing might happen for a long long time, and then
one fine day, the stock may get discovered. If the company is genuinely undervalued, and is creating morevalue in the franchise through continued profits, it is calling out for attention that it is bound to get. One
might get frustrated waiting for the stock to appreciate. Patience, and being able to do nothing at all whendoing nothing is the best course of action is a key skill that very few investors possess.
4. There is no hurry – A corollary to being patient but in a different sort of way. If you are doing a duediligence on a stock and are not ready to make a definitive buy decision yet, do not buy. It does not
matter if the stock suddenly caught on fire and you think the opportunity might slip away. There will beother ideas. Moving without conviction can be very expensive.
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5. Where is your guarantee? – So you think that the stock is undervalued and something or other might
happen to unlock the value for you? Do you know what that “something or other” is that needs tohappen? There are perhaps many different potential catalysts. What is the likelihood of one of these
catalysts actually coming into play? How quickly? And how sure are you?In some cases, you may have a pretty good idea of the catalyst. In most cases however, these will be just
different possibilities that you play around in your mind. Building these mental models before you buy thestock, and refining them over time is not just wishful thinking. It helps you take any new data or
development in the business and see which of these mental models it fits and that is where you find insightsthat 99% of the other investors will miss. Your guarantee of gain lies in the fact that 1) you get
predisposed to looking for stocks where something good happening is more likely, and 2) you are in abetter and more informed position to react when the time comes.
Most value investors fail one or several of these tests. Discipline is hard. Undervaluation does not alwaysguarantee gains and you have to know how and when they will come otherwise you are flying blind. And most
value money managers feel compelled to stay fully invested even when it is not a good idea. Most of the successlies in how you approach investing, and independence from institutional constraints is very important.
Despite my calls for patience, it is important to realize that there are times action is required. How do you figure
out when it is time to wait and when it is time to act? Experience helps, but more important is to have a welldefined process and strategy that you stick with. At times you will make wrong choices, but the beauty of having
a process is that it can be refined with experience. What this does is to eliminate those simple mistakes that mostinvestors make that little by little eat away their performance. Just doing this one simple thing statistically gives
you an edge over most other investors over time.
When you are ready to shake off the hit and miss investing and take your portfolio to the next level byusing proven value investing techniques, check out how I can help you.
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Sep 2, 2012
Sep 2, 2012
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pbanik
AAAMPblog
I'm mostly a value investor, but I also see the benefits of the contrarian style of investing. As for growthand aggresive growth styles of investing, I don't think it can work for years, or decades, because eventuallygrowth stocks crash down to earth. I don't also see the harm of short-term trading and taking the profits,as long as you have done your homework. I think if you're saving for retirement, education, home, avehicle, or something signficant, you can't afford to be overly risky. However, a Roth IRA, IndividualSavings Accounts (UK), Tax Free Savings Account (Canada) are example of accounts, where you canafford to be a little more risky, because these accounts I look at trying to build wealth, not necessarilyrestricted to retirement. Patience is the key, as you noted, but I'm guessing most people don't have yourdiscipline or maturity, or patience. Intelligence or education has nothing to do with it either. I have seenintelligent people make very bad decisions in terms of investing.
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Sep 3, 2012ShaileshKumar moderator
@pbanik Thanks Paul! A value investor is a *picky* contrarian most of the time. Occasionallythey divert. Problem with growth is that you are investing based on hopes and aspirations andthey often clash with reality.
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Sep 3, 2012pbanik
@ShaileshKumar
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Sep 3, 2012pbanik
@ShaileshKumar You're welcome Shailesh! I think the problem withgrowth is trying to pinpoint when is the exact time to get out. Forexample, AAPL would have been a great stock to get into, when it wasselling in the $80 - $90 range, but not so great now. Where is the top andbottom of these stocks? I
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Another great post Shailesh. I'm glad you mentioned patience. It's the one attribute you MUST develop tobe a successful value investor!
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Sep 2, 2012rwohlner
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Sep 2, 2012ShaileshKumar moderator
@AAAMPblog Ken, Thanks! I started out this article with the idea to write about the fact thatyour personality plays a very important role. If you grew up being taught to be "always on themove", "multi-tasker", etc, you will have hard time cultivating this quality. Inertia turns out to bea good thing in investing. Move when it is absolutely positively necessary to move (but whenyou do, move quickly)
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Nice post. Clearly sticking to one's discipline is the toughest part, not only with value investing but Isuspect with any sort of investing strategy.
1 Like Reply
Sep 2, 2012ShaileshKumar moderator
@rwohlner Absolutely right Roger! These strategies work over long term if you stay with them.If you change, you are most likely changing at the low point in your strategy. Emotions makepeople sell at that low and buy at the high.
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