We all know that we should invest for the long term.
Making short-term punts, ducking in and out of stocks in reaction to headlines, and generally trading too much, is a recipe for losing money.
Yet it’s very tempting. If you’re remotely interested in the workings of the financial markets, then it’s very hard not to pay attention to their ups and downs. And when you see ‘hot’ stocks doing well, or exciting new trends taking off, you naturally want to get on board.
So you might be tempted to take the decision out of your own hands, and give all your money over to a fund manager to invest.
The trouble is, what few investors realise is that the ‘professionals’ are beset by exactly the same emotions. In fact, if anything, it’s even harder for them to resist the urge to invest for the short term.
Here’s why – and what it means for your money…
The Investing Incentives Are All Wrong
As Paul Woolley and Dimitri Vayanos point out in the FT, the ‘long-term’ versus ‘short-term’ investing debate is a bit of a hot topic among governments just now.
The most recent paper on the topic has come from the G30 (a think tank comprised of various economists and former central bankers and regulators). According to Woolley and Vayanos, they argue that regulators should draw up ‘best-practice guidelines’ for long-term investors such as pension funds or sovereign wealth funds.
The idea is that this code would help all investors to understand just how damaging the current approach can be to their money.
So what sort of thing would be in it? Interestingly enough, it’s the sort of thing that we’ve been banging on about for a long time.
The distinction between short and long-term investing is not just about the length of time you hold an asset for. What really matters, say Woolley and Vayanos, is ‘the investor’s choice between the two basic investment strategies of momentum trading and fundamental investing.’
Momentum traders forget about trying to value stocks or any other asset. They just buy when prices are rising, and sell when they’re falling. The tools of the trade will usually involve charts and technical analysis.
Fundamental investors try to work out the ‘fair value’ of an asset, based on things like cash flow, and profitability, and balance sheet strength. They’ll look at the books and pore over ratios. If they find something that’s sufficiently cheap, they buy, sit back, and wait for the price to recover.
Both approaches have their place. Dedicated momentum investors can do very well. And ‘fundamental’ investing has made the likes of Warren Buffett a lot of money over the years.
The trouble is, lots of fund managers who purport to be using fundamentals, are really just chasing performance. And this largely comes down to the way the finance industry is structured. Fund managers are measured on short-term performance.
So why would you bother searching for value? Your best bet for a quiet life and some relatively easy money is to hug your benchmark as tightly as possible. If that involves over-trading and racking up lots of costs, so be it. As long as your performance is merely mediocre, and not downright catastrophic, your job will be safe.
It’s called ‘career risk’. We’ve discussed it many times in the past. It’s probably one of the most destructive forces in the market.
The Solution to Career Risk
Woolley and Vayanos come up with some good ideas for what should be in a ‘long-term investing code’. For example, they suggest capping fund turnover at 30% a year, and scrapping performance fees based on short-term results.
Persuading investors to look at other measures of success when choosing funds, could help to push a change of attitude in the business. Particularly now that the consumer focus is falling so heavily on costs.
But you don’t have to wait for this to happen. As an individual investor, you don’t have to worry about justifying your performance to anyone else. So all the distortions caused by ‘career risk’ vanish when you take your investments into your own hands.
You don’t have to worry about beating, or matching a specific benchmark. All you need to do is to keep your nerve. That’s easier said than done.
How to Profit From Short Term Investing
This said, I wouldn’t dismiss momentum investing out of hand. Momentum or trend-following can be a very successful strategy. But you need to know what you’re doing.
So this is one area at least where I’d suggest it’s a good idea for most investors to delegate the job to an expert.
John Stepek
Contributing Editor, Money Morning
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