Portfolio Composition

The firm foundation theory: companies have an intrinsic value. They valued based on the net present value of their current and future cash flows. This is the theory Buffett and Munger have used to build Berkshire Hathaway.

Castle in the sky theory:

There is nothing so disturbing to one’s well-being and judgment as to see a friend get rich.

We all get lured into tales of people making money through investing and of the hot new stock that we need to invest in. This tendency to get swept up in speculative, get-rich-quic...

What is hard to avoid is the alluring temptation to throw your money away on short, get-rich-quick speculative binges.

• Avoid herd behavior
• Avoid overtrading
• Sell losers, not the winners
• Don’t buy into IPOs or trust “hot tips”

Everyon...

• Specific needs require dedicated specific assets. If you need $30,000 for a house downpayment in 2 years, you will need an investment vehicle that matches your need for that capital at that time.
• Recognize risk tolerance. In general, your investments should never disturb your sleep. ...

• Confine stock purchases to companies that appear able to sustain above-average earnings growth for at least five years. Growth increases, earnings, dividends, and likely the multiple the market will pay for those earnings.
• Never pay more for a stock than can reasonably justified by a...

People in this camp believe that there are times to buy/sell stocks based on their price movements. This theory suggests that stock values are roughly 90% psychological, and 10% rational. These people are often traders, rather than long-term investors.

Two important assumptions for this the...

• Cash (5%)
• Bonds (15%)
• Stocks (70%)
• Real estate (10%)

Invest in index-funds (low cost), and get international exposure. The US is only one third of the world economy, and other areas are growing quickly. If you hold bonds, make sure you do it in a tax-defer...

The rule of 72 provides a shortcut way to determine how long it takes for money to double. Take the interest rate you earn and divide it into the number 72, and you get the number of years it will take to double your money.

For example, if the interest rate is 15 percent, it takes a bit le...

The probability that a security will decrease in value. The greater the risk, the greater the variance. Risk is the variance in the standard deviation of returns.

• Beta is systematic or market risk – it measures how a stock moves with the overall market. 
• Unsystematic risk – ris...

• Buy companies with average expected earnings growth for 5+ years
• Never pay more than foundation of value
• Look for good stories of growth

The problem is that no one can reliably assess value. There are many factors for that, so the firm foundation theory does not w...

The many financial bubbles (periods of irrational exuberance) demonstrate how asset bubbles continue to form throughout time.

• Blue chip company booms of the 1970s
• 1980s biotech craze
• Japan in the 80s/90s
• 2000s dot com bubble

There are new technologie...

Losses hurt more than the joy we receive from equivalent gains. The pain we feel with a $100 loss is about the same as the joy we get from a $250 gain. Loss aversion explains why so many investors sell the winners and hold on to the losers. Especially when we face a sure loss, we will hold on to ...

Investors are overconfident about their beliefs/abilities and over optimistic about their assessments of the future. Investors also tend to overestimate their own skill and deny the role of chance in their outcomes. Most investors are too precise in their confidence intervals.

Typically, in...

Securities analysts have a heavy bias toward “buy ratings.” Something like 10:1, and it even got to 100:1 during the dot com bubble.

• Analysts work at banks that have corporate clients that would get pissed with a low rating. So incentives are aligned to favor buy ratings.
• Mark...

Over short holding periods, there is some evidence of momentum in the stock market. Increases in stock prices are slightly more likely to be followed by further increases than by price declines. For longer holding periods, reversion to the mean appears to be present. When large price increases ha...

The value of a stock is determined by 3 factors:

1. Initial dividend yield
2. Growth rate of earnings
3. Changes in valuation in terms of P/E or price/dividend ratios

The value of a bond is determined by 2 factors:

1. Initial yield to maturity at time of purc...

Investors have a number of mechanisms that cause them to assume a greater degree of control than they have in reality. Most investors fail to properly weight probability and use base rates.

Diversification leads to good returns with lower risk. It works when you have assets that are not perfectly correlated. For example, foreign stocks are not perfectly correlated with domestic stocks, so adding them to your portfolio can lower risk while maintaining good returns. Assets have become...

Fundamentalists select stocks based on a firm foundation of estimated intrinsic value.

This theory suggests that stock values are roughly 90% rational and 10% psychological.

Stocks increase in value with four signals:

• Expected growth rate (P/E signal of th...

• History shows that risk and return are related
• The risk of investing in stocks/bonds depends on the time you hold the assets. The longer the holding period, the lower the likely variance in asset returns.
• Dollar cost averaging can be a useful, though controversial, technique ...

If there is inflation of 2% every year, that means that you need at least a 2% return on your capital to maintain your real purchasing power. If you get no return by leaving your money in an account with no interest, your money is becoming less valuable over time. So you need an investment strate...

The core of every portfolio should consist of low-cost, tax-efficient, broad-based index funds.

We cannot consistently beat the market or achieve outsized returns, so invest in low-cost, tax-efficient, broad-based index funds. Not only is it simple, but it’s likely to give you the best outc...