Behavioural Economics

The benefits of behavioral finance in the investment planning process

/ Kiwi Investor / Leave a comment

Investment advisors who stay active across their client base in times of market volatility are more likely to add new clients from a variety of sources.

Clients and prospects want to know that their advisor is looking out for them, even when the advice they are delivering is to stay the course or focus on the long term.

Laying a foundation for communications based on behavioral finance allows advisors to better set expectations early on in client relationships, while also offering an opportunity to maintain an open dialogue when markets become turbulent.

When properly employed, behavioral finance allows advisors to pursue the twin goals of helping investors feel less financial stress while making better decisions in pursuit of their long-term goals.

A recent study found those advisors who employed behavioral finance in their approach:

  1. Gained a better understanding of clients’ risk appetite and kept them invested during the market turbulence in early 2020;
  2. Reported elevated client acquisition activity earlier in the year; and
  3. Developed deeper relations with clients.

As market volatility escalated, advisors increasingly turned to behavioral finance to help keep clients invested and focused on their long-term goals.

These are the key conclusions of a White Paper by Cerulli Associates, in partnership with Charles Schwab Investment Management, Inc., and the Investments & Wealth Institute: The Evolving Role of Behavioral Finance in 2020.    The Evolving Role of Behavioral Finance in 2020 | Schwab Funds

These findings will not be surprising to most investment advisors.  Nevertheless, the evidence supporting including elements of behavioral finance in the planning process is growing, and it is becoming more widely accepted.

It goes without saying, that advisors truly need to get to know their clients and use these insights to create personalised action plans to help them achieve their goals.  Clients prefer this too. 

Incorporating elements of behavioral finance in the planning process will help achieve this, benefiting both the client and advisor.

We all have behavioral biases and are prone to making poor decisions, investment related or otherwise. Therefore, it is important to understand our behavioral biases. From this perspective, behavioral finance can help us make better investment decisions.

For a further discussion on how investment decisions can be improved by employing behavior finance see this Kiwi Investor Blog Post, which includes access to a Behavioral Finance Toolkit.

Behavioral Biases

The following Table outlines the Top 5 behavioral biases identified by advisors in the Cerulli Associates study.

Recency biasBeing easily influenced by recent news events or experiences
Loss aversionOpting for less risk in portfolio than is recommended
Familiarity/home biasPreferring to invest in familiar (U.S. domiciled) companies
FramingMaking decisions based on the way the information is presented
Mental accountingSeparating wealth into different buckets based on financial goals

Not unexpectedly Recency bias was found by advisors to be the most common behavioral bias amongst clients this year.  This was also the most common behavioral bias in 2019, on both occasions 35% of Advisors indicated that Recency bias was a significant contributor to their clients’ decision making.

Loss aversion held the number two spot in both years.  The Paper provides a full list of Client behavioral biases identified, comparing 2020 results with those in 2019.

Clients are more than likely affected by several behavioral biases.

Source: Staib Financial Planning, LLC

Advisors can help clients improve their investment outcomes by influencing the behavioral bias in a positive way.  By way of example in the paper, Framing (easily influenced by recent events), “an advisor can emphasize how rebalancing a portfolio during an equity market decline allows investors to accumulate more shares of their favorite stock or funds at a reduced price.”

They conclude: “by embracing the principles of behavioral finance, advisors can nudge clients toward more constructive ways to think about their portfolios.”

Survey Results – the benefits of Behavioral Finance

The paper defines Behavioral finance as the study of the emotional and intellectual processes that combine to drive investors’ decision making, with the goal of helping clients optimize financial outcomes and emotional satisfaction.

As the White Paper outlines “Advisors must help investors create and maintain a mental framework to help ease their concerns about the fluctuations of the market. Behavioral finance can be a crucial element of advisors’ efforts to help investors overcome their emotional reactions in pursuit of their longterm financial goals.”

There has been an increase in advisors adopting the principles of behavioral finance in America, particularly in relation to client communications.

In 2020 81% of advisors indicated adopting the principles of behavioral finance, up from 71% in 2019.

The increase is likely in response by advisors to provide a “mental framework to deal with the adversity presented by increased uncertainty in the market and in life overall in 2020.”

Benefits of Behavioral Finance

Keeping clients invested was found to be a key benefit of incorporating behavioral finance in the advice process, 55% of advisors indicated this as a benefit, up from 30% in 2019.

The benefit of developing a better understanding of client’s comfort level with risk also grew in 2020, from 20% in 2019 to 44% in 2020 (probably not surprisingly given events in March and April of this year).

In 2019, the benefits of incorporating behavioral finance most cited by advisors was: strengthening relationships (50%), improving decisions (49%), and better managing client expectations (45%).  These benefits also scored highly in 2020. 

The paper provides a full list of the benefits of incorporating behavioral finance, comparing the results of 2020 with 2019.

To summarise, the results highlighted the dual role of behavioral finance in client relationships as:

  1. serving as a framework for deeper engagement to strengthen communications and prioritize goals during good times; and
  2. to help minimize clients’ instinctual adverse reactions during periods of acute volatility.

The paper then focused on two areas:

  • Growing the client base
  • Deepening client connections

Behavioral Finance Advisors experienced greater growth of their client base in 2020

In 2020 55% of advisor respondents indicated they had added new clients since the first quarter of 2020.  4% indicated they had experienced net client losses.

However, the results differed materially between advisors who adopted elements of behavioral finance compared to those who do not.

“Two-thirds (66%) of behavioral finance users reported adding to their client base, compared to just 36% of advisors who are not incorporating behavioral finance in their practices.”

The source of these new clients?:

  • “Approximately two-thirds of new clients were sourced from other advisors with whom clients had become dissatisfied, or as an outcome of investors seeking to consolidate their accounts and maintain fewer advisor relationships. This is frequently attributable to satisfied clients referring friends and family who are discontented with their current advisory relationship.”
  • “The other third of new client relationships was attributable to the conversion of formerly selfdirected investors who found the current conditions an opportune time to seek professional advice for the first time.“

Therefore, “behavioral finance adherents are more likely to not only educate clients regarding the potential for volatility, but also to urge clients to expect it. This scenario reinforces many of the key benefits of leveraging behavioral finance in advisory relationships, especially with regard to managing expectations and remaining invested during periods of volatility.”

Behavioral Finance Advisors develop deeper connections with their client base

Cerulli’s research has found that the level of an advisor’s proactive communication during periods of market volatility is the most reliable indicator of the degree to which the advisor will add new clients during the period.

In the study that they undertook, for example, they found that 72% of those advisors who employed elements of behavioral finance and increased their outgoing calls added new clients, compared to 42% of non-users of behavioral finance.

They conclude “The unifying element in these results is that proactive personal communication was valued by investors and was especially effective for advisors who have made behavioral finance a part of their client engagement strategy.“

A key point here, is that “Instead of having to pivot from touting their investment returns to focusing on explaining volatility, behavioral finance users were able to frame current conditions as expected developments within the context of the long-term plans they had previously developed and discussed.”

From this perspective, it is important to understand what type of communications clients and prospects prefer.

It goes without saying, that advisors truly need to get to know their clients and use these insights to create personalized action plans to help them achieve their goals.

Clients prefer this too. 

Incorporating elements of behavioral finance in the planning process will deliver this, benefiting both the client and advisor. 

Please read my Disclosure Statement

Global Investment Ideas from New Zealand. Building more Robust Investment Portfolios.

Behavioral Biases

Recency biasBeing easily influenced by recent news events or experiences
Loss aversionOpting for less risk in portfolio than is recommended
Familiarity/home biasPreferring to invest in familiar (U.S. domiciled) companies
FramingMaking decisions based on the way the information is presented
Mental accountingSeparating wealth into different buckets based on financial goals
Confirmation biasSeeking information that reinforces existing perceptions
AnchoringFocusing on a specific reference point when making decisions
HerdingFollowing the crowd or latest investment trends
Endowment effectAssigning a greater value to investments or assets already owned
Inertia/status quoFailing to take action or avoiding changes to a portfolio
Selective memoryRecalling only positive experiences or outcomes
Regret aversionFearing to take action due to previous mistakes or regret avoidance
Availability biasBasing decisions only on readily available information
OverconfidenceBeing overly confident in one’s own ability
Self-controlSpending excessively today at expense of the future

Sources: Cerulli Associates, in partnership with Charles Schwab Investment Management, Inc., and the Investments & Wealth Institute. Analyst Note: Advisors were asked, “To what degree do you believe the following biases may be affecting your clients’ investment decision making?”

The Traditional Diversified Fund is outdated – greater customisation of the client’s investment solution is required

/ Kiwi Investor / 4 Comments

Although it has been evident for several years, the current investment environment highlights the shortcomings of the one size fits all multi-asset portfolio (commonly known as Diversified Funds such as Conservative, Balanced, and Growth Funds, which maintain static Strategic Asset Allocations, arising to the reference of the “Policy Portfolio”).

The mass-produced Diversified Funds downplay the importance of customisation by assuming investment problems can be portrayed within a simple risk and return framework.

However, saving for retirement is an individual experience requiring tailoring of the investment solution.   Different investors have different goals and circumstances.  This cannot be easily achieved within a one size fits all Diversified Fund.

Modern-day investment solutions involve greater customisation.  This is particularly true for those near or in retirement.

A massive step toward offering increased customisation of the Wealth Management investment solution is the framework of two distinctive “reference” portfolios: A Return Seeking Portfolio; and Liability-Hedging (Capital Protected) Portfolio.

Details and implementation of this framework are provided in the next section.  The benefits of the framework include:

  • A better assessment of the risks needed to be taken to reach a client’s essential goals and how much more risk is involved in potentially attaining aspirational goals;
  • An approach that will help facilitate more meaningful dialogue between the investor and his/her Advisor. Discussions can be had on how the individual’s portfolios are tracking relative to their retirement goals and if there are any expected shortfalls. If there are expected shortfalls, the framework helps in assessing what is the best course of action and trade-offs involved; and
  • A more efficient use of invested capital.  This is a very attractive attribute in the current low interest rate environment.  The framework will be more responsive to changing interest rates in the future.

These benefits cannot be efficiently and effectively achieved within the traditional Diversified Fund one size fits all framework; greater customisation of the investment solution is required.

With modern-day technology greater customisation of the investment solution can easily be achieved.

The technology solution is enhanced with an appropriate investment framework also in place.

Implementation of the Modern-Day Wealth Management Investment Solution

The reasons for the death of the Policy Portfolio (Diversified Fund) and rationale for the modern-day Wealth Management investment solution are provided below.

Modern-day investment solutions have two specific investment portfolios:  

  • Return seeking Portfolio that is a truly diversified growth portfolio, owning a wide array of different return seeking investment strategies; and
  • Capital Protected (Liability) Portfolio, is more complex, particularly in the current investment environment.  See comments below.

The allocations between the Return Seeking portfolio and Capital Protected portfolio would be different depending on the client’s individual circumstances.  Importantly, consideration is given to a greater array of client specific factors than just risk appetite and risk and return outcomes e.g. other sources of income, assets outside super.

Although the return seeking portfolio can be the same for all clients, the Capital Protected (Liability) portfolio should be tailored to the client’s needs and objectives, being very responsive to their future cashflow/income needs, it needs to be more “custom-made”.

The solution also involves a dynamic approach to allocate between the two portfolios depending on market conditions and the client’s situation in relation to the likelihood of them meeting their investment objectives.  This is a more practical and customer centric approach relative to undertaking tactical allocations in relation to a Policy Portfolio.

The framework easily allows for the inclusion of a diverse range of individual investment strategies.  Ideally a menu offering an array of investment strategies can be accessed allowing the customisation of the investment solution for the client by the investment adviser.

Implementation is key, which involves identifying and combining different investment strategies to build customised robust investment solutions for clients.

The death of the Policy Portfolio

Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT), the bedrock of most current portfolios, including the Policy Portfolio, was developed in the 1950s.

Although key learnings can be taken from MPT, particularly the benefits of diversification, enhancements have been made based on the ongoing academic and practitioner research into building more robust investment solutions.  See here for a background discussion.

The Policy Portfolio is the strategic asset allocation (SAA) of a portfolio to several different asset classes deemed to be most appropriate for the investor e.g. Diversified Funds

It is a single Portfolio solution.

A key industry development, and the main driver of the move away from the old paradigm, is the realisation that investment solutions should not be framed in terms of one all-encompassing Policy Portfolio but instead should be framed in terms of two distinct reference Portfolios.

A very good example of the two portfolios framework is provided by EDHEC-Risk Institute and is explained in the context of a Wealth Management solution.  They describe the two reference portfolios framework involving:

  1. Liability-hedging portfolio, this is a portfolio that seeks to match future income requirements of the individual in retirement, and
  2. Performance Seeking Portfolio, this is a portfolio that seeks growth in asset value.

The concept of two separate portfolios is not new, it dates to finance studies from the 1950s on fund separation theorems (which is an area of research separate to the MPT).

The concept of two portfolios has also been endorsed by Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Memorial Prize-winning behavioural economist, a “regret-proof” investment solution would involve having two portfolios: a risky portfolio and a safer portfolio.  Kahneman discusses the idea of a “regret-proof policy” here.

The death of the Policy Portfolio was first raised by Peter Bernstein in 2003.

Reasons for the death of Policy Portfolio include:

  • there is no such thing as a meaningful Policy Portfolio. Individual circumstances are different.
  • Investors should be dynamic; they need to react to changing market conditions and the likelihood of meeting their investment goals – a portfolio should not be held constant for a long period of time.

Many institutional investors have moved toward liability driven investment (LDI) solutions, separating out the hedging of future liabilities and building another portfolio component that is return seeking.  More can be found on LDI here.

These “institutional” investment approaches, LDI, portfolio separation, and being more dynamic are finding their way into Wealth Management solutions around the world.

Evolution of Wealth Management – Implementation of the new Paradigm

In relation to Wealth Management, the new paradigm has led to Goal-Based investing (GBI) for individuals. GBI focuses is on meeting investor’s goals along similar lines that LDI does for institutional investors.

As explained by EDHEC Risk Goal-Based Investing involves:

  1. Disaggregation of investor preferences into a hierarchical list of goals, with a key distinction between essential and aspirational goals, and the mapping of these groups to hedging portfolios possessing corresponding risk characteristics (Liability Hedging Portfolio).
  2. On the other hand, it involves an efficient dynamic allocation to these dedicated hedging portfolios and a common performance seeking portfolio.

GBI is consistent with the two portfolios approach, fund separation, LDI, and undertaking a dynamic investment approach.

The first portfolio is the Liability Hedging Portfolio to meet future income requirements, encompassing all essential goals.

The objective of this Portfolio is to secure with some certainty future retirement income requirements. It is typically dominated by longer dated high quality fixed income securities, including inflation linked securities.  It does not have a high exposure to cash. In the context of meeting future cashflow requirements in retirement Cash is the riskiest asset, unless the cashflows need are to be met in the immediate future.  For further discussion on the riskiness of cash in the context of retirement portfolios see here.

The second portfolio is the return seeking portfolio or growth portfolio. This is used to attain aspirational goals, objectives above essential goals. It is also required if the investor needs to take on more risk to achieve their essential goals in retirement i.e. a younger investor would have a higher allocation to the Return Seeking Portfolio.

The Growth Portfolio would be exposed to a diversified array of risk exposures, including equities, developed and emerging markets, factor exposures, and unlisted assets e.g. unlisted infrastructure, direct property, and Private Equity.

Allocations between the Hedging Portfolio and the Growth Portfolio would depend on an individual’s circumstances e.g. how far away they are from reaching their desired standard of living in retirement.

This provides a fantastic framework for determining the level of risk to take in meeting essential goals and how much risk is involved in potentially attaining aspirational goals.

This will will lead to a more efficient use of invested capital and a better assessment of the investment risks involved.

Importantly, the framework will help facilitate a more meaningful dialogue between the investor and his/her Advisor. Discussions can be had on how the individual’s portfolios are tracking relative to their retirement goals and if there are any expected shortfalls. If there are expected shortfalls, the framework also helps in assessing what is the best course of action and trade-offs involved.

For those wanting a greater appreciation of EDHEC’s framework please see their short paper: Mass Customization versus Mass Production – How An Industrial Revolution is about to Take Place in Money Management and Why it Involves a Shift from Investment Products to Investment Solutions  (see: EDHEC-Whitepaper-JOIM)

A more technical review of these issues has also been undertaken by EDHEC.

Please see my Disclosure Statement

Global Investment Ideas from New Zealand. Building more Robust Investment Portfolios.

Is it an outdated Investment Strategy? If so, what should you do? Tail Risk Hedging?

/ Kiwi Investor / 6 Comments

Those saving for retirement face the reality that fixed income may no longer serve as an effective portfolio diversifier and source of meaningful returns.

In future fixed income is unlikely to provide the same level of offset in a portfolio as has transpired historically when the inevitable sharp decline in sharemarkets occur – which tend to happen more often than anticipated.

The expected reduced diversification benefit of fixed income is a growing view among many investment professionals.  In addition, forecast returns from fixed income, and cash, are extremely low.  Both are likely to deliver returns around, if not below, the rate of inflation over the next 5 – 10 years.

Notwithstanding this, there is still a role for fixed income within a portfolio.

However, there is still a very important portfolio construction issue to address.  It is a major challenge for retirement savings portfolios, particularly those portfolios with high allocations to cash and fixed income. 

In effect, this challenge is about exploring alternatives to traditional portfolio diversification, as expressed by the Balanced Portfolio of 60% Equities / 40% Fixed Income. I have covered this issue in previous Posts, here and here.

Outdated Investment Strategy

There are many ways to approach the current challenge, which investment committees, Trustees, and Plan Sponsors world-wide must surely be considering, at the very least analysing and reviewing, and hopefully addressing.

One way to approach this issue, and the focus of this Post, is Tail Risk Hedging. (I comment on other approaches below.)

The case for Tail Risk Hedging is well presented in this opinion piece, Investors Are Clinging to an Outdated Strategy At the Worst Possible Time, which appeared in Institutional Investor.com

The article is written by Ron Lagnado, who is a director at Universa Investments.  Universa Investments is an investment management firm that specialises in risk mitigation e.g. tail risk hedging.

The article makes several interesting observations and lays out the case for Tail Risk Hedging in the context of the underfunding of US Pension Plans.  Albeit, there are other situations in which the consideration of Tail Risk Hedging would also be applicable.

The framework for Equity Tail Risk Hedging, recognises “that management of portfolio risk and equity tail risk, in particular, was the key driver of long-term compound returns.”

By way of positioning, the article argues that a reduction in Portfolio volatility leads to better investment outcomes overtime, as measured by the Compound Annual Growth Return (CAGR).  There is validity to this argument, the reduction in portfolio volatility is paramount to successful investment outcomes over the longer-term.

The traditional Balance Portfolio, 60/40 mix of equities and fixed income, is supposed to mitigate the effects of extreme market volatility and deliver on return expectations.

Nevertheless, it is argued in the article that the Balanced Portfolio “limits portfolio volatility in benign market environments over the short term while making huge sacrifices in long-run performance.”

In other words, “It offers scant protection against tail risk and, at the same time, achieves an under-allocation to riskier assets with higher returns in long periods of economic expansion, such as the past decade.”

The article provides some evidence of this, highlighting that “large allocation to bonds still failed to provide enough protection to add value over the cycle — reducing the CAGR by 170 basis points.” 

Essentially, the argument is made that the Balanced Portfolio has not delivered on its promise historically and is an outdated strategy, particularly considering the current market environment and the outlook for investment returns.

Meeting the Challenge – Tail Risk Hedging

The article calls for the consideration of different approaches to the traditional Balance Portfolio.  Naturally, they call for Tail Risk Hedging.

In effect, the strategy is to maintain a higher allocation to equities and to protect the risk of large losses through implementing a tail risk hedge (protection of large equity loses).

It is argued that this will result in a higher CAGR over the longer term given a higher allocation to equities and without the drag on performance from fixed income.

The Tail Risk Hedge strategy is implemented via an options strategy.

As they note, there is no free lunch with this strategy, an “options strategies trade small losses over extended periods when equities are rising for extremely large gains during the less frequent but devastating drawdowns.”

This is the inverse to some investment strategies, which provide incremental gains over extended periods and then short sharp losses.  There is indeed no free lunch.

My View

The article concludes, “diversification for its own sake is not a strategy for success.”

I would have to disagree.  True portfolio diversification is the closest thing to a free lunch in Portfolio Management. 

However, this does not discount the use of Tail Risk Hedging.

The implementation of any investment strategy needs to be consistent with client’s investment philosophy, objectives, fee budgets, ability to implement, and risk appetite, including the level of comfort with strategies employed. 

Broad portfolio diversification versus Tail Risk Hedging has been an area of hot debate recently.  It is good to take in and consider a wide range of views.

The debate between providing portfolio protection (Tail Risk Hedging vs greater Portfolio Diversification) hit colossal proportions earlier in the year with a twitter spat between Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of Black Swan and involved in Universa Investments, and Cliff Asness, a pioneer in quant investing and founder of AQR.

I provide a summary of their contrasting perspectives to portfolio protection as outlined in a Bloomberg article in this Post.  There are certainly some important learnings and insights in contrasting their different approaches.

The Post also covered a PIMCO article, Hedging for Different Market Environments.

A key point from the PIMCO article is that not one strategy can be effective in all market environments.  This is an important observation.

Therefore, maintaining an array of diversification strategies is preferred, PIMCO suggest “investors should diversify their diversifiers”.

They provide the following Table, which outlines an array of “Portfolio Protection” strategies.

In Short, and in general, Asness is supportive of correlation based like hedging strategies (Trend and Alternative Risk Premia) and Taleb the Direct Hedging approach.

From the Table above we can see in what type of market environment each “hedging” strategy is Most Effective and Least Effective.

For balance, more on the AQR perspective can be found here.

You could say I have a foot in both camps and are pleased I do not have a twitter account, as I would likely be in the firing line from both Asness and Taleb!

To conclude

I think we can all agree that fixed income is going to be less of a portfolio diversifier in future and produce lower returns in the future relative to the last 10-20 years. 

This is an investment portfolio challenge that must be addressed.

We should also agree that avoiding large market losses is vital in accumulating wealth and reaching your investment objectives, whether that is attaining a desired standard of living in retirement, ongoing and uninterrupted endowment, or meeting future Pension liabilities.

In my mind, staying still is not going to work over the next 5-10 years and the issues raised by the Institutional Investor.com article do need to be addressed. The path taken is likely to be determined by individual circumstances.

Happy investing.

Please see my Disclosure Statement

Global Investment Ideas from New Zealand. Building more Robust Investment Portfolios.

Hedged Funds vs Equities – lessons from the Warren Buffet Bet Revisited

/ Kiwi Investor / Leave a comment

“The Bet” received considerable media attention following the 2017 Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letter in 2018.

To recap, the bet was between Warren Buffet and Protégé Partners, who picked five “funds of fund” hedge funds they expected would outperform the S&P 500 Index over the 10-year period ending December 2017. Buffet took the S&P 500 to outperform.

The bet was made in December 2007, when the market was reasonably expensive and the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) was just around the corner.

Buffet won.  The S&P 500 easily outperformed the Hedge Fund selection over the 10-year period.

There are some astute investment lessons to be learnt from this bet, which are very clearly presented in this AllAboutAlpha article, A Rhetorical Oracle, by Bill Kelly.

Before reviewing these lessons, I’d like to make three points:

  1. I’d never bet against Buffet!
  2. I would not expect a Funds of Funds Hedge Fund to consistently outperform the S&P 500, let alone a combination of five Funds of Funds.
  3. Most if not all, investor’s investment objective(s) is not to beat the S&P 500. Investment Objectives are personal and targeted e.g. Goal Based Investing to meet future retirement income or endowments

This is not to say Hedged Funds should not form part of a truly diversified investment portfolio.  They should, as should other alternative investments.

Nevertheless, I am unconvinced Hedge Fund’s role is to provide equity plus like returns. 

By and large, alternatives, including Hedge Funds, offer a less expensive way of providing portfolio protection as their returns “keep up” with equities, see the previous Kiwi Investor Blog Sharemarket crashes – what works best in minimising losses, market timing or diversification. 

One objective in allocating to alternatives is to add return sources that make money on average and have low correlation to equities.  Importantly, diversification is not the same thing as “hedging” a portfolio

Now, I have no barrow to push here, except advocating for the building of robust investment portfolios consistent with meeting your investment objectives. The level of fees also needs to be managed appropriately across a portfolio.

In this regard and consistent with the points in the AllAboutAlpha article:

  1. Having a well-diversified portfolio is paramount and results in better risk-adjusted returns over time.

Being diversified across non-correlated or low correlated investments is important, leading to better risk-adjusted outcomes. 

Adding low correlated investments to an equities portfolio, combined with a disciplined rebalancing policy, will likely add value above equities over time.

The investment focus should be on reducing portfolio volatility through true portfolio diversification so that wealth can be accumulate overtime. 

Minimising loses results in higher returns over time.  A portfolio that falls 50%, needs to gain 100% to get back to the starting capital.  This means as equity markets take off a well-diversified multi-asset portfolio will not keep up.  Nevertheless, the well diversified portfolio will not fall as much when the inevitable crash comes along.

It is true that equities are less risky over the longer term.  Nevertheless, not many people can maintain a fully invested equities portfolio, given the wild swings in value (as highlighted by Buffett in his Shareholder Letter, Berkshire can fall 50% in value).

100% in equities is often not consistent with meeting one’s investment objectives.  Buffet himself has recommended the 60/40 equities/bond allocation, with allocations adjusted around this target based on market valuations.

I am unlikely to ever suggest to be 100% invested in equities for the very reason of the second point in the article, as outlined below.

  1. Investment Behavioural aspects.

How many clients would have held on to a 100% equity position during the high level of volatility experienced over the last 10-12 years, particularly in the 2008 – 2014 period.  Not many I suspect.  This would also be true of the most recent market collapse in 2020.

The research is very clear, on average investors do not capture the full value of equity market returns over the full market cycle, largely because of behavioural reasons.

A well-diversified portfolio, that lowers portfolio volatility, will assist an investor in staying the course in meeting their investment objectives.

An allocation to alternative strategies, including a well-chosen selection of Hedge Funds, will result in a truly diversified Portfolio, lowering portfolio volatility.  See an earlier Post, the inclusion of Alternatives has been an evolutionary process, not a revolution.

Staying the course is the biggest battle for most investors.  Therefore, take a longer-term view, focus on customised investment objectives, and maintain a truly diversified portfolio.

This will help the psychological battle as much as anything else.

I like this analogy of using standard deviation of returns as a measure of risk. It captures the risks associated with a very high volatile investment strategy such as being 100% invested in equities:

“A stream may have an average depth of five feet, but a traveler wading through it will not make it to the other side if its mid-point is 10 feet deep. Similarly, an overly volatile investing strategy may sink an investor before she gets to reap its anticipated rewards.”

Happy investing.

Please see my Disclosure Statement

Global Investment Ideas from New Zealand. Building more Robust Investment Portfolios.

Protecting your Portfolio from different market environments – including tail risk hedging

/ Kiwi Investor / 8 Comments

Avoiding large market losses is vital to accumulating wealth and reaching your investment objectives, whether that is attaining a desired standard of living in retirement or an ongoing and uninterrupted endowment.

 

The complexity and different approaches to providing portfolio protection (tail-risk hedging) has been highlighted by a recent twitter spat between Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of Black Swan, and Cliff Asness, a pioneer in quant investing.

The differences in perspectives and approaches is very well captured by Bloomberg’s Aaron Brown article, Taleb-Asness Black Swan Spat Is a Teaching Moment.

I provide a summary of the contrasting perspectives in the Table below as outlined by Brown’s article, who considers both men as his friends.

There are certainly some important learnings and insights in contrasting the different approaches.

 

PIMCO recently published an article Hedging for Different Market Scenarios. This provides another perspective.

PIMCO provide a brief summary of different strategies and their trade-offs in diversifying a Portfolio.

They outline four approaches to diversify the risk from investing in sharemarkets (equity risk).

In addition to tail risk hedging, the subject of the twitter spat above between Taleb and Asness, and outlined below, PIMCO consider three other strategies to increase portfolio diversification: Long-term Fixed Income securities (Bonds), managed futures, and alternative risk premia.

PIMCO provide the following Graph to illustrate the effectiveness of the different “hedging” strategies varies by market scenario.PIMCO_Hedging_for_Different_Market_Scenarios_1100_Chart1_58109

As PIMCO note “it’s important for investors to know in what types of environments each strategy is more likely to work and in what environments each are likely to be less effective.”

As they emphasise “not every type of risk-mitigating strategy can be expected to work in every type of market sell-off.”

A brief description of the diversifying strategies is provided below:

  • Long Bonds – holding long term (duration) high quality government bonds (e.g. US and NZ 10-year or long Government Bonds) have been effective when there are sudden declines in sharemarkets. They are less effective when interest rates are rising. (Although not covered in the PIMCO article, there are some questions as to their effectiveness in the future given extremely low interest rates currently.)
  • Managed Futures, or trend following strategies, have historically performed well when markets trend i.e. there is are consistent drawn-out decline in sharemarkets e.g. tech market bust of 2000-2001. These strategies work less well when markets are very volatile, short sharp movements up and down.
  • Alternative risk premia strategies have the potential to add value to a portfolio when sharemarkets are non-trending. Although they generally provide a return outcome independent of broad market movements they struggle to provide effective portfolio diversification benefits when there are major market disruptions. Alternative risk premia is an extension of Factor investing.
  • Tail risk hedging, is often explained as providing a higher degree of reliability at time of significant market declines, this is often at the expense of short-term returns i.e. there is a cost for market protection.

 

A key point from the PIMCO article is that not one strategy can be effective in all market environments.

Therefore, maintaining an array of diversification strategies is preferred “investors should “diversify their diversifiers””.

 

It is well accepted you cannot time markets and the best means to protect portfolios from large market declines is via a well-diversified portfolio, as outlined in this Kiwi Investor Blog Post found here, which coincidentally covers an AQR paper. (The business Cliff Asness is a Founding Partner.)

 

A summary of the key differences in perspectives and approaches between Taleb and Asness as outlined in Aaron Brown’s Bloomberg’s article, Taleb-Asness Black Swan Spat Is a Teaching Moment.

My categorisations Asness Taleb
Defining a tail event Asness refers to the worst events in history for investors, such as the 5% worst one-month returns for the S&P 500 Index.

Research by AQR shows that steep declines that last three months or less do little or no damage to 10-year returns.

It is the long periods of mediocre returns, particularly three years or longer, that damages longer term performance.

 Taleb defines “tail events” not by frequency of occurrence in the past, but by unexpectedness. (Black Swan)

Therefore, he is scathing of strategies designed to do well in past disasters, or based on models about likely future scenarios.

 

 

 
Different Emphasis

The emphasis is not only on surviving the tail event but to design portfolios that have the highest probability of generating acceptable long-term returns.   These portfolios will give an unpleasant experience during bad times.

 

 Taleb prefers tail-risk hedges that deliver lots of cash in the worst times. Cash provides a more pleasant outcome and greater options at times of a crisis.

Investors are likely facing a host of challenges at the time of market crisis, both financial and nonfinancial, and cash is better.
Different approaches AQR strategies usually involve leverage and unlimited-loss derivatives.

 

 Taleb believes this approach just adds new risks to a portfolio. The potential downsides are greater than the upside.
Costs AQR responds that Taleb’s preferred approaches are expensive that they don’t reduce risk.

Also, the more successful the strategy, the more expensive it becomes to implement, that you give up your gains over time e.g. put options on stocks

 Taleb argues he has developed methods to deliver cash in crises that are cheap enough that they actually add to long-term returns while reducing risk.

 

 
Investor behaviours Asness argues that investors often adopt Taleb’s like strategies after a severe market decline. Therefore, they pay the high premiums as outlined above. Eventually, they get tire of the paying the premiums during the good times, exit the strategy, and therefore miss the payout on the next crash. Taleb emphasises the bad decisions investors make during a market crisis/panic, in contrast to AQR’s emphasis on bad decisions people make after the market crisis.

 

 

 

 

Good luck, stay healthy and safe.

 

Happy investing.

Please see my Disclosure Statement

 

Global Investment Ideas from New Zealand. Building more Robust Investment Portfolios.

Investment leadership is needed now

/ Kiwi Investor / Leave a comment

Investment leadership needs to step up. It needs to project confidence that it can crack through this crisis. It then needs to re-group with the benefits of extraordinary lessons learned through extraordinary times and morph into something better. While this crisis is rightly producing stories of heroes in scrubs and gowns, the investment industry will be discovering its own heroes. They are likely to be T-shaped leaders: both sure-footed in strategy and steeped in humanity.

This is the conclusion of Roger Irwin in his recent article, the hour for leadership is now, appearing on Top1000funds.com.

 

T-shaped leadership involves having deep expertise in your field and a greater awareness of societal and business issues.

As he notes, investment leaders have the opportunity to make life-changing differences for people’s savings and investments. “They will do so by drawing from the widest range of leadership skills to manoeuvre through the epic challenges this crisis presents and by emerging with stronger, fairer and more sustainable businesses.”

I couldn’t agree more.

 

The article has a wide ranging discussion on leadership, and what will be valued in the current situation. A mix of leadership approaches is required, it is not a case of either / or but and.

 

As he quite rightly points out, in the current environment, safety will be high on everyone’s needs.

“This suggests that the empathy shown to workers through this period of vulnerability will be preciously valued. For example, in the choice of what’s right to do now when family issues arise while working from home; this is the time to choose to do the family thing. For the best organisations, it’s not even close.” Quite right.

 

There is no doubt the current environment presents a unique set of challenges.

Irwin suggests the best stories will come from “organisations where leadership and culture are strongest. They will have a few things in common: a balance in the craft of exercising dominant and serving leadership styles; a purposeful culture as a north star; clarity that profit play a supporting role in that purpose; and a culture that accommodates this ‘it’s all about the people’ moment.”

 

He expects a number of disruptions to organisations, the following observations are made:

  • Good leaders always manage to stay in touch.
  • There will be a growing need for emotional intelligence among investment leadership. “Employees increasingly expect work and life to be integrated and this is central to good employee experiences where well-being, purpose and personal growth rank highly and intrinsic motivations are more lasting than extrinsic forms like pay.”
  • There needs to be a culture of openness in the workplace. The hoarding of information is old school. “Now the open-cultured organisations can create the positive state of psychological safety at all levels with everyone feeling included. This plays to better decision making all round and helps people with their resilience during tough times.”

 

As mentioned above, the current environment requires leaders to be T-shaped.

The vertical bar in the T constitutes deep expertise in their field.

The horizontal bar is about having greater awareness of societal and business issues. Being more in touch. The article provides a number of examples, including: a greater understanding of stress and fight or flight responses in brain science; and the balancing of dominant and serving leadership in management science.

He suggests, we build the vertical bar in the T through being in-touch with a wider network and other disciplines.

 

Good luck, stay healthy and safe.

 

 

Happy investing.

Please see my Disclosure Statement

 

Global Investment Ideas from New Zealand. Building more Robust Investment Portfolios.

 

 

The psychology of Portfolio Diversification

/ Kiwi Investor / 3 Comments

In a well-diversified portfolio, when one asset class is performing extremely well (like global equity markets), the diversified portfolio is unlikely to keep pace.

In these instances, the investor is likely to regret that they had reduced their exposure to that asset class in favour of greater portfolio diversification.

This is a key characteristic of having a well-diversified portfolio. On many occasions, some part of the portfolio will be “underperforming” (particularly relative to the asset class that is performing strongly).

Nevertheless, stay the course, over any given period, diversification will have won or lost but as that period gets longer diversification is more and more likely to win.

True diversification comes from introducing new risks into a portfolio. This can appear counter-intuitive. These new risks have their own risk and return profile that is largely independent of other investment strategies within the Portfolio. These new risks will perform well in some market environments and poorly in others.

Nevertheless, overtime the sum is greater than the parts.

 

The majority of the above insights are from a recent Willis Tower Watson (WTW) article on Diversification, Keep Calm and Diversify.

The article provides a clear and precise account of portfolio diversification.  It is a great resource for those new to the topic and for those more familiar.

 

WTW conclude with the view “that true diversification is the best way to achieve strong risk adjusted returns and that portfolios with these characteristics will fare better than equities and diversified growth funds with high exposures to traditional asset classes in the years to come.”

 

Playing with our minds – Recent History

As the WTW article highlights the last ten-twenty years has been very unusual for both equity and bond markets have delivered excellent returns.

This is illustrated in the following chart they provide, the last two rolling 10-year periods have been periods of exceptional performance for a Balanced Portfolio (60%/40% equity/fixed income portfolio).

WTW Balance Fund Performance

 

WTW made the following observations:

  • The last ten years has tested the patience of investors when it comes to diversification;
  • For those running truly diversified portfolios, this may be the worst time to change approach (the death of portfolio diversification is greatly exaggerated);
  • Diversification offers ‘insurance’ against getting it wrong e.g. market timing; and
  • Diversification has a positive return outcome, unlike most insurance.

 

WTW are not alone on their view of diversification, for example a AQR article from 2018 highlighted that diversification was the best way to manage periods of severe sharemarket declines, as recently experienced.  I covered this paper in a recent Post: Sharemarket crashes – what works best in minimising losses, market timing or diversification.

 

WTW also note that it is difficult to believe that the next 10-year period will look like the period that has just gone.

There is no doubt we are in for a challenging investment environment based on many forecasted investment returns.

 

What is diversification?

WTW believe investors will be better served going forwards by building robust portfolios that exploit a range of return drivers such that no single risk dominates performance. (In a Balanced Portfolio of 60% equities, equities account for over 90% of portfolio risk.)

They argue true portfolio diversification is achieved by investing in a range of strategies that have low and varying levels of sensitivity (correlation) to traditional asset classes and in some instances have none at all.

Other sources of return, and risks, include investing in investment strategies with low levels of liquidity, accessing manager skill e.g. active returns above a market benchmark are a source of return diversification, and diversifying strategies that access return sources independent of traditional equity and fixed income returns. These strategies are also lowly correlated to traditional market returns.

 

Sources of Portfolio Diversification

Hedge Funds and Liquid Alternatives

Hedge Funds and Liquid Alternatives are an example of diversifying strategies mentioned above. As outlined in this Post, covering a paper by Vanguard, they both bring diversifying benefits to a traditional portfolio.

Access to the Vanguard paper can be found here.

 

It is worth highlighting that hedge fund and liquid alternative strategies do not provide a “hedge” to equity and fixed income markets.

Therefore they do not always provide a positive return when equity markets fall. Albeit, they do not decline as much at times of market crisis, as we have recently witnesses. Technically speaking their drawdowns (losses) are smaller relative to equity markets.

As evidenced in the Graph below provided by Mercer.

Mercer drawdown graph

 

Private Markets

TWT also note there are opportunities within Private Markets to increase portfolio diversification.

There will be increasing opportunities in Private markets because fewer companies are choosing to list and there are greater restrictions on the banking sector’s ability to lend.

This is consistent with key findings of the recently published CAIA Association report, The Next Decade of Alternative Investments: From Adolescence to Responsible Citizenship.

The factors mentioned above, along with the low interest rate environment, the expected shortfall in superannuation accounts to meet future retirement obligations, and the maturing of emerging markets are expected to drive the growth in alternative investments over the decade ahead.

A copy of the CAIA report can be found here. I covered the report in a recent Post: CAIA Survey Results – The attraction of Alternative Investments and future trends.

 

TWT expect to see increasing opportunities across private markets, including a “range from investments in the acquisition, development, and operation of natural resources, infrastructure and real estate assets, fast-growing companies in overlooked parts of capital markets, and innovative early-stage ventures that can benefit from long-term megatrends.”

Continuing the theme of lending where the banks cannot, they also see the opportunity for increasing portfolios with allocations to Private Debt.

WTW provided the following graph, source data from Preqin

WTW Private Market Performance

 

Real Assets

In addition to Hedge Funds, Liquid Alternatives, and Private markets (debt and equity), Real Assets are worthy of special mention.

Real assets such as Farmland, Timberland, Infrastructure, Natural Resources, Real Estate, TIPS (Inflation Protected Fixed Income Securities), Commodities, Foreign Currencies, and Gold offer real diversification benefits relative to equities and fixed income in different macro-economic environments, such as low economic growth, high inflation, stagflation, and stagnation.

These are a conclusive findings of a recent study by PGIM. The PGIM report on Real Assets can be found here. I provided a summary of their analysis in this Post: Real Assets offer real diversification benefits.

 

Conclusion

To diversify a portfolio it is recommended to add risk and return sources that make money on average and have a low correlation to equities.

Diversification should be true both in normal times and when most needed: during tough periods for sharemarkets.

Diversification is not the same thing as a hedge. Although “hedges” make money at times of sharemarket crashes, there is a cost, investments with better hedging characteristics tend to do worse on average over the longer term. Think of this as the cost of “insurance”.

Therefore, alternatives investments, as outlined above, are more compelling relative to the traditional asset classes in diversifying a portfolio, they provide the benefits of diversification and on average over time their returns tend to keep up with sharemarket returns.

Importantly, investing in more and more traditional asset classes does not equal more diversification e.g. listed property.  As outlined in this Post.

 

As outlined above, we want to invest in a combination of lowly correlated asset classes, where returns are largely independent of each other. A combination of investment strategies that have largely different risk and return drivers.

 

Good luck, stay healthy and safe.

 

Happy investing.

Please see my Disclosure Statement

 

Global Investment Ideas from New Zealand. Building more Robust Investment Portfolios.

 

 

 

Balanced Fund Bear Market and the benefits of Rebalancing

/ Kiwi Investor / 1 Comment

Balanced Funds are on track to experience one of their largest monthly losses on record.

Although this largely reflects the sharp and historical declines in global sharemarkets, fixed income has also not provided the level of portfolio diversification witnessed in previous Bear markets.

In the US, the Balanced Portfolio (60% Shares and 40% Fixed Income) is experiencing declines similar to those during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and 1987.

In other parts of the world the declines in the Balance Portfolio are their worst since the   1960s.

As you will be well aware the level of volatility in equity markets has been at historical highs.

After reaching a historical high on 19th February the US sharemarket, as measured by the S&P 500 Index, recorded:

  • Its fastest correction from a peak, a fall of 10% but less than 19%, taking just 6 days; and
  • Its quickest period to fall into a Bear market, a fall of greater than 20%, 22 days.

The S&P 500 entered Bear market territory on March 12th, when the market fell 9.5%, the largest daily drop since Black Monday in October 1987.

The 22 day plunge from 19th February’s historical high into a Bear market was half the time of the previous record set in 1929.

Volatility has also been historical to the upside, including near record highest daily positive returns and the most recent week was the best on record since the 1930s.

 

Volatility is likely to remain elevated for some time. The following is likely needed to be seen before there is a stabilisation of markets:

  • The Policy response from Governments and Central Banks is sufficient to prevent a deepening of the global recessions;
  • Coronavirus infection rates have peaked; and
  • Cheap valuations.

Although currently there are cheap valuations, this is not sufficient to stabilise markets. Nevertheless, for those with a longer term perspective selective and measured investments may well offer attractive opportunities.

Please seek professional investment advice before making any investment decision.

For those interested, my previous Post outlined one reason why it might be the right thing for someone to reduce their sharemarket exposure and three reasons why they might not.

 

The Impact of Market Movements and Benefits of Rebalancing

My previous Post emphasised maintaining a disciplined investment approach.

Key among these is the consideration of continuing to rebalance an investment Portfolio.

Regular rebalancing of an investment portfolio adds value, this has been well documented by the research.  The importance and benefits of Rebalancing was covered in a previous Kiwi Investor Blog Post which may be of interest: The balancing act of the least liked investment activity.

Rebalancing is a key investment discipline of a professional investment manager. A benefit of having your money professionally managed.

Assuming sharemarkets have fallen 25%, and no return from Fixed Income, within a Balanced Portfolio (60% Shares and 40% Fixed Income) the Sharemarket allocation has fallen to 53% of the portfolio.

Therefore, portfolios are less risky currently relative to longer-term investment objectives. A disciplined investment approach would suggest a strategy to address this issue needs to be developed.

 

As an aside, within a New Zealand Balanced Portfolio, if no rebalancing had been undertaken the sharemarket component would have grown from 60% to 67% over the last three years, reflecting the New Zealand Sharemarket has outperformed New Zealand Fixed Income by 10.75% per year over the last three years.

This meant, without rebalancing, Portfolios were running higher risk relative to long-term investment objectives entering the current Bear Market.

Although regular rebalancing would have trimmed portfolio returns on the way up, it would also have reduced Portfolio risk when entering the Bear Market.

As mentioned, the research is compelling on the benefits of rebalancing, it requires investment discipline. In part this reflects the drag on performance from volatility. In simple terms, if markets fall by 25%, they need to return 33% to regain the value lost.

 

Investing in a Challenging Investment Environment

No doubt, you will discuss any current concerns you have with your Trusted Advisor.

In a previous Post I reflected on the tried and true while investing in a Challenging investment environment.

I have summarised below:

 

Seek “True” portfolio Diversification

The following is technical in nature and I will explain below.

A recent AllAboutAlpha article referenced a Presentation by Deutsche Bank that makes “a very compelling case for building a more diversified portfolio across uncorrelated risk premia rather than asset class silos”.

For the professional Investor this Presentation is well worth reading: Rethinking Portfolio Construction and Risk Management.

The Presentation emphasises “The only insurance against regime shifts, black swans, the peso problem and drawdowns is to seek out multiple sources of risk premia across a host of asset classes and geographies, designed to harvest different features (value, momentum, illiquidity etc.) of the return generating process, via a large number of small, uncorrelated exposures”

 

We are currently experiencing a Black Swan, an unexpected event which has a major effect.

In a nutshell, the above comments are about seeking “true” portfolio diversification.

Portfolio diversification does not come from investing in more and more asset classes. This has diminishing diversification benefits over the longer term and particularly at time of market crisis.

True portfolio diversification is achieved by investing in different risk factors (also referred to as premia) that drive the asset classes e.g. duration (movements in interest rates), economic growth, low volatility, value, and market momentums by way of example.

Investors are compensated for being exposed to a range of different risks. For example, those risks may include market risk (e.g. equities and fixed income), smart beta (e.g. value and momentum factors), alternative, and hedge fund risk premia. And of course, “true alpha” from active management, returns that cannot be explained by the risk exposures just outlined.

There has been a disaggregation of investment returns.

US Endowment Funds and Sovereign Wealth Funds have led the charge on true portfolio diversification, along with the heavy investment into alternative investments and factor exposures.

They are a model of world best investment management practice.

 

Therefore, seek true portfolio diversification this is the best way to protect portfolio outcomes and reduce the reliance on sharemarkets and interest rates to drive portfolio outcomes.  As the Deutsche Bank Presentation says, a truly diversified portfolio provides better protection against large market falls and unexpected events e.g. Black Swans.

True diversification leads to a more robust portfolio.

 

Customised investment solution

Often the next bit of  advice is to make sure your investments are consistent with your risk preference.

Although this is important, it is also fundamentally important that the investment portfolio is customised to your investment objectives and takes into consideration a wider range of issues than risk preference and expected returns and volatility from investment markets.

For example, level of income earned up to retirement, assets outside super, legacies, desired standard of living in retirement, and Sequencing Risk (the period of most vulnerability is either side of the retirement age e.g. 65 here in New Zealand).

Also look to financial planning options to see through difficult market conditions.

 

Think long-term

I think this is a given, and it needs to be balanced with your investment objectives as outlined above.

Try to see through market noise and volatility.

It is all right to do nothing, don’t be compelled to trade, a less traded portfolio is likely more representative of someone taking a longer term view.

Remain disciplined.

 

There are a lot of Investment Behavioural issues to consider at this time to stop people making bad decisions, the idea of the Regret Portfolio approach may resonate, and the Behavioural Tool Kit could be of interest.

 

AllAboutAlpha has a great tagline: “Seek diversification, education, and know your risk tolerance. Investing is for the long term.”

Kiwi Investor Blog is all about education, it does not provide investment advice nor promote any investment, and receives no financial benefits. Please follow the links provided for a greater appreciation of the topic in discussion.

 

And, please, build robust investment portfolios. As Warren Buffet has said: “Predicting rain doesn’t count. Building arks does.” ………………….. Is your portfolio an all-weather portfolio?

 

Stay safe and healthy.

 

Happy investing.

Please see my Disclosure Statement

 

Global Investment Ideas from New Zealand. Building more Robust Investment Portfolios.

Navigating through a Bear market – what should I do?

/ Kiwi Investor / 3 Comments

To all Kiwi Investor Blog readers, I hope you are staying safe and healthy. My thoughts are with you from a health perspective and for those facing the economic consequences on businesses and families from the spread of the coronavirus.

 

In the current market environment there is much uncertainty and many are wondering what to do with their investments.

The key questions being asked are should we switch to a more conservative investment or get out the markets all together.

 

One of the best discussions on why to remain invested is provided by FutureSafe in a letter to their client’s 15th March.

FutureSafe provide one reason why it might be the right thing for someone to reduce their sharemarket exposure and three reasons why they might not.

They have reproduced the letter in the hope that it might be helpful and of interest to the broader investing community.

As they emphasis, please consult your advisor or an investment professional before making any investment decisions. In New Zealand, the FMA has also provided recent guidance on this issue, KiwiSaver providers should be providing general (class) advice to members at this time. Their full guidance on Kiwisaver Advice is here.

 

I have provided the main points below of the FutureSafe letter to clients, nevertheless the letter is well worth reading in full.

The first question is do you have too much invested in the market?

As FutureSafe highlight, the average declines of bear markets since WWII have been over 30%, with some declines as large as 60%. It has generally taken on average 2 years to recover.

 

My last Post, What to expect, navigating the current Bear-Market, presented research from Goldman Sachs on the historical analysis of bear markets in US equities going back to the 1800s. At this stage, we are likely experiencing an Event-Driven Bear market.  These Bear markets tend to be less severe, but the speed of the fall in markets is quicker, as is the recover.

However, as Goldman Sachs note none of the previous Event-Driven Bear markets were triggered by the outbreak of a virus, nor were interest rates so low at the start of the market decline.

Historically Event-Driven bear markets on average see falls of 29%, last 9 months and recover within 15 months. Nevertheless, the current Bear could transform into a cyclical bear market if containment efforts lead to a larger global recession than anticipated.

 

Back to FutureSafe. You should only take the risk you can stomach, or technically speaking, is aligned with your “risk appetite”. Which is a level of risk that does not keep you awake at night.  Unfortunately, we often don’t know our risk appetite until we experience significant market events like we are experiencing currently. We are often over-confident as to the level of market volatility we can tolerate.

FurtureSafe conclude “Now that we are in a downturn, if you have come to the conclusion that your risk appetite is not what you thought it was, it’s perfectly OK to acknowledge that and change your safety net accordingly.”

However, before you do anything, FutureSafe ask you to read through and consider a few reasons why not to do anything at this time might be appropriate.

Reason 1

If management of risk appetite is not your motivation, perhaps you are planning on selling now, with the conviction markets will continue to fall, and you plan on buying back in later.

You are essentially making an active investment decision and attempting to time markets.

Timing markets is very hard to do. Professional Investors are not very good at it.

The data on the average mutual fund investor is also not very complimentary. As FutureSafe note the “the average mutual fund investor has not stayed invested for a long enough period of time to reap the rewards that the market can offer more disciplined investors. The data also shows that when investors react, they generally make the wrong decision.”  A mutual Fund is like a Unit Trust or KiwiSaver Fund in New Zealand.

I depart from the FutureSafe article and provide the graph below from PIMCO.

As PIMCO highlight, “Through no fault of their own – and especially when market volatility strikes – investors tend to be their own worst enemy.”

The graph below highlights that investors do not capture all of the returns from the market, which can be attributed to behavioural biases that leads to inappropriate timing of  buying and selling.

This investor behavioural gap is well documented.

In reference to market timing and in one short sentence, FutureSafe say “We’re probably not as good at these active calls as we think we are, and it might hurt more than help.”

PIMOC Behaviour gap

Reason 2

A large portion of returns are earned on days markets make large gains.

Although the extreme volatility being witnessed currently is very painful to watch, amongst them are explosive up days. Attempting to time markets might cause you to miss these valuable up days.

The research on this is also very clear.

As outlined in the Table below, if you had missed the top 15 biggest return days your yearly return would have been 3.6% compared to 7% per year if you had remained fully invested (this is over the period January 1990 to March 2020 and being invested in the US S&P 500 Index).

Missing large daily returns

Of course, the same can be said if you missed the largest down days. Nevertheless, good luck at avoiding these days and still being able to fully capture the returns from equity markets.  The down days represent the risk of investing in shares.

Most important is having a disciplined investment approach and an investment portfolio consistent with your risk appetite and is truly diversified so as to limit the impact of the poor periods of performance in sharemarkets.

In summary, FutureSafe note, “Missing just a few of the top up days, can cost you a large chunk of the market’s returns.”

 

Reason 3

Take a long-term perspective.

Overtime, and with hindsight, large market declines look like minor setbacks over the longer term, the very long term.

This is quite evident from the following graph.

Remember, the stock market fell by 20% over one day in 1987, the dot-com crash of 2000 or even the Great Financial Crisis of 2008 don’t look to bad with a longer term perspective.

Take a longer term perspective

As FutureSafe conclude “If you really don’t need the money for a long period of time (e.g. 10 or 15 years) these are best to ride out because they look a lot better in the rear view mirror than when you are going through it.”

“If you have a long enough horizon (10 to 15 years or more), the chances of doing well in the stock market is still quite good.”

 

Therefore, the key points to consider are:

  • Risk Appetite should primarily drive your allocation to sharemarkets, not the current market environment;
  • We can’t time markets, not even the professionals;
  • Be disciplined and maintain a well-diversified investment portfolio, this is the best way to limit market declines, rather than trying to time markets;
  • Take a longer-term view; and
  • Seek out professional investment advice

 

Keep safe and healthy.

 

Happy investing.

 

Please read my Disclosure Statement

 

Global Investment Ideas from New Zealand. Building more Robust Investment Portfolios.

Time to move away from the Balanced Portfolio. They are riskier than you think.

/ Kiwi Investor / 10 Comments

GMO, a US based value investor, has concluded “now is the time to be moving away from 60/40” Portfolio.  Which is a Balanced Portfolio consisting of 60% US equities and 40% US fixed income.

Being a “contrarian investor”, recent market returns and GMO’s outlook for future market returns are driving their conclusions.

I covered their 7-year forecasts in an earlier Post. GMO provide a brief summary of their medium term returns in the recently published article: Now is the Time to be Contrarian

 

The GMO article makes the following key observations to back up their contrarian call:

  • The last time they saw such a wide “spread” in expected returns between a traditional 60/40 portfolio and a non-traditional one was back in the late 1990s, this was just prior to the Tech bubble bursting.
  • The traditional 60/40 portfolio went on to have a “Lost Decade” in the 2000s making essentially no money, in real terms, for ten years. Starting in late 1999, the 60/40 portfolio delivered a cumulative real return over the next ten years of -3.9%.

 

As outlined in the GMO chart below, Lost Decades for a Balanced Portfolio have happened with alarming and surprising frequency, all preceded by expensive stocks or expensive bonds.

GMO note that both US equities and fixed income are expensive today. As observed by the high CAPE and negative real yield at the bottom of the Chart.

They are of course not alone with this observation, as highlighted by a recent CFA Institute article. I summarised this article in the Post: Past Decade of strong returns are unlikely to be repeated.

lost-decades_12-31-19

 

 

The Balance Portfolio is riskier than you think.

The GMO chart is consistent with the analysis undertaken by Deutsche Bank in 2012, Rethinking Portfolio Construction and Risk Management.

This analysis highlights that the Balanced Portfolio is risker than many think. This is quite evident in the following Table. The Performance period is from 1900 – 2010.

Real Returns

(after inflation)
Compound Annual Return per annum 3.8%
Volatility (standard deviation of returns) 9.8%
Maximum Drawdown (peak to bottom) -66%
% up years 67%
Best Year 51%
Worst Year -31%
% time negative returns over 10 years 22%

The Deutsche Bank analysis highlights:

  • The, 60/40 Portfolio has generated negative real returns over a rolling 10 year period for almost a quarter of the time (22%).
  • In the worst year the Portfolio lost 31%.
  • On an annual basis, real negative returns occur 1 in three years, and returns worse than -10% 1 in every six years
  • Equities dominate risk of a 60/40 Portfolio, accounting for over 90% of the risk in most countries.

 

The 4% average return, comes with volatility, much higher than people appreciate, as outlined in the Table above. The losses (drawdowns) can be large and lengthy.

This is evident the following Table of Decade returns, which line up with the GMO Chart above.

Decade Per annum return
1900s 6.3%
1910s -4.7%
1920s 12.7%
1930s -2.3%
1940s 1.1%
1950s 9.1%
1960s 4.5%
1970s -0.3%
1980s 11.7%
1990s 11.7%
2000s 0.5%

 

We know the 2010s was a great decade for the Balanced Portfolio.  A 10 year period in which the US sharemarket did not experience a bear market (a decline of 20% or more). This is the first time in history this has occurred.

Interestingly, Deutsche Bank highlight the 1920s and 1950s where post war gains, while the 1980s and 1990s were wind-full gains.

The best 4 decades returned 11.3% p.a. and the 7 others 0.7% p.a.

 

As outlined in my last Post, the case for diversifying away from traditional equity and fixed income is arguably stronger than ever before.

 

Happy investing.

 Please read my Disclosure Statement

 

Global Investment Ideas from New Zealand. Building more Robust Investment Portfolios.