eWombat search  

Financial Planning News

Articles archive
Quarter 2 April - June 2023
Quarter 1 January - March 2023
Quarter 4 October - December 2022
Quarter 3 July - September 2022
Quarter 2 April - June 2022
Quarter 1 January - March 2022
Quarter 4 October - December 2021
Quarter 3 July - September 2021
Quarter 2 April - June 2021
Quarter 1 January - March 2021
Quarter 4 October - December 2020
Quarter 3 July - September 2020
Quarter 2 April - June 2020
Quarter 1 January - March 2020
Quarter 4 October - December 2019
Quarter 3 July - September 2019
Quarter 2 April - June 2019
Quarter 1 January - March 2019
Quarter 4 October - December 2018
Quarter 3 July - September 2018
Quarter 2 April - June 2018
Quarter 1 January - March 2018
Quarter 4 October - December 2017
Quarter 3 July - September 2017
Quarter 2 April - June 2017
Quarter 1 January - March 2017
Quarter 4 October - December 2016
Quarter 3 July - September 2016
Quarter 2 April - June 2016
Quarter 1 January - March 2016
Quarter 4 October - December 2015
Quarter 3 July - September 2015
Quarter 2 April - June 2015
Quarter 1 January - March 2015
Quarter 4 October - December 2014
Quarter 3 July - September 2014
Quarter 2 April - June 2014
Quarter 1 January - March 2014
Quarter 4 October - December 2013
Quarter 3 July - September 2013
Quarter 2 April - June 2013
Quarter 1 January - March 2013
Quarter 4 October - December 2012
Quarter 3 July - September 2012
Quarter 2 April - June 2012
Quarter 1 January - March 2012
Quarter 4 October - December 2011
Quarter 3 July - September 2011
Quarter 2 April - June 2011
Quarter 1 January - March 2011
Quarter 4 October - December 2010
Quarter 3 July - September 2010
Quarter 2 April - June 2010
Quarter 1 January - March 2010
Quarter 4 October - December 2009
Quarter 3 July - September 2009
Quarter 2 April - June 2009
Quarter 1 January - March 2009
Quarter 4 October - December 2008
Quarter 3 July - September 2008
Quarter 2 April - June 2008
Quarter 1 January - March 2008
Quarter 4 October - December 2007
Quarter 3 July - September 2007
Quarter 2 April - June 2007
Quarter 1 January - March 2007
Quarter 4 October - December 2006
Quarter 3 July - September 2006
Quarter 2 April - June 2006
Quarter 4 of 2016
Articles
Investor habits: The good, the bad and the ugly
Keeping finances in the family
The inter-generational financial squeeze
Merry Christmas for 2016, a Happy New Year and a prosperous 2017.
ATO set to clamp down on range of super issues
SME retirement plans in jeopardy, research finds
SMSFs show restraint in hot residential market
Investment's building blocks - always worth reinforcing
Warnings issued on traps with CGT transitional rules
Meet SMSFs' early and late arrivals
Beware, the ATO is on the hunt for lifestyle assets
'Brexit means Brexit' means what?
SMSFs tipped to be hardest hit by pension changes
SMSF assets hit record, but funds still hoarding cash
Markets caution advised as economic bubbles loom
Stretching retirement income
Some financial terms explained
Market Update – September 2016
Checking in on our 2016 economic outlook - and looking ahead
Making a fairer and more sustainable Superannuation System
Going undercover
‘Winners and Losers’ from new super proposals
Investor habits: The good, the bad and the ugly

 

The good, the bad and the ugly is, of course, the title of the stylised 1966 western starring Clint Eastwood. It is also an apt way to describe common habits of investors.



       


 


No matter whether investment markets are rising or falling or somewhere in between, an investor's habits – good and bad – really matter.


The Journal of Portfolio Management has published an article, Bad habits and good practices, which opens with a disarmingly simple message for investors seeking sustained, long-term success: “Good investing results require both good investments and good investors”.


Its authors – professor with the University of Lausanne's department of finance Amit Goyal and investment fund managers/investment authors Anitti Ilmanen and David Kabiller – focus on three bad investment habits, providing contrasting good investment practices.


“We have spent our careers also battling these same bad habits in ourselves,” they write, “so our prospective is fully intended as commiseration and shared experience, not as lecturing.”


Bad habit one: Chasing multi-year returns


Goyal, Ilmanen and Kabiller say this is often cited as the “premier bad habit”. It involves abandoning long-term strategic investment practices to chase multi-year winners – meaning those that have outperformed in the last few years – while dumping multi-year underperformers.


This bad habit, which has been termed as “pro-cyclic” investing, can affect an investor's investment style, portfolio asset allocation, and their selections of individual investment assets and managed funds.


“Many investors understandably lack patience when facing years of underperformance, even if they are aware of the limited predictive ability in past performance and potentially high transition costs associated with hiring and firing,” they add.


“At worst, some investors may enter the market near its peak, despite exorbitant valuation levels, or capitulate near the bottom and miss the subsequent reversal.”


Many investors were willing to put up with a year of underperformance but “draw the line” at multi-year underperformance of, say, three to five years.


The countering good practice to this bad habit is to take a disciplined, long-term and appropriately-diversified approach with the aim of achieving well-defined investment goals. And regular counter-cyclical rebalancing of investors' asset allocations is fundamental to keeping their investing on track.


Bad habit two: Under-diversification


Goyal, Ilmanen and Kabiller say that many investors don't appreciate the benefits of proper diversification of asset classes and securities to spread their risks and opportunities.


Examples of under-diversification given in their paper include holding just a few stocks – in other, words, having excessively-concentrated portfolios – and having a home-bias with insufficient exposure to global markets.


They say a broad explanation is known as “narrow framing”. This is the tendency for investors to focus much of their attention on a single aspect investment or asset class rather than how it related to their overall portfolios.


Investors taking what could be described as a wider frame would tend to see a fall in the price of individual investments or an asset sector as just part of the expected movements within an appropriately-diversified portfolio. Indeed, well-diversified portfolios are designed with the intention of having some assets rising in value to counter other assets falling in value – rather than moving in lockstep.


Bad habit three: Seeking comfort while overlooking fundamentals


“Some investors seek comfort when selecting investments, whether individual securities or asset classes, instead of judging them purely on their risk/reward merits,” Goyal, Ilmanen and Kabiller say. An example of seeking comfort is to invest in the latest glamour stocks because of their image and their current popularity rather than on investment fundamentals.


And many comfort-seeking investors, for instance, pay too much for assets in their expectation for smoother, less-volatile returns.


A classic illustration of investors seeking comfort to their detriment involves following the investment herd by shifting to all-cash portfolios when the sharemarket experiences a sharp dip. And when share prices have already risen sharply, investors attempt to gain comfort in the crowd by following the herd back into the market.


A key take-away message for investors is that for every bad habit, as the authors of this paper write, there is good practice. Astute investors not only know what bad habits to avoid but develop strategies or practices to avoid them.



Robin Bowerman
12 December 2016
www.vanguardinvestments.com.au




28th-December-2016

        
FuturePlan Partners Pty Ltd, ACN 097 032 114, Corporate Authorised Representative of
SECURITOR Financial Group Limited, ABN 48 009 189 495, AFSL and Australian Credit License 240687,
Level 7, 530 Collins Street , Melbourne VIC 3000.