Sometimes the path towards (investment) success is as much about what you should NOT do, as what you should do.
Authors like Nassim Nicholas Taleb have highlighted that it is easier and more beneficial to stop negative activities than to attempt to identify new, constructive behaviours.
“We can eliminate the mistakes that we know are damaging and costly far more easily than discovering positive behaviours that might improve our fortunes. The more complex and unpredictable the environment, the more likely this is to be true.”
This is an approach that should be adopted by fund investors, who face an unfathomable array of choices and decision points. Rather than obsessing over how to define the precise allocation to the right funds at the right time – an incredibly difficult task – it would be more productive to first concentrate on the actions we should avoid.
Prioritise omission over commission.
So, what it is that fund investors should not do?
- Don’t buy into a fund after a period of extreme positive performance
Abnormally strong performance on the upside is highly unlikely to persist, investing after a spell of stellar returns is a horribly asymmetric bet. - Don’t be concentrated by fund, manager, style or asset manager
Concentration is the surest path to severe losses; it implies we know far more about the future than we actually do. - Don’t try to predict short-term market movements
We cannot predict the short-term behaviour of markets or funds that invest in them. We should not make decisions that suggest that we do. - Don’t check short-term fund performance
Short-term fund performance is typically nothing more than random noise, checking it frequently encourages poor decisions. - Don’t use performance screens
Given that strong fund performance tends to mean revert, it is hard to think of a worse way of filtering a universe of candidate funds than by ranking on the strength of historic returns. - Don’t keep selling underperforming funds to buy outperforming funds
A common behavioural trait which feels good at the time we do it, but compounds into a pernicious tax. - Don’t buy thematic funds based on strong backtests
If a fund is being launched based on an in-vogue theme with a stellar backtest, the chances are we are already too late. - Don’t invest in active managers if we cannot bear long spells of poor performance
Even skilful active managers can and will underperform for long periods, if that is unpalatable invest in index funds. - Don’t invest in funds if you don’t understand how they make money
Investing in things we don’t understand is a recipe for disaster. - Don’t persist with an active manager when they start doing something different
A circle of competence for a manager is usually incredibly narrow, if they are venturing outside of this, we should avoid them.
Source: Behavioural Investment