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Put your mouth where your money is!

Stocks and Shares ISA , Choosing funds for ISA's, risk factors for funds etc
Investment strategy discussions not dealt with elsewhere.
Lootman
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Re: Put your mouth where your money is!

#332491

Postby Lootman » August 11th, 2020, 7:09 pm

SalvorHardin wrote:My big winner was Integra Gold, a Quebec-based soon-to-be producer which was taken over in 2017. That more than made up for the rest, which were mostly losers. That comes with the territory.

The one that I keep thinking of going back into is Victoria Gold Corporation, which now produces gold in the Yukon.

Physical gold. I own one sovereign. I'd rather take a chance with explorers and producers than physical gold.

That is one sovereign more than me. Like you I prefer the miners. Partly because you do get some kind of dividend whereas physical gold pays you nothing, and you may even have to pay to store it somewhere. Whereas a miner is effectively storing its gold for free by leaving it in the ground.

Also miners tend to go up and down more than gold itself, so you can have more fun with that.

I hold the two big names. I have a 40 grand position in Barrick and a smaller amount in Newmont.

Other than that the US-listed GDXJ is an ETF of the junior miners. As with biotech I don't know enough to know which junior miners will go to the moon, and so buy them all :D

Another interesting play is Franco-Nevada (FNV) and Wheaton Precious Metals (WPM). These have a different model as they are not miners but they buy and sell the future production of gold (and silver). They have very low costs, few employees but seem to be very savvy. I have owned both in the past and may again. Both have doubled in the last few months.

Because all of these are very volatile it can be a fertile area to use options to define your risk and leverage your bets.

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Re: Put your mouth where your money is!

#332575

Postby dealtn » August 12th, 2020, 9:31 am

dealtn wrote:Off the top of my head I can't think of any other purchases in 2020.


I missed one. In January I bought BT. Currently offside by about 40%.

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Re: Put your mouth where your money is!

#332584

Postby dealtn » August 12th, 2020, 9:43 am

CryptoPlankton wrote:Many thanks for all the replies so far. After a shaky start, the last few contributors seem to have been beginning to get the hang of it! The pattern I am starting to see is that, by various routes, you have all largely achieved a position where the demands for withdrawals from your investments are relatively modest - congratulations! If one can cover required income from a 2 to 3% (or even lower) withdrawal rate then it seems eminently sensible not to pursue a high yield. You are in the enviable position of being able to use your money to make money with more freedom than I consider myself able to. I need a certain amount of income from my investments and that is why I chose to ring-fence a proportion in relatively high yielding assets. I then feel able to invest the rest with growth in mind. Although the "growthy" part is performing reasonably well, I wouldn't be confident enough to adopt the strategy over my whole portfolio and guarantee comfortably making the annual withdrawal I require. Maybe that's a flaw in my makeup, but I have to say that if I only required 2% then I would think very differently about my strategy. Perhaps this explains a lot...

Anyway, good stuff, keep them coming!


I think this is probably a mind set difference, and some people can "think" this way and others don't. I genuinely don't see the dividends as income. I see myself owning a "share" of the business, and the business income is its earnings. What it chooses to pay out (typically decided by a handful of people) is simply a part distribution of those earnings.

So when I look at "my" income, or "my" earnings I am imaging instead of owning X shares in a multi-billion market cap FTSE company (for instance), I own 100% of a much smaller business. That business has made £y that belongs to me. As owner I could choose to pay all of that to myself as "income", or none of it, or somewhere in between, depending on my requirements at the time.

So were I to consider the hypothetical question how much income has my investment paid me, or what % do I need, I would be looking at an "earnings yield" not a "dividend yield". The former is real, the latter is a construct.

So crudely, if a company has a ROCE of 10% and pays a 1/4 as dividend and retains 3/4, and an alternative has 8% and pays 3/4 as a dividend I am (naturally?) drawn to the 10% vs 8% comparison, not the relevant dividend streams. As such I simply don't have thoughts about "I need x% income" from my investments in the way you, and I presume many others, do.

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Re: Put your mouth where your money is!

#332595

Postby GoSeigen » August 12th, 2020, 10:00 am

dealtn wrote:
CryptoPlankton wrote:Many thanks for all the replies so far. After a shaky start, the last few contributors seem to have been beginning to get the hang of it! The pattern I am starting to see is that, by various routes, you have all largely achieved a position where the demands for withdrawals from your investments are relatively modest - congratulations! If one can cover required income from a 2 to 3% (or even lower) withdrawal rate then it seems eminently sensible not to pursue a high yield. You are in the enviable position of being able to use your money to make money with more freedom than I consider myself able to. I need a certain amount of income from my investments and that is why I chose to ring-fence a proportion in relatively high yielding assets. I then feel able to invest the rest with growth in mind. Although the "growthy" part is performing reasonably well, I wouldn't be confident enough to adopt the strategy over my whole portfolio and guarantee comfortably making the annual withdrawal I require. Maybe that's a flaw in my makeup, but I have to say that if I only required 2% then I would think very differently about my strategy. Perhaps this explains a lot...

Anyway, good stuff, keep them coming!


I think this is probably a mind set difference, and some people can "think" this way and others don't. I genuinely don't see the dividends as income. I see myself owning a "share" of the business, and the business income is its earnings. What it chooses to pay out (typically decided by a handful of people) is simply a part distribution of those earnings.

So when I look at "my" income, or "my" earnings I am imaging instead of owning X shares in a multi-billion market cap FTSE company (for instance), I own 100% of a much smaller business. That business has made £y that belongs to me. As owner I could choose to pay all of that to myself as "income", or none of it, or somewhere in between, depending on my requirements at the time.

So were I to consider the hypothetical question how much income has my investment paid me, or what % do I need, I would be looking at an "earnings yield" not a "dividend yield". The former is real, the latter is a construct.

Exactly correct. In fairness though one has to point out that HYP is crudely equivalent to this if one accepts two assumptions lying behind HYP:
-Any regular dividend-paying company over the long holding period of the HYP will pay out half its earnings in dividends.
-The directors will use their judgement to smooth out the dividend payments, the corollary being that dividends will be less volatile than both earnings and share prices.

Whether these assumptions always hold is moot.

So crudely, if a company has a ROCE of 10% and pays a 1/4 as dividend and retains 3/4, and an alternative has 8% and pays 3/4 as a dividend I am (naturally?) drawn to the 10% vs 8% comparison, not the relevant dividend streams. As such I simply don't have thoughts about "I need x% income" from my investments in the way you, and I presume many others, do.


Looks very much like two bonds from the same issuer, one with a coupon of 6%, the other with a coupon of 2%. It doesn't matter which you buy in general, you are getting the same result in the end. What matters more is the [gross redemption] yield of the bond vs other bonds, i.e. how much all its cashflows are going to return to you, not just the interest payments.

GS

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Re: Put your mouth where your money is!

#332618

Postby hiriskpaul » August 12th, 2020, 10:38 am

GoSeigen wrote:
dealtn wrote:
CryptoPlankton wrote:Many thanks for all the replies so far. After a shaky start, the last few contributors seem to have been beginning to get the hang of it! The pattern I am starting to see is that, by various routes, you have all largely achieved a position where the demands for withdrawals from your investments are relatively modest - congratulations! If one can cover required income from a 2 to 3% (or even lower) withdrawal rate then it seems eminently sensible not to pursue a high yield. You are in the enviable position of being able to use your money to make money with more freedom than I consider myself able to. I need a certain amount of income from my investments and that is why I chose to ring-fence a proportion in relatively high yielding assets. I then feel able to invest the rest with growth in mind. Although the "growthy" part is performing reasonably well, I wouldn't be confident enough to adopt the strategy over my whole portfolio and guarantee comfortably making the annual withdrawal I require. Maybe that's a flaw in my makeup, but I have to say that if I only required 2% then I would think very differently about my strategy. Perhaps this explains a lot...

Anyway, good stuff, keep them coming!


I think this is probably a mind set difference, and some people can "think" this way and others don't. I genuinely don't see the dividends as income. I see myself owning a "share" of the business, and the business income is its earnings. What it chooses to pay out (typically decided by a handful of people) is simply a part distribution of those earnings.

So when I look at "my" income, or "my" earnings I am imaging instead of owning X shares in a multi-billion market cap FTSE company (for instance), I own 100% of a much smaller business. That business has made £y that belongs to me. As owner I could choose to pay all of that to myself as "income", or none of it, or somewhere in between, depending on my requirements at the time.

So were I to consider the hypothetical question how much income has my investment paid me, or what % do I need, I would be looking at an "earnings yield" not a "dividend yield". The former is real, the latter is a construct.

Exactly correct. In fairness though one has to point out that HYP is crudely equivalent to this if one accepts two assumptions lying behind HYP:
-Any regular dividend-paying company over the long holding period of the HYP will pay out half its earnings in dividends.
-The directors will use their judgement to smooth out the dividend payments, the corollary being that dividends will be less volatile than both earnings and share prices.

Whether these assumptions always hold is moot.

So crudely, if a company has a ROCE of 10% and pays a 1/4 as dividend and retains 3/4, and an alternative has 8% and pays 3/4 as a dividend I am (naturally?) drawn to the 10% vs 8% comparison, not the relevant dividend streams. As such I simply don't have thoughts about "I need x% income" from my investments in the way you, and I presume many others, do.


Looks very much like two bonds from the same issuer, one with a coupon of 6%, the other with a coupon of 2%. It doesn't matter which you buy in general, you are getting the same result in the end. What matters more is the [gross redemption] yield of the bond vs other bonds, i.e. how much all its cashflows are going to return to you, not just the interest payments.

GS

I agree with GS and dealtn. The only thing I would add is that with stocks it is necessary to take earnings growth into account as well.

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Re: Put your mouth where your money is!

#332665

Postby 1nvest » August 12th, 2020, 1:00 pm

Stocks are generally leveraged, on average around 1.5x (corporate bonds). Leverage does little overall other than scale up volatility, the more volatile holding zigzags around the less volatile to end up at around the same place (overall gain).

De-leverage stocks down to 1x, so 67/33 stock/T-Bills and compare that to long dated Treasury (Gilt) and you may see similar overall outcomes. US data ...

Image

Stocks could be considered as a form of leveraging up of a undated variable coupon bond, with a duration of around the inverse of the dividend yield. With enough stocks/diversification counter party risk is pretty much mitigated, so you may not even see a counter party risk premium compared to what you will tend to see with individual corporate bonds. Again however that tends to wash, where broadly the amount of actual defaults tends to compare to the additional premium paid against a corporate bond over risk-free (Treasury) bonds.

Gold is more of a undated zero coupon inflation bond, where its price tends to rise as real yields turn more negative.

Conceptualising things (stocks, corporate, treasuries ..etc.) as 'bonds' and high or low yield factors are little different to considering differences between bonds with high or low coupon yields. Higher yields will tend to provide the same total return but with less capital appreciation compared to low yield.

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Re: Put your mouth where your money is!

#332810

Postby GoSeigen » August 13th, 2020, 6:34 am

CryptoPlankton wrote:One thing that has struck me has been the numerous times HYP has been mentioned by nearly all the respondents, despite the fact that I made no mention of it in my OP.


It's a discussion board. The first person to respond to the OP talks about HYP, the OP does nothing to correct him, everyone else continues the discussion. Not really a surprise, is it, especially given the context of this forum?

GS

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Re: Put your mouth where your money is!

#332814

Postby Urbandreamer » August 13th, 2020, 7:29 am

GoSeigen wrote:
CryptoPlankton wrote:One thing that has struck me has been the numerous times HYP has been mentioned by nearly all the respondents, despite the fact that I made no mention of it in my OP.


It's a discussion board. The first person to respond to the OP talks about HYP, the OP does nothing to correct him, everyone else continues the discussion. Not really a surprise, is it, especially given the context of this forum?

GS


Indeed. Then there is the fact that the OP refers to a thread, moved from they HYP board discussing that method. The Mod kindly added a link. I didn't think it strange that alternatives be discussed with reference to that method.

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Re: Put your mouth where your money is!

#332831

Postby Arborbridge » August 13th, 2020, 9:07 am

Many fine words and theoretical musings, but the OP's point remains: there are very few people - if any - who come forward with figures showing that their method works or does not work. Nothing equivalent to the decade long reporting or longer of HYPers that we can read.

It seems to me that the TR approach is very well supported from a convincing theoretical POV, but where is the proof of the pudding? Where are the people coming forward to say this is what success look like and I've been funding my retirment in such a way for twenty years? This is what I did and these are the results.... where are the carefully kept records?

I'm not saying people aren't successful - I am sure they are and probably far more than I - but where are the supporting numbers rather than hindsight texts saying "I could have done this if I'd wanted too"?

Long on words, short on practical examples, and this thread has only emphasised that.


Arb.

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Re: Put your mouth where your money is!

#332834

Postby G3lc » August 13th, 2020, 9:26 am

Perhaps its because luck plays a big part, and many seem to feel the need to massage their investing egos.

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Re: Put your mouth where your money is!

#332848

Postby GoSeigen » August 13th, 2020, 9:56 am

Arborbridge wrote:Many fine words and theoretical musings, but the OP's point remains: there are very few people - if any - who come forward with figures showing that their method works or does not work. Nothing equivalent to the decade long reporting or longer of HYPers that we can read.

It seems to me that the TR approach is very well supported from a convincing theoretical POV, but where is the proof of the pudding? Where are the people coming forward to say this is what success look like and I've been funding my retirment in such a way for twenty years? This is what I did and these are the results.... where are the carefully kept records?

I'm not saying people aren't successful - I am sure they are and probably far more than I - but where are the supporting numbers rather than hindsight texts saying "I could have done this if I'd wanted too"?

Long on words, short on practical examples, and this thread has only emphasised that.


This is simply attacking other posters in barely disguised form. Why should anyone go to the effort of showing their working? Who is compensating them for that effort? This is a discussion board, not a financial advisors' examination. To conclude that someone's argument lacks merit because they can't be bothered to do a lot of work for nothing is deeply fallacious.

And how on earth is anyone supposed to demonstrate that something "works". Some of us don't even believe in the concept of an investing strategy working: we think that strategy has to evolve. So what we have done to date is not what we'll do in future. All we can present is the outcome of our past methods which proves nothing. [FWIW here are IRR figures for the accounts I have managed over the past 10-20 years: 14.61%, 9.65%, 13.10%, 12.26%, 14.93%, 11.13%. Now what does that prove pray tell?]

On the other hand it is logically speaking very simple to demonstrate that something has a flaw.

GS
P.S. Some of us do document our methods on this forum but can you be bothered to find those posts?

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Re: Put your mouth where your money is!

#332851

Postby CryptoPlankton » August 13th, 2020, 10:07 am

GoSeigen wrote:
CryptoPlankton wrote:One thing that has struck me has been the numerous times HYP has been mentioned by nearly all the respondents, despite the fact that I made no mention of it in my OP.


It's a discussion board. The first person to respond to the OP talks about HYP, the OP does nothing to correct him, everyone else continues the discussion. Not really a surprise, is it, especially given the context of this forum?

GS

It was simply an observation and I was more interested in people addressing the questions I'd put forward than "correcting" anyone. On that, I have to say your initial response seemed to miss the point completely, which was a shame because I have seen you document your recent derivatives trading activities elsewhere. Unfortunately, this thread seems to have lost its focus and be breaking down into a bit of a squabble since my last post. If nobody has anything more on topic to add I think I'll have to ask for it to be locked.

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Re: Put your mouth where your money is!

#332864

Postby dealtn » August 13th, 2020, 10:39 am

Arborbridge wrote:Many fine words and theoretical musings, but the OP's point remains: there are very few people - if any - who come forward with figures showing that their method works or does not work. Nothing equivalent to the decade long reporting or longer of HYPers that we can read.

It seems to me that the TR approach is very well supported from a convincing theoretical POV, but where is the proof of the pudding? Where are the people coming forward to say this is what success look like and I've been funding my retirment in such a way for twenty years? This is what I did and these are the results.... where are the carefully kept records?

I'm not saying people aren't successful - I am sure they are and probably far more than I - but where are the supporting numbers rather than hindsight texts saying "I could have done this if I'd wanted too"?

Long on words, short on practical examples, and this thread has only emphasised that.


Arb.


I think a partial failure in the logic here is referring to it as a "TR approach". Maybe it isn't what you mean but that suggests to me a single alternative. It very much isn't. Even within my investing style there are a number of different ways I am investing. Either I have multiple strategies, or my single strategy is very broad. In fact it is my firm belief that every strategy is a TR one.

As for records I think any strategy that is buy and hold (if not forever but anticipated at outset to be a long time) is going to be easier to record and share the history. My history would be >20 years but probably over 1,000 transactions. Even committing at the outset would have been a challenge, backdating that for publication is frankly a lot of work, and not for my benefit.

Perhaps the easiest way of demonstrating how non-income strategies perform would be to use real world examples, such as Berkshire Hathaway, or Terry Smith (and others) but that would be open to accusation of survivor bias, cherry picking etc. and quite rightly too. Non-Rules based systems are always going to have difficulty in proving anything to an observer other than some "stock pickers" have beaten the market, by looking at their returns. I fear you are going to struggle to find practical examples that satisfy you, and it is clear that "words" won't do.

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Re: Put your mouth where your money is!

#332868

Postby Alaric » August 13th, 2020, 10:54 am

dealtn wrote:I think a partial failure in the logic here is referring to it as a "TR approach". Maybe it isn't what you mean but that suggests to me a single alternative. It very much isn't.


On paper, investment earnings should have the same value whether arising from capital gains, interest payments or dividends. So everything should be regarded as a total return approach in order to make comparisons. However if the investment earnings are to be subject to taxation, that can introduce a bias by seeking methods that maximise returns after tax, rather than before tax.

As far as long term histories are concerned, there's the practical examples of the more generalist Investment Trusts and an analysis of how investors may have done pops up on this site every so often.

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Re: Put your mouth where your money is!

#332873

Postby dealtn » August 13th, 2020, 11:07 am

CryptoPlankton wrote: I'm not trying to be facetious here, and I totally get the TR perspective regarding earnings and redemption yields that has been mentioned, but I find it very hard to interpret dividends or fixed income/coupons as anything other than "income" - especially when paid into a bank account.



I wouldn't worry about being considered facetious it's a perfectly valid point. But this is Investment Strategies, and evolved from another thread where discussions concerned Income strategies. As such I would think the point isn't whether dividends (or Coupons) are income or not. Some have a strategy of seeking income, others have a strategy where income is incidental. I don't think anyone is arguing non-income seekers should ignore or return income! I mean the "total" in TR is there for a reason!

So speaking for myself, as someone without (at least paid) employment, where my wife's income doesn't cover our expenditure, it would be only natural to "use" some of the dividends received to cover expenditure. It is an income in that sense. But given that dividend stream is "lumpy" and unpredictable, and also interspersed with realisations from sales from the portfolio too, it isn't so easy to make claims about how much of that dividend stream is used as "income". I see my portfolio as just that, so dividends will get mixed with sales, and quite often used for re-investment.

Re-investing income, or dividends, if you like isn't unusual, and even oddly used by many proclaiming a preference for an income strategy. There are plenty of examples where income strategy followers are discussing where/how to top-up the portfolio following receipt of new funds, often from dividends to re-invest. Many followers of a certain strategy aren't in "drawdown" so recycle income in this way.

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Re: Put your mouth where your money is!

#332880

Postby Itsallaguess » August 13th, 2020, 12:13 pm

dealtn wrote:
I think a partial failure in the logic here is referring to it as a "TR approach". Maybe it isn't what you mean but that suggests to me a single alternative. It very much isn't. Even within my investing style there are a number of different ways I am investing. Either I have multiple strategies, or my single strategy is very broad. In fact it is my firm belief that every strategy is a TR one.


In the interests of trying to find some common ground in this really interesting and useful thread, would it be fair to suggest the following -

1. Income investors might have a better 'road-map' for their general strategies, to help investors from a standing-start, but whilst the destination of that road map might well be 'acceptable' to many income-investors, the overall returns from it might well not be 'optimal' in terms of long-term performance that might be improved using other approaches.

2. Total-return investors might generally end up with more 'optimal long-term performance' in taking such an approach to their own investment strategies, but there is generally little in the way of 'road-maps' available to help investors take such an approach from a standing-start.

I'll also take this opportunity to say that I've found all the well-intended contributions very interesting, and whilst CP might not find that his initial intentions for the thread will get completely fulfilled, I think it's still great to be able to discuss this particular area in more general terms and with a wider remit like this, rather than persistently concentrating on those dreaded three little letters...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

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Re: Put your mouth where your money is!

#332889

Postby Arborbridge » August 13th, 2020, 12:51 pm

GoSeigen wrote:
This is simply attacking other posters in barely disguised form. Why should anyone go to the effort of showing their working? Who is compensating them for that effort?


That's not fair: I am not attacking anyone, just pointing out that the OP had asked for some concrete examples and so far hasn't received any - that's hardly my fault so don't blame the messenger. He also contrasted this situation to the more transparent approach on the HYP board, and wondered if TR people might like to redress that difference. In response he had much verbage and no numbers based life-experiences, which a man from Mars might take as quite telling.

As for wanting compensation! :roll: No one offers HYPers compensation, only brickbats, so maybe you've learnt from that. But I thought the whole idea of these boards was to be helpful to one another. I must have got that one wrong, then.

Arb.

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Re: Put your mouth where your money is!

#332898

Postby SalvorHardin » August 13th, 2020, 1:13 pm

Arborbridge wrote:That's not fair: I am not attacking anyone, just pointing out that the OP had asked for some concrete examples and so far hasn't received any - that's hardly my fault so don't blame the messenger. He also contrasted this situation to the more transparent approach on the HYP board, and wondered if TR people might like to redress that difference. In response he had much verbage and no numbers based life-experiences, which a man from Mars might take as quite telling.

As the poster who has put the most verbiage on this thread, I should point out that the OP's original question was a request for strategy and details about our portfolios. There wasn't a request for detailed performance figures.

To reiterate, my strategy is moats, international investing including operating companies, plus special situations when they arise. And don't be afraid to hold shares for the long-term. And don't follow the HYP strategy (most HYP companies have weak moats and easily commoditised products).

Since 2000 I have made approximately 16.5% per annum compounded (that's after capital gains and income taxes). Much of this was earned during the period 2000-07 when I deviated somewhat from my moat strategy and focused more on special situations (small cap. oils, particularly Soco and Dragon Oil). During those eight years I made 32.2% p.a. compounded (2008 was a spectacular disaster, losing almost 50% which was almost twice the FTSE100's losses).

In 2019 I made 29.0%, whilst the FTSE100 made 12.1% on capital (so that's roughly 16% including dividends). I choose to benchmark against the FTSE100, but not in great detail as I am a UK investor (even though I invest a lot overseas).

2020 year-to-date is a bit ropey, down 9.2% so far. The biggest contributor to the fall, asides from the coronavirus, is my having started the year with a massively overweight position in Central London and Manhattan commercial property companies. These formed just over 20% of the portfolio at year start, now just 4% after falls and some big sales.

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Re: Put your mouth where your money is!

#332899

Postby spiderbill » August 13th, 2020, 1:16 pm

Firstly I applaud the OP's attempt to have a a non-antagonistic discussion on this topic, and secondly thank those contributors that have followed his lead. Additionally I echo Itsallaguess's attempt to find common ground.

My perspective is that when I started properly in investments (about 9-10 years ago) I was looking for a solid foundation on which to build and flirted with TMF's paid advice services and read their boards (and later these boards) looking to find a pattern that made sense to me. I tended towards LTBH and dividends for the simple reason that there seemed something reasonably concrete in the theory of how I would make returns.

Other strategies seemed (rightly or wrongly) rather less concrete - for instance Momentum investing seemed to be largely based on the promise of future gains based on current and recent rises in share price, and I didn't really get why they couldn't just as easily peak and turn downwards once they stopped being flavour of the month. Similarly Value investing seemed to be based on an assumption that a share had fallen too far after a short term piece of bad news or a period of static results, and would rise once the market realised their inherent strength. Both these seemed a bit emphemeral compared to the apparent solidity of regular dividends and I found it hard to find good explanations of why they worked or when they were likely to be the best option. (I stress that these were impressions at the time and are not being argued as valid criticisms now.)

So I stuck with LTBH, drifted into HYP and then backed off a bit as I found some of the choices hard to reconcile with quality companies and some of the "rules" a bit odd; made a few mistakes but generally continued to stick mostly with dividends while expanding into ITs. I suspect that I'm far from unique in this and I wonder if one of the reasons why they the general HYP(ish) and income enthusiasts stick with it is this aspect of it being "understandable" compared to some of the other strategies.

Now I am far confident that I am following the perfect strategy - my losses of capital value, particularly recently, are ample proof of that - and the "concrete" of dividends has recently proven to be a bit crumbly. I would love to understand alternative strategies much better, or indeed understand how those who follow no strategy at all but are quick-witted enough to turn a profit under volatile circumstances manage to do so. I may well have to start reading more widely on these topics now that I'm on the cusp of retiring (self-employment is a very time-consuming activity). However on these boards we seldom seem to get much discussion of these other strategies, which I think is a pity, as I think that many of us could learn a great deal from a wider approach encompassing different strategies and tactics through different phases of market and economic cycles.

So I welcome any contributions from those who follow any of the many different approaches to investing - whatever you call it - or who manage to "wing it", because I suspect that the real answer is to combine different approaches in a varying mix for different circumstances and the main thing stopping me from doing so is lack of wider knowledge and time to assimilate it.
Let's ditch the HYP v TR arguments and see if we can provide useful insights from our respective viewpoints that will help us all to be better investors in ways that allow us to feel comfortable while doing it.

cheers
Spiderbill

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Re: Put your mouth where your money is!

#332900

Postby Arborbridge » August 13th, 2020, 1:16 pm

dealtn wrote:I think a partial failure in the logic here is referring to it as a "TR approach". Maybe it isn't what you mean but that suggests to me a single alternative.


I take the point. However, some of us have become used to people proclaiming that TR is all that counts with the sort of religious zeal which they accuse HYPers of having. So when we ask for evidence of their success, the fact that the response evaporates into words and not concrete results based on experience is not very convincing.

Well, the OP set up the opportunity, but it hasn't been taken up so far. As a general observation, in my view, investors other than HYPers seem to have difficulty showing the benefit of whatever technique they are promoting or using, except in hindsight occasionally. Maybe this is because having a theoretical idea and acting on it over a decade or so are different things. I can say from my own experience that I ran many interesting "dummy" portfolios based on various ideas, but whenever they were tried with real cash, they never quite worked as well as hindsight would suggest.


Arb.


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