Picking Stocks For The Long Term Is Harder Than You Think – So Don’t
Summary It is important to distinguish between stock picking and index investing, because they require different approaches. A common assumption with index investing is that, over the long term, indexes will rise. Often, investors make the same assumption when picking individual stocks, but they shouldn’t. It is extraordinarily difficult to find individual stocks that offer value, long-term predictability, and index out-performance. That doesn’t mean that we should abandon stock-picking. It just means that it is very important to take into account the medium-term prospects of a stock. Alpha is more likely to be achieved if one develops a medium-term investment thesis and then sticks to it. I generally try to avoid referencing super-investors for a variety of reasons, but this article will be an exception. There have been many, many articles and comments on Seeking Alpha that reference Warren Buffett’s investing advice. What is often not taken into account, however, is that Buffett’s advice is directed at two distinct categories of investors: active, knowledgeable investors; and passive, less knowledgeable investors. For passive investors, Buffett’s basic advice is to invest the majority of one’s capital into a low-cost S&P 500 index fund, and perhaps hold some capital in cash in case there is a downturn in which one needs money and does not wish to sell their stocks while the stocks are undervalued. The reasoning behind this is that over the long-term, a large basket of US stocks are likely to outperform other asset classes, and you can purchase a large basket of US stocks rather cheaply. As for investors who are active, intelligent, and knowledgeable, they should look for some combination of value and long-term predictability, and also have a high portfolio concentration, low turn-over, and if possible, aim to seek out companies with small capitalization. (This is summarizing a lot of what Buffett has said, done, and written over the years into one sentence. I would be happy discuss any reasonable objections of the summary in the comments section.) It is important to note that these two investing approaches are often mutually exclusive. You cannot have a high concentration and index at the same time. You also cannot assume that an individual stock that has a low correlation with its respective index will rise over long periods of time like you can with an index. In fact, I think that the relationships may be opposite one another. (Meaning the longer you commit to holding an individual stock, the more likely it is the stock will decline in value, while the longer you commit to holding a US focused index fund, the more likely it is that it will rise in value.) Not everything is mutually exclusive between the two approaches. You can buy a small-cap value fund that charges only small fees (but you can also expect more volatility if you do so). You can limit turnover when purchasing individual stocks, just as many indexes do. You can also try to find long-term individual stocks to purchase, but consider this: If Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger–two of the best investors in the world–can only find one or two worthy long-term picks in any given year, what makes you think that you can find more than that? So, while there is some potential overlap between the approaches, the areas that are mutually exclusive are often forgotten by investors, and the ones that aren’t mutually exclusive either have high volatility or are difficult to find. The mistake I see is that often times investors want to combine an indexing approach–and the assumptions that come with it–with a stock picking approach. Specifically, investors want to (1) be diversified beyond 3-10 holdings even though long-term value stocks are hard to find, (2) assume the historical bias toward long-term index gains applies to individual stocks, (3) assume that picking individual blue-chip stocks that have a high correlation with indexes will outperform indexes, and (4) assume that their goals are unrelated to the performance a benchmark. I will set assumptions 1, 3, and 4 to the side for this article, #1 would make this article too long, #3 is obviously a poor assumption, and #4 is simply a different topic altogether. So this article will focus on why investors have to be careful not to assume that the long-term historical upward bias of index funds also applies to individual stocks that are weakly correlated with the index. The Problem with Visibility: Visibility of the long-term future of individual stocks is more cloudy than people think. Quite often investors will assume that a company will perform well twenty years from now because it has performed well in the decades leading up to that point in time. If the investor purchases the stock and the stock price drops, quite often the investor will insist that the drop in price is okay because they are “holding for the long term”, and long term the company will be fine. It is absolutely critical the investors realize just how difficult it is to forecast out ten or twenty years on an individual stock. That is a key difference between an index and an individual stock. It might be okay to assume the S&P 500 index will be higher in twenty years than it is now. But if one were to pick an individual stock at random from the S&P 500, there is a greater than 50% chance that in twenty years the company will not even qualify as part of index. Half of the components of the S&P 500 in 1999 are not in the index today , only 16 years later. But, Cory, you say, I am not picking my stocks at random, I am picking only blue-chip stocks like Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ ), Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO ), Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM ), Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG ), and Kinder Morgan (NYSE: KMI ) –I’m only partially kidding about Kinder Morgan. Your picks are probably not going to be perfect, right? My response is that if you only purchase huge, blue-chip, depression resistant companies, and you are going to diversify beyond ten of them just in case a couple of them turn out to be duds, then your performance will probably be similar to an S&P 500 index. You cannot assume that big, widely followed blue-chip companies will be available for purchase at value investor prices very often. And you cannot assume that value opportunities with small-cap companies will possess the same long-term visibility as big, blue-chips. It seems clear that those who purchase only the biggest and safest stocks are few and far between. Many stock-pickers might have a core portfolio of these companies, but they also branch out to other areas in search of alpha with regard to either yield or total return. In many cases what we have are stock-pickers who are moving beyond the confines of blue-chips in search of alpha who are carrying with them the assumptions that rightly apply only to indexes or the blue-chip stocks that are highly correlated with the indexes. Specifically, the assumption that if they just hold on to something long enough, it will rise or pay out steady dividends for the next ten or twenty years while also out-performing the market. This assumption can lead to under-performance or disaster. It is not an assumption that should be made. So, if one wants to seek alpha by picking individual stocks, what is it one could do to deal with the emotions and short term volatility in the stock market that compel investors to sell at the wrong time, without resorting to the fallback of aiming to hold for the long-term? I think the solution is to develop both a short and medium-term thesis while picking stocks, and only when a thesis comes to fruition should one consider holding a stock for the long-term. In my next article, I will explain the method I have been using recently with some success. Note: Please consider “following” me for real-time notification of my latest articles. My views are a constant work in progress and I am always interested in hearing other points of view, so if you have any thoughts, please feel free to share them in the comments section.