safety

[cloud]

"Some years ago, the late Nobel prize-winning Dr. Albert Schweitzer was asked by a reporter, “Doctor, what’s wrong with men today?” The great doctor was silent a moment, and then he said, “Men simply don’t think!”  "  - The strangest secrets  by Earl Nightingale.

 

 

I want to share some of the ways to create margin of safety instead of picking up cigar butts as Benjamin Graham did.

I know many will say this is BS margin of safety. People tend to follow every step or words of the authorities without really thinking. For example, for the goal of maximize return without increased risk of losing and for the reason of law of diminished return,  it's already a bad idea for skilled investors to invest in what Buffett currently invests in.  We need to think this way: What would Buffett do if he starts over from zero?

 

I just bought an e-book  from Google Play so I can read on the  phone: "Trade Like Warren Buffett" by James Altucher.

I only read a couple pages but I already love the honesty of the book. I don't know James Altucher much but after I read his article, I know he's brilliant, rational and trustworthy: http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/03/why-i-am-never-going-to-own-a-home-again/

 

 

 

The message from Benjamin Graham can be boiled down to this: Reduce the chance of losing money. 

 

Any method that reduces the chance of losing money is creating a margin of safety.

 

One way to do it is by concentrating a relative large amount of capital in a strong growing business in its early stage of growing and gradually reduce the number of shares thus reducing the average cost and risk of losing money.  This is just a small example. I bought 7 shares of CSU.TO in 2012 and sold 2 shares in 2013 and sold 1 share in 2015. Now I own 4 shares with a total average cost of almost zero. It's pure profit left for future growth of the business.

 

Another way is to buy a small number of shares in strong growing business in its early stage of growing and then keep selling a cash secured out of money put until the put is deep out of money. It's not uncommon to sell a couple months of put until the stock rises rapidly.  Growth stocks tend to experience big drop when earning disappoints. This create a margin of safety.

 

Other than two above mentioned methods,  the general rule of thumb to create margin of safety for buy and holders is to hold the highest quality businesses.  High quality businesses drop less than low quality businesses during bear market. This feature in itself is a margin of safety. I consider a business is mediocre if  it has  a single quarter of negative earning in the past 5 years. You know how many businesses qualify as mediocre in an index. That's why I don't buy index funds. That's why I have a higher margin of safety than indexers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[OracleofCarolina]

Altucher did go bankrupt a couple of years ago, so maybe we can learn from his experiences.

[cloud]

Altucher did go bankrupt a couple of yrars ago, so maybe we can learn from his experiences.

 

Ok. I didn't know that but I like that guy's words. and my  personal balance sheet is getting stronger every day.  It's a lot stronger than couple years ago because asset grew rapidly and debt got smaller.    I try my best not to copy bad habits/ideas from people even he's genius at certain area.

 

;D

[augustabound]

I didn't know that but I like that guy's words. and my  personal balance sheet is getting stronger every day.

 

He posts articles to LinkedIn if you're on there.

 

https://www.linkedin.com/today/posts/james-altucher+0_0tdfgCMjSNLepMHzfwj20l

 

Edit: I hope the link works, I was signed in to Linkedin when I copied and pasted. I'm not sure if it's subscriber content only.

[cloud]

Interesting read, a good lesson of what not to do:

"I blew that on expensive toys, trips, and bad ideas, and saw my account go from $15 million to $143 in a matter of months. I lost my house, my friends, my sanity and considered killing myself. BusinessWeek called me “Wall Street’s keeper of pain”."

 

 

I think the issue is that he had the lottery mentality. That's what most lottery winners do. They blew the money away on big houses, fancy toys etc. They think material will give them ever lasting happiness. Nope.

To avoid that problem,  the motivation to obtain wealth should not be for personal pleasure. It should be for self reliance. This allows choices to live a more meaningful life than stuck at a monotonous 9 to 5 job.

 

 

 

[cloud]

It's visible to public. Thanks for sharing the link.

 

I didn't know that but I like that guy's words. and my  personal balance sheet is getting stronger every day.

 

He posts articles to LinkedIn if you're on there.

 

https://www.linkedin.com/today/posts/james-altucher+0_0tdfgCMjSNLepMHzfwj20l

 

Edit: I hope the link works, I was signed in to Linkedin when I copied and pasted. I'm not sure if it's subscriber content only.

[rb]

I think it's very fancy to say, oh just invest in strong growing business and everything will be ok. I also think this let's people off too easy since they don't talk at all about the source of the growth or potential longevity of it. Yea, just invest in growth and everything will be ok.... margin of safety you know...

 

One problem with that. Strong growing businesses tend to have high valuations. Now in cases where it all goes according to the plan (i.e. Apple) then things are going to work out for you. But prices of richly valued growth stocks tend to snap back violently and kick you in the teeth if growth goes away for some reason - see again Apple (the early history), Blackberry, etc.. the list is long.

[frommi]

 

I bought 7 shares of CSU.TO in 2012 and sold 2 shares in 2013 and sold 1 share in 2015. Now I own 4 shares with a total average cost of almost zero. It's pure profit left for future growth of the business.

 

 

I see this level of thinking all the time, but its a bit weird. You handle money that you made in the past via investing different than money you invested. For me thats a mental defect that will simply erase your profits because you don`t want them. Your networth is your networth and it doesn`t matter where it came from. Taking profits is not stupid, but you should determine if you want to hold onto a position based on the future return you think it will bring you relative to all other available investments amd trim it to reduce your networth concentration in that position. (and of course think about tax consequences)

[cloud]

I think it's very fancy to say, oh just invest in strong growing business and everything will be ok. I also think this let's people off too easy since they don't talk at all about the source of the growth or potential longevity of it. Yea, just invest in growth and everything will be ok.... margin of safety you know...

 

One problem with that. Strong growing businesses tend to have high valuations. Now in cases where it all goes according to the plan (i.e. Apple) then things are going to work out for you. But prices of richly valued growth stocks tend to snap back violently and kick you in the teeth if growth goes away for some reason - see again Apple (the early history), Blackberry, etc.. the list is long.

Yes, it's easier said than done. Who said it's easy? I learned from other successful investors and by trial and error for 8 years. But without knowing the right things, we can't do the right things. I heard about quality years ago. And didn't know what meants. I made mistakes in like dinosaur Yellow page, and Sherritt international. I gradually got the idea of quality both in investing and life. Dollarrama and Dollar Tree are not going to suddenly shrink.

Yes, high valuation exist in high quality business.

Things you missed:

- High quality business grows at 30%/ year for 5 years then drop 50% is not devastating. It doesn't happen overnight. Plenty of time to react.Diversification is also key to reduce risk of being wrong.

- It requires looking at the big picture when selecting stocks.

I wouldn't invest in stocks like Blackberry, Apple because I am not certain about demands for their products 5 years from now. Also the size of Apple is way too big. I like to invest stocks in 1B to 50B cap. In a strong business, there should be a certainty in stable, growing demand for its product and services for years to come. If I have doubts about that, I don't buy.

 

 

 

[cloud]

 

I bought 7 shares of CSU.TO in 2012 and sold 2 shares in 2013 and sold 1 share in 2015. Now I own 4 shares with a total average cost of almost zero. It's pure profit left for future growth of the business.

 

 

I see this level of thinking all the time, but its a bit weird. You handle money that you made in the past via investing different than money you invested. For me thats a mental defect that will simply erase your profits because you don`t want them. Your networth is your networth and it doesn`t matter where it came from. Taking profits is not stupid, but you should determine if you want to hold onto a position based on the future return you think it will bring you relative to all other available investments amd trim it to reduce your networth concentration in that position. (and of course think about tax consequences)

 

A bit. It gave me a little false sense of security thinking profit is not my money that losing it is not a problem.

The other side of it is risk control by allocation of capital. It's different than those think they have a 20% dividend yield based on net cost after years of collecting dividend..

Yes,  if I take profits too early, I miss out the future grow of the business on that portion of capital.

But

If i am initiating a position in a new stock, the valuation is high, it can snap back or contine to grow at fast rate.

I am not certain about both but 70% toward latter. If the stock grew 50% in one year because of underlying business not speculation, I remove that 50%, the capital at risk is reduced by that 50%.

I am not losing out because I will deploy capital on other opportunities.

Sometimes, I use this to establish long term positions. So I don't always keep reducing positions. You are right about opportunity cost. My big money has not been made in small position like this but in value position as big as 20% of my portfolio in a single stock.

 

I am happy with my overall return.

 

[jawn619]

"Some years ago, the late Nobel prize-winning Dr. Albert Schweitzer was asked by a reporter, “Doctor, what’s wrong with men today?” The great doctor was silent a moment, and then he said, “Men simply don’t think!”  "  - The strangest secrets  by Earl Nightingale.

 

 

I want to share some of the ways to create margin of safety instead of picking up cigar butts as Benjamin Graham did.

I know many will say this is BS margin of safety. People tend to follow every step or words of the authorities without really thinking. For example, for the goal of maximize return without increased risk of losing and for the reason of law of diminished return,  it's already a bad idea for skilled investors to invest in what Buffett currently invests in.  We need to think this way: What would Buffett do if he starts over from zero?

 

I just bought an e-book  from Google Play so I can read on the  phone: "Trade Like Warren Buffett" by James Altucher.

I only read a couple pages but I already love the honesty of the book. I don't know James Altucher much but after I read his article, I know he's brilliant, rational and trustworthy: http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/03/why-i-am-never-going-to-own-a-home-again/

 

 

 

The message from Benjamin Graham can be boiled down to this: Reduce the chance of losing money. 

 

Any method that reduces the chance of losing money is creating a margin of safety.

 

One way to do it is by concentrating a relative large amount of capital in a strong growing business in its early stage of growing and gradually reduce the number of shares thus reducing the average cost and risk of losing money.  This is just a small example. I bought 7 shares of CSU.TO in 2012 and sold 2 shares in 2013 and sold 1 share in 2015. Now I own 4 shares with a total average cost of almost zero. It's pure profit left for future growth of the business.

 

Another way is to buy a small number of shares in strong growing business in its early stage of growing and then keep selling a cash secured out of money put until the put is deep out of money. It's not uncommon to sell a couple months of put until the stock rises rapidly.  Growth stocks tend to experience big drop when earning disappoints. This create a margin of safety.

 

Other than two above mentioned methods,  the general rule of thumb to create margin of safety for buy and holders is to hold the highest quality businesses.  High quality businesses drop less than low quality businesses during bear market. This feature in itself is a margin of safety. I consider a business is mediocre if  it has  a single quarter of negative earning in the past 5 years. You know how many businesses qualify as mediocre in an index. That's why I don't buy index funds. That's why I have a higher margin of safety than indexers.

 

Cloud,

 

I want to commend you for sharing your ideas. It takes a lot of courage to post something that is different from what I think a lot of the forum members would agree with. I'd like to go over your ideas to help.

 

Concentration- I agree with the idea that concentration would enhance returns but disagree that decreases your chance of loss. I think what happened in your situation is that you concentrated in a relatively small amount of companies, they went up leaving you with a gain, causing you to think that there was less risk than there was. 

 

High quality growth business- I've had to learn from my own experiences that bad businesses selling at cheap prices aka cigar butts are too difficult and honestly not worth the time. I think a lot of posters on this forum have learned the same lesson and we are all looking for high quality growth businesses. Unfortunately like rb mentioned, they often trade at lofty valuations. For example CSU.TO trades at 89 trailing p/e and a forward p/e of 22. With Growth companies almost all their value is in the future cash flows and predicting those accurately is what many people think is a fools game.

 

Taking prints(selling to lock it profit)- If you are anything like 90% of the population, you would be risk averse. Meaning you are more eager to sell a gain than to take a loss of the same amount. (see nobel prize winner's Daniel Kahneman's book)

http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman-ebook/dp/B00555X8OA

Speaking practically, I don't think it is a bad idea to lock in gains because the future is fickle and like you said any gains that are related to speculation could be capitalized on.

 

Lastly and most importantly, i think the key to investing is the price you pay in relation to what you get. I didn't see you mention anything about the price in relation to earnings/book/ intrinsic value).

I would say that often times myself and other members of the board lean too far towards price as opposed to quality but I think you still need both to accurately evaluate an investment. For example if CSU.TO were trading at 3times the price you bought it, it would still meet the qualifications of a high quality growth company but almost all of its future gains would be chalked up to speculation and hoping someone else would come and pay a higher price.

[cloud]

I didn't see you mention anything about the price in relation to earnings/book/ intrinsic value).

 

 

I will scare many people again on this board.  ;D

 

I am a practitioner of law of least effort, Pareto principle.  It's a wonderful thing to get 80% result with 20% effort. 

 

i have never finished reading any quarterly, annual reports from any stocks I own. I just glance through them.  i focus on the 20% most important things about the underlying businesses.

I don't do any calculations about  earnings/book/ intrinsic value.  i think this kind of calculations are not productive.  i think the danger with obsessing about calculating earnings/book/ intrinsic value is that it's very easy to lose sight of the more important things about the underlying businesses.

 

Wall street analysts are doing all the hard work for us. They are constantly calculating. I just sit back and enjoy their work.  The long term price of stocks are priced in with their calculations.  Notice the market response violently on earning release? The market is a lot more efficient at reflecting information than we think.  This efficiency doesn't mean it'll make the quality business super expensive so the stock price won't increase in the future. There's equilibrium in stock market most of the time and sometimes it overshoots.

 

I buy almost at any price for high quality business (idea from Charlie Munger)  as long as it doesn't have some insane PE like 100 or infinity. Why?  Because good businesses are very hard to encounter.High PE is justifiable for businesses growing by acquisition.  PE of 30-40 is acceptable for certain businesses.  But for PE of 50 to 100 and beyond, I'll avoid.

I spent 8 years and only found ~30 quality business. If I wait for them to get cheaper, I may never have a chance to buy.  Time is money. I can't afford to wait 5 years for a recession to come. During that time, high quality businesses are growing!  Look at it this way, my portfolio increased 40% in 2013, 30% in 2014, 5% year to date, for the market to erase my gain during the past 2 years and a quarter, my portfolio has to drop 47%!  It has to be worse than 2008. Even it does, it's only temporary. They will bounce back even higher because they are quality businesses.

If  we have additional capital to deploy, market drop is a huge opportunity. We should always have reserved funds, then we 'll never worry about bear market.

 

I have a heavy position in Badger Daylighting Ltd. (7% of my investable asset).  I didn't read the report but it's up 15% today.  ;D

 

 

 

 

 

[CanadianMunger]

I don't do any calculations about  earnings/book/ intrinsic value.  i think this kind of calculations are not productive.  i think the danger with obsessing about calculating earnings/book/ intrinsic value is that it's very easy to lose sight of the more important things about the underlying businesses.

 

This is sheer brilliance.  Yeah who really cares about intrinsic value?  Since you obviously have this investing thingie figured out, are you planning on managing outside money soon? 

 

-CM

[vinod1]

 

I spent 8 years and only found ~30 quality business.

 

Could you share the names of these businesses? I would completely understand if you cannot.

 

Thanks

 

Vinod

[SharperDingaan]

I bought 7 shares of CSU.TO in 2012 and sold 2 shares in 2013 and sold 1 share in 2015. Now I own 4 shares with a total average cost of almost zero. It's pure profit left for future growth of the business.

 

We do this routinely - but the proceeds go to a T-Bill, and the T-Bill ends up being the size of our original investment. You end up with your original outlay back, & the unrealized gain invested in the stock at the low entry point. If the stock BK's the next day you're just out opportunity cost - but your ante is intact. Over time the FI portion of the portfolio rises, & the T-Bills become longer term sovereign bonds.

 

SD

[randomep]

Altucher did go bankrupt a couple of years ago, so maybe we can learn from his experiences.

 

And if memory serves me currectly, he did say on CNBC or some show that we should legalize insider trading......

 

hmmmmmm great idea!

[cloud]

I bought 7 shares of CSU.TO in 2012 and sold 2 shares in 2013 and sold 1 share in 2015. Now I own 4 shares with a total average cost of almost zero. It's pure profit left for future growth of the business.

 

We do this routinely - but the proceeds go to a T-Bill, and the T-Bill ends up being the size of our original investment. You end up with your original outlay back, & the unrealized gain invested in the stock at the low entry point. If the stock BK's the next day you're just out opportunity cost - but your ante is intact. Over time the FI portion of the portfolio rises, & the T-Bills become longer term sovereign bonds.

 

SD

 

This is a mini version of converting stocks to fixed incoming closer to retirement: reducing volatilty and return.

 

The difference is I use the proceeds for new stock positions. 

 

I am fine missing out some gains.  Many value stocks I bought and  completely got rid of  in the last 2 years went up 50% or even double or tripple: GMCR, SWKS.

I want certainty in return and in reaching my target return of 15% to 20% per year.

 

 

 

 

This is sheer brilliance.  Yeah who really cares about intrinsic value?  Since you obviously have this investing thingie figured out, are you planning on managing outside money soon? 

 

-CM

 

You didn't get it. Rather than being a turtle walking really hard, why not be a turtle with a skating board.

I don't use formula to come up with a number for intrinsic value but I do have an idea mentally about a stock price being cheap or expensive relative to the business's long term potential. If the stock price moves more than the long term business potential, there's potential value.

James Altucher already pointed out value investing is no longer the same as value investing from Benjamin Graham's time.,  and  it's true. we are in information age. Everybody has access to financial information. You think others out there don't have the information you do?  and are not calculating?  To have different result, we need to have different actions than most people. The differences within investors other than information are but not limited to: Critical thinking, EQ.

As for managing other people's money, I have no desire.  I like living a simple life.  But I borrow other people's money for my own portfolio.

 

 

 

 

Could you share the names of these businesses? I would completely understand if you cannot.

 

Thanks

 

Vinod

 

Since you are in the US, I'll share some of the US names: TJX,DLTR,ROST. 

 

The way I discovered TJX is after reading Peter Lynch's book.

I like shopping at Winners and thought what's the stock Symbol?  and I found TJX is the parent company. 

Good way to invest is invest in something we will buy.  Don't invest in anything we don't buy. I don't drink coke so I don't invest in coke. Coke is unhealthy.

 

I know I can own  a lot more than 30 names but it's hard to keep track of them even with today's technology.

 

 

 

 

 

Altucher did go bankrupt a couple of years ago, so maybe we can learn from his experiences.

 

And if memory serves me currectly, he did say on CNBC or some show that we should legalize insider trading......

 

hmmmmmm great idea!

 

I don't support everything a person says or does just because he's great at certain things.

 

 

[vinod1]

 

Could you share the names of these businesses? I would completely understand if you cannot.

 

Thanks

 

Vinod

 

Since you are in the US, I'll share some of the US names: TJX,DLTR,ROST. 

 

The way I discovered TJX is after reading Peter Lynch's book.

I like shopping at Winners and thought what's the stock Symbol?  and I found TJX is the parent company. 

Good way to invest is invest in something we will buy.  Don't invest in anything we don't buy. I don't drink coke so I don't invest in coke. Coke is unhealthy.

 

I know I can own  a lot more than 30 names but it's hard to keep track of them even with today's technology.

 

 

Thanks!

[TwoCitiesCapital]

I simply think that historically numbers and figures disagree with you. It's statistically supported that you can take the stock market universe, divide it into quintiles by P/E or P/B, and each successively lower quintile outperform the higher quintiles and, IIRC, lower volatility. It's also pretty well supported that analysts are categorically overoptimistic in bull markets and too pessimistic in bear markets - or in other words, they're procyclical and spend their careers as momentum chasers.

 

By ignoring these statistics, I simply think you're putting yourself at an extreme disadvantage. An investor can get an easy edge by selling what analysts love and buying what they hate and arbitrage the time it takes for sentiment to change OR by simply buying the cheapest stocks in the market over the most expensive stocks in the market and doing the same thing. I certainly don't begrudge buying quality stocks (I've purchased Google and Whole Foods in the past), but it has been statistically shown that the price you pay is the most important factor over a lifetime of investing.

 

I like to buy quality in times of uncertainty when it's available for cheap and where I may not have the stomach for other investments and the uncertainty surrounding them. As such, I generally wait for a market decline to bring their P/Es and P/Bs into reasonable ranges. I bought Google in 2008/2009 for about 15x it's current earnings (around $300-350 a pre-split share) after it had cratered from a multiple in the 40s (around $700 pre-split). This was the quality anchor in my portfolio as I was buying Bank of America and Ford. I began selling it years later after it had hit prices of $900-1200 on a 25-30x multiple and significantly cheaper opportunities abounded in the relatively stable economic environment. I recently bought Whole Foods at around 15x it's FCF after it had fallen from 30x. Now that it's jumped so far so quickly, I've begun pairing the position down by selling 1/3rd of it. Realistically, I'd love to hold both of these companies forever, but I'd love to earn higher returns more and I know that by moving out of them and into cheaper alternatives, I'm statistically increasing my chances of out-earning them.

 

I'd argue that if quality isn't available for a cheap price, price trumps in making the decision and you should stick with cheap stocks. If quality is available for a cheap price, it normally means the markets are in turmoil and I certainly won't blame someone who us seeking a defensive position that helps avoid turmoil, increases certainty, and compounds in a tax deferred manner while things shake out even if the profit potential is probably lower than the cheaper alternatives.

 

 

[KCLarkin]

it has been statistically shown that the price you pay is the most important factor over a lifetime of investing.

 

The stats show that quality (and low volatility and momentum) also outperforms. One problem with all the studies I have seen is that they use 1 year holding periods. Over longer holding periods, I suspect price becomes less important.

[philly value]

it has been statistically shown that the price you pay is the most important factor over a lifetime of investing.

 

The stats show that quality (and low volatility and momentum) also outperforms. One problem with all the studies I have seen is that they use 1 year holding periods. Over longer holding periods, I suspect price becomes less important.

 

On this subject, I thought this was a great article: http://basehitinvesting.com/portfolio-turnover-a-vastly-misunderstood-concept/

 

I think the conclusion is that if you are going to invest in a poor or mediocre business because it is cheap, you really want to have a catalyst in mind or, as a larger investor, the ability to create a catalyst. Getting "stuck" in such a holding long-term is likely to result in poor returns even if the re-rating you think the stock deserves eventually occurs.

[oddballstocks]

it has been statistically shown that the price you pay is the most important factor over a lifetime of investing.

 

The stats show that quality (and low volatility and momentum) also outperforms. One problem with all the studies I have seen is that they use 1 year holding periods. Over longer holding periods, I suspect price becomes less important.

 

Seems to support the wisdom of today that buying "quality" at any price is always a good investment.

 

Sounds like the age old investment advice of buying and holding blue chip stocks forever.  Is there a difference?

[KCLarkin]

Seems to support the wisdom of today that buying "quality" at any price is always a good investment.

 

No, I just think quality stocks can be mispriced as much as low P/E or low P/B stocks. If I am holding a concentrated portfolio, I would rather hold fairly priced quality stocks than cheap junk stocks, even if the expected return was a bit lower.

 

Bear markets aren't the only time you can get good stocks cheap. For example, Valeant was at 15x adjusted earnings in August.

 

 

[TwoCitiesCapital]

it has been statistically shown that the price you pay is the most important factor over a lifetime of investing.

 

The stats show that quality (and low volatility and momentum) also outperforms. One problem with all the studies I have seen is that they use 1 year holding periods. Over longer holding periods, I suspect price becomes less important.

 

I would argue the opposite because that's when get the effects of compounding returns on top of the initial outperformance. I agree that quality might outperform the average, but I think the fact that each subsequent quintile of cheapness outperforming the prior one is a strong indicator that cheapness rules the day in general. Obviously, if you have the ability to pick the next Microsoft - by all means, put all your money in a few quality ideas and ride them to fruition, but most of us don't have that ability and the easiest way to outperform is to simply by as cheaply as possible.

 

We can cherry pick examples where growth and quality outperform cheapness, but as a generalized strategy over a period of time, cheapness is by far the MOST important factor. Ignoring that is setting yourself at an enormous disadvantage that can probably only be surmounted if you are able to accurately identify a Microsoft and hold onto it.

[oddballstocks]

it has been statistically shown that the price you pay is the most important factor over a lifetime of investing.

 

The stats show that quality (and low volatility and momentum) also outperforms. One problem with all the studies I have seen is that they use 1 year holding periods. Over longer holding periods, I suspect price becomes less important.

 

I would argue the opposite because that's when get the effects of compounding returns on top of the initial outperformance. I agree that quality might outperform the average, but I think the fact that each subsequent quintile of cheapness outperforming the prior one is a strong indicator that cheapness rules the day in general. Obviously, if you have the ability to pick the next Microsoft - by all means, put all your money in a few quality ideas and ride them to fruition, but most of us don't have that ability and the easiest way to outperform is to simply by as cheaply as possible.

 

We can cherry pick examples where growth and quality outperform cheapness, but as a generalized strategy over a period of time, cheapness is by far the MOST important factor. Ignoring that is setting yourself at an enormous disadvantage that can probably only be surmounted if you are able to accurately identify a Microsoft and hold onto it.

 

I'd maybe add that buying cheaper is easier.  If I knew the next MSFT I would concentrate the portfolio in it as well as re-mortgage the house for the investment.  I'd be stupid to do otherwise.  The problem is we don't know when we own the next MSFT.  Sometimes we think we do, but we usually don't.

 

If someone truly has the ability to buy small stocks that grow into blue chip giants they'd be stupid to buy anything but those at any price.  What studies and research show is that we don't collectively know how to do that.  Sometimes we end up with those stocks because we're lucky.

 

I'd rather bet on mean reversion or something that's easier and has less of a chance of flaming out or messing up compared to shooting for the moon only to find in 5/10/15 years I fell far short.