1. The premium return of the stock market when compared to riskless assets.Sharpe's Beta.
2. The premium return of small capitalization stocks over large cap stocks.Fama's size effect.
3. The premium return of value stocks over growth stocks.Fama's value effect.
... I don't think the momentum factor is at the same level.
The performance of the stock markets exceeded those of Bonds, T-Bills, Gold and Dollar.
(Siegel's "Stocks for the long run"). But we should also bear in mind certain factors:
1. Take the market's geometric return (not the arithmetic return.
2. Consider the survivorship bias: Siegel only considers the best market in the best century of the history. But Argentina was as wealthy as the US a century ago. Austrians lost all their money at the mid-century. Japan will have to wait some generations to see the 40,000 back, ...
So, to bear in mind: companies do fail (while S&P500 do not consider those), some currencies lose value, and markets / economies sometimes get exhausted for some generations.
Stock returns in developed countries - markets, have outperformed those in emerging countries, with an astonishing Sharpe ratio difference.
The average return of small (and medium) companies outgoes the average return of the big companies both in developed and emerging countries (Fama's size effect).
Relative price is often measured by a firm's book-to-market ratio (BtM). When stocks are ranked by relative price, high BtM (or "value") stocks tend to have higher average returns than low BtM (or "growth") stocks. This is known as the relative-price or value effect.
Active management is encouraged to rely on settled rules. My favorite guide is the 50 day Nasdaq moving average. On the other hand, passive management stands on solid theoretical grounds, has enormous empirical support, and works very well for investors.
So, to bear in mind: companies do fail (while S&P500 do not consider those), some currencies lose value, and markets / economies sometimes get exhausted for some generations.
Stock returns in developed countries - markets, have outperformed those in emerging countries, with an astonishing Sharpe ratio difference.
The average return of small (and medium) companies outgoes the average return of the big companies both in developed and emerging countries (Fama's size effect).
Relative price is often measured by a firm's book-to-market ratio (BtM). When stocks are ranked by relative price, high BtM (or "value") stocks tend to have higher average returns than low BtM (or "growth") stocks. This is known as the relative-price or value effect.
Active management is encouraged to rely on settled rules. My favorite guide is the 50 day Nasdaq moving average. On the other hand, passive management stands on solid theoretical grounds, has enormous empirical support, and works very well for investors.
Regarding the composition of the portfolio:
Between 5 and 15 different stocks provide enough diversification for a personal portfolio.
(although some behaviorist may call this "the rule of five", ... a rule of thumb that only leads to underperformance)
In that sense, a good long run strategy to apply could be:
% of our portfolio invested in the stock markets = 100 - our age.
Between 5 and 15 different stocks provide enough diversification for a personal portfolio.
(although some behaviorist may call this "the rule of five", ... a rule of thumb that only leads to underperformance)
In that sense, a good long run strategy to apply could be:
% of our portfolio invested in the stock markets = 100 - our age.
A book that should be re read more frequently...
"The intelligent investor" by Graham,
"The intelligent investor" by Graham,
From his best student, W. Buffet, we should learn that a continued and periodically buy, in the stock market, is not only more easy and relaxed than the timming and stock picking strategies, but it will generally provide better results (80% of the Funds fail to match market returns).
And regarding the company's management:
Natural, organic growth for a company is better than the M&A growth.
(stock markets reflect it very well, and the reason the second is so much practiced is mostly because the CEOs looking for perks (i.e. empire building).
Natural, organic growth for a company is better than the M&A growth.
(stock markets reflect it very well, and the reason the second is so much practiced is mostly because the CEOs looking for perks (i.e. empire building).
Repurchase of its own shares on the market is a better way for the company to pay their shareholders than providing dividends (because by doing that, we are going to suffer double taxation: company's + shareholder's). I think most mutual funds do not suffer the double taxation though. Furthermore it is well documented that senior investors, who are already retired, do prefer not to sell capital (stocks) and perceive the dividends as a rent.
