Fund Features |
|
Your Money > Fund Features Articles > Most shares are...
|
By Jeff Fischer
Are most shares a loser's bet? According to a Money magazine article in the US, a study from Dimensional Fund Advisors concluded that a mere 25% of the shares in the US market were responsible for all the gains from 1980 to 2008. While the US market as a whole generated a 10.4% annualised return, take out these 'superstocks' (Money's term), and the remaining 75% actually generated an annualised loss of 2.1% over these 28 years. That's right: Three-quarters of US shares lost value. The same could be true of the UK market too. If you think about it, the abundance of market losers actually makes sense -- just look at your local shopping centre or High Street. As the likes of Morrisons (LSE: MRW), Next (LSE: NXT) and Marks & Spencer (LSE: MKS.L - news) (LSE: MKS (MKX.TO - news) eat up real estate and market share, smaller businesses struggle just to maintain a foothold. Many disappear. It's the nature of a free-market economy. Winning Some, Losing Some The study goes a long way toward explaining why most investors and fund managers fail to beat the averages. With 75% of shares losing money, even a skilful stock selector faces formidable odds. That's why we at The Motley Fool have been saying for years that investors should park at least some of their portfolios in passive index tracking funds. By tracking large baskets of shares, these funds mirror the market's overall return, mitigating the 75% of losers with the 25% that outperform. Between 1980 and 2008, being invested in a low-cost index fund would have given you excellent returns, without the risk of choosing individual shares. The two decades between 1980 and 2000 were some of the best the stock market has ever seen, but since then the overall market has trended down (despite some spectacular bubbles along the way). If you want to make money in more challenging markets -- like the one we're facing now -- you need to add timely individual shares selections to boost your returns. And that means learning to tell the outperformers like Admiral Group (LSE: ADM.L - news) (LSE: ADM) from the underperformers such as Yell Group (LSE: YELL.L - news) (LSE: YELL). Finding The Gold Among The Dross Some of the most important characteristics to seek when buying individual shares include: A sustainable competitive advantage that protects the company's profits, be it patents, dominant market share, ownership of natural resources or network effects. A reasonable start price -- if you overpay, it could be as bad as buying a losing business. A management ethos that anticipates and adapts to change. You Need To Adapt Notice that the key criteria involve investing in the best businesses -- not trading shares month-in and month-out. If you want to outperform, you need to hold core positions for the long term. When buying at good prices, it's only by owning superior companies over many years that you'll compound your invested pounds.
Useful links: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||