In this episode of Enrich Your Future, Andrew and Larry Swedroe discuss Larry’s new book, Enrich Your Future: The Keys to Successful Investing. In this series, they discuss Chapter 05: Great Companies Do Not Make High-Return Investments.

LEARNING:  A higher PE doesn’t mean a higher expected return.

“A higher PE doesn’t mean a higher expected return. It may mean that you’re paying a high price for high expected growth and safety because the company is really strong.”

Larry Swedroe

In this episode of Enrich Your Future, Andrew and Larry Swedroe discuss Larry’s new book, Enrich Your Future: The Keys to Successful Investing. The book is a collection of stories that Larry has developed over the 30 years or so that he’s been trying to help investors. Larry is the head of financial and economic research at Buckingham Wealth Partners. You can learn more about Larry’s Worst Investment Ever story on Ep645: Beware of Idiosyncratic Risks.

Larry deeply understands the world of academic research and investing, especially risk. Today, Andrew and Larry discuss Chapter 05: Great Companies Do Not Make High-Return Investments

Chapter 05: Great Companies Do Not Make High-Return Investments

In this chapter, Larry explains why investing in great companies doesn’t guarantee high returns.

When faced with the choice of buying the stocks of “great” companies or buying the stocks of “lousy” companies, Larry says most investors would instinctively choose the former.

This is an anomaly because people think the whole idea of investing is to identify a great company and, therefore, will get great returns. But if you understand finance, that doesn’t make any sense because the first basic rule of investing is that something you know is only information; it’s not value-added information unless the market doesn’t know it. This is because that information is already embedded in the price through the trading actions of all marketplace investors.

Small companies versus large companies

According to Larry, if it were true that markets provide returns commensurate with the amount of risk taken, one should expect great results if they invest in a passively managed portfolio consisting of small companies, which are intuitively riskier than large companies.

Small companies don’t have the economies of scale that large companies have, making them generally less efficient. They typically have weaker balance sheets and fewer sources of capital. When there is distress in the capital markets, smaller companies are generally the first to be cut off from access to capital, increasing the risk of bankruptcy. They don’t have the depth of management that larger companies do. They generally don’t have long track records from which investors can make judgments.

The cost of trading small stocks is much greater, increasing the risk of investing in them. When one compares the performance of the asset class of small companies with that of large companies, one gets the same results produced by the great companies versus value companies comparison.

Why great earnings don’t necessarily translate into great investment returns

The simple explanation for why great earnings don’t necessarily translate into great investment returns is that investors discount the future expected earnings of value stocks at a higher rate than they discount the future expected earnings of growth stocks. This more than offsets the faster earnings growth rates of growth companies. The high discount rate results in low current valuations for value stocks and higher expected future returns relative to growth stocks.

Risk versus expected return

Larry talks of a simple principle that can help you avoid making poor investment decisions: Risk and expected return should be positively related. Value stocks have provided a premium over growth stocks for a logical reason: Value stocks are the stocks of riskier companies. That is why their stock prices are distressed. Investors refuse to buy them unless the prices are driven low enough so that they can expect to earn a rate of return that is high enough to compensate them for investing in risky companies. For similar reasons, small stocks have also provided a risk premium compared to large stocks.

Larry reminds investors that if prices are high, they reflect low perceived risk, and thus, they should expect low future returns and vice versa. This does not make a highly-priced stock a poor investment. It simply makes it an investment perceived to have low risk and, thus, low future returns. Thinking otherwise would be like assuming government bonds are poor investments when the alternative is junk bonds.

Larry advises investors not to engage in individual security selection. Instead, they should diversify and get the same risk-adjusted returns but with a much narrower dispersion of potential outcomes. Further, they should build a plan that incorporates the fact that when earnings yields are low, the investors expect low returns and adjust their asset allocation accordingly to make sure they have a good chance of achieving their investment goals when that’s the case. Larry also insists that if investors try to time the market, they should do it only at extremes and always remember that a higher PE doesn’t mean a higher expected return. The investor may be paying a high price for high expected growth and safety because the company is strong.

Did you miss out on the previous chapters? Check them out:

• Enrich Your Future 01: The Determinants of the Risk and Return of Stocks and Bonds
• Enrich Your Future 02: How Markets Set Prices
• Enrich Your Future 03: Persistence of Performance: Athletes Versus Investment Managers
• Enrich Your Future 04: Why Is Persistent Outperformance So Hard to Find?

About Larry Swedroe

Larry Swedroe is head of financial and economic research at Buckingham Wealth Partners. Since joining the firm in 1996, Larry has spent his time, talent, and energy educating investors on the benefits of evidence-based investing with an enthusiasm few can match.

Larry was among the first authors to publish a book that explained the science of investing in layman’s terms, “The Only Guide to a Winning Investment Strategy You’ll Ever Need.” He has authored or co-authored 18 books.

Larry’s dedication to helping others has made him a sought-after national speaker. He has made appearances on national television on various outlets.

Larry is a prolific writer, regularly contributing to multiple outlets, including AlphaArchitect, Advisor Perspectives, and Wealth Management.

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