With apologies to the non-golfing readers, I am going to go with a golf analogy
this quarter. We have, after all, just emerged from Masters week which is the
equivalent of Holy Week for the avid golf fan. Years ago, I picked up a book by
legendary golf teacher Harvey Penick called Penick’s Little Red Book.
Penick’s resume included teaching many successful tour players like Ben
Crenshaw, Tom Kite, and Kathy Whitworth while remaining an active instructor
well into his 80’s. Despite Penick’s relative anonymity, the book succeeded,
selling more than one million copies to become the best-selling sports book of
all time.* Why? Because Penick’s teaching worked. It made the average golfer
play better.
Penick relied on short, memorable anecdotes to drive home important points. He
gave his pupils a “swing thought” – the one thing they were to think
about before stepping up to hit a shot. For example, when Penick’s student,
Betsy Rawls was in a playoff for the 1951 US Open Championship he sent her a
one-sentence telegram. It said: “Take dead aim!” This was her ONLY thought when
she approached her golf ball. Betsy won the playoff.**
Many golfers don’t experience similar success not because they lack talent,
good instruction or sound equipment but, in large part, because the swing
thoughts they have in their head before they bring the club back are wrong (or,
perhaps, they have too many of them). Likewise, individual investors
don’t achieve the returns they should because of flawed thinking prior to and
while they are deploying or monitoring their personal capital. Barry
Ritholtz, a leading Wall Street commentator and strategist, notes that since ERISA
was passed in 1974 enabling IRAs and, eventually, 401(k) accounts, the market
has returned about 11% annually. However, the average investor has gained
only 3% per year. *** This is commonly known as the “behavior gap.”
Bad thinking leads to bad investment behavior in the same way that bad swing
thoughts lead to bad golf swings. In both cases, the result is bad.
In one case, the cost is some lost golf balls and a bad afternoon outside; in
the other case, the cost might be a college tuition payment or a deferred
retirement date, or worse.
Just as people hired Harvey Penick so that they would score better versus how
they might score without his input, we believe folks hire Punch and Associates
so they might achieve better results versus what they might achieve without our
involvement. So what is the equivalent of a good swing thought for
putting money to work or staying invested in THIS market? We have
several, in particular, for folks taking a passive approach toward overseeing
the active management of their portfolio:
- Think “Zig,” think “Zag,” but mostly, think long term.
Despite having heard this quote early in my career, I had to lose some of my own money to realize the veracity of it. Nobody on the Forbes 100 list got there by jumping into and out of businesses on a regular basis. Why should we advise our clients to do differently? We are contrarian investors, so it is in our nature to examine parts of the market that have a) attracted the least amount of attention, or b) declined recently or have not participated in the market’s advance. In many cases, these areas have the most upside over our expected holding period.
- Forget the headlines.
I challenge anyone to name a time when you read a mainstream headline and it allowed you to make a better decision.Think of what it takes for something to become a headline. Many people —not just one or two—have to be clubbed over the head with the effects of an issue or the concern over what might happen; they then gather in a room discuss it some more, ping-pong the issue back and forth, and maybe table the headline for future publication. Something more happens in the real world – stocks go up, stocks go down, the dollar spikes, oil crashes, etc. – and they decide to create the headline. How is this headline going to help you? The fact that it was created means that its effects have already been felt. You can’t profit from it, and it will likely create unneeded angst.
- Volatility does not equal risk.
Warren’s business partner, Charlie Munger, defines risk more succinctly: “using a stock’s volatility as a measure of risk is nuts. Risk to us is 1) the risk of permanent loss of capital, or 2) the risk of inadequate return.”
- Don’t get too excited/depressed.“We have met the enemy, and he is us.” -- Pogo, 1970
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