Okay, let’s get right at it. Just what is it about portfolio management that intimidates us and keeps us from being good little doobies and doing what we need to do? I’ve come up with a little list of those things I think cover most of our problems:
- It seems like it’s an overwhelming, never-ending task that is always hanging over out heads no matter what we might do. Procrastination is the operable word.
- The tools for doing it are obscure, the PERT form complex.
- It’s just not much fun and not nearly so exciting as buying new stocks.
- We feel no urgency unless the market is down and our prices are depressed.
- We simply don’t know what to do.
I should think that the first item above is the one that affects the greatest majority of us. It’s awfully hard to start a task when you think it has no end to it; and just the fact that it remains undone is enough to give most of us an excuse (lame as it may be) for letting it stay that way.
Until recently, the only tool available for managing our portfolios has been the PERT form. If you’re not really familiar with it, it can be bewildering and appear just too complex. (Of course, once folks realize that only about six of the columns are important at all—the rest are just the numbers used to calculate the important data—and that most of the stocks that appear on the form don’t even need to be looked at, it cuts it down to size.)
Nevertheless, it’s an intimidating form; and most of us have shied away from it rather than taking the bull by the horns and diving in when we should. Well, in the coming sessions, you’ll discover that we no longer need to use the PERT at all! In this day and age, when anyone who has enough money to invest has a computer, there’s no reason to bother with that form, unless you want to print one out for your club or for your own reference. You certainly no longer need it to perform the tasks necessary to manage your portfolio properly.
For most of us who understand how simple the concepts George Nicholson gave us are, and how—as Peter Lynch has said, “anyone using only 3 percent of his brain can pick stocks as well or better than the average Wall Street professional”—all the fun of investing lies in discovery! Finding that new stock is what gives us that rush; and discovering that SSG with a set of railroad tracks on it is what it’s all about.
I submit we can get just as much of a kick out of catching that one out of five that’s going south before it hurts our portfolio’s performance as we can finding the new ones. Moreover, once we’re fully invested, it’s the best way I know to keep having all that fun finding and buying the new ones! And, even if you can’t be Pollyanna enough to find pleasure in doing it, you’ll be happy to discover that you don’t have to do it nearly so often as you might think you do.
As long-term investors, we’re accustomed to watching our portfolios with a lot less concern than those who trade or who buy and hope to make a killing. Some of us don’t pay much attention to our portfolios until we receive a statement from the broker once a month.
However, it’s amazing—even for us—just how much attention our stocks suddenly get from us when the market is down. It seems like it’s only then that we become concerned about doing something with our portfolios. And all too often, it’s the wrong thing.
Those accustomed to tracking their stocks and who “manage” their portfolios by frequently checking on the prices and their effect on the value of their portfolios are the ones who are most likely to suffer. They will watch as the market drags down a stock and, because they’re unwisely shackled to the price as a measure of success or failure, will sell because the price has gone down. This is counterproductive and has cost many a would be investor a lot of money.
The paragon of portfolio management is someone who does her defensive chores on schedule and pays no attention to the market except to be delighted that, in a down market, the prices for replacements are low. That same exemplary investor will, of course, take advantage of an up market to find and replace those stocks whose prices are so high that they no longer can produce the kind of return she requires.
The last excuse—“We don’t know what to do.”—will vanish with this workshop, as will all the rest of those excuses. In fact, tomorrow we’ll dispense with all but that one.