An Investor Takes a Position
Marnie is a highly successful and disciplined investor with a diversified portfolio of twenty stocks she has carefully chosen over many years. When considering exiting one of her positions and acquiring a new one, her approach is to make a list of companies that interest her and carefully analyze them based on standard metrics like market capitalization, dividend yield, profit margin, five-year growth rate, and many other factors and then chose one or two of the most promising for more detailed study.
She is interested in how an individual business works and will get annual reports to assess the style and ambitions of senior management measured against their ability to meet targets they set for themselves. If sufficiently impressed, she starts by “expressing an interest” in which she commits at least one percent of her substantial portfolio to purchase shares; previous time and energy wasteful buying of tiny amounts or taking flyers on highly speculative stocks are old ideas she has left behind on the ash heap of bad investing behavior. With real funds of her own in this new company, she will follow it in much greater detail to decide if the prospect promises to be moved off the bench to become an active member of the team.
Assuming the new recruit does well, Marnie will then purchase a position moving the company up to say 3% of her investable assets after which it may grow organically to 5% or more perhaps becoming a new star or alternatively, it may fade and be moved back to the bench. The intent is to invest with a time horizon of at least three to five years after which the best will become forever companies. This method suits her nature and has produced outstanding results, but she does admit to occasional errors which as Housel points out (see ref below) are often irrational or emotional decisions known to plague the best of investors no matter how logical they claim to be.
She shared her latest error with me. Although she dislikes almost everything about Facebook and its dorky, highly annoying founder Zuckerberg, she had to admit his skill and by any rational analysis, the price of $211 per share in February 2022 was below intrinsic value presumably representing a market over reaction to his misguided “meta” efforts. Marnie took an interest and followed along with increasing concern as the stock continued to fall reaching $93 by October 2022 or a 56% loss compared to her initial purchase. The company recovered and one full year later in March 2023 was back to her purchase price so she was relieved to unload this “dog” and vowed never again to invest in any company whose management she disliked no matter how undervalued the stock might appear to be. Subsequently, Facebook continued to rise to $490 by February 2024 or a 132% gain compared to her original purchase price but of course that did not provide any benefit to her. Her analysis was proven correct, but the market was irrational longer than she was prepared to wait.
KEY CONCEPTS:
Even the most disciplined rational investors can and will make irrational decisions
A carefully chosen position should be purchased with at least a three to five year time horizon.
Be honest with yourself acknowledging your tendencies adjusting approaches that may lead to trouble.