Like “financial advisor” and “hedge fund,” the word “investing” is probably one of the most abused terms in our financial lexicon. These days many people use the word “investing” when what they are really talking about is “getting market exposure.”
For fun I googled the definition of investing:
I also re-read this post from Cullen Roche where he discusses “allocating savings” (what I would call “getting market exposure”).
It’s funny how “investors” abuse the term “investing”. What we’re really doing when we buy shares on a secondary exchange is not really “investing” at all. It’s just an allocation of savings. Investing, in a very technical sense, is spending for future production. So, if you build a factory and spend money to do so then you’re investing. But when companies issue shares to raise money they’re simply issuing those shares so they can invest. And once those shares trade on the secondary exchange the company really doesn’t care who buys/sells them because their funds have been raised and they’ve likely already invested in future production. You just allocate your savings by exchanging shares with other people when you buy and sell financial assets.
Now, this might all sound like a bunch of semantics, but it’s really important in my opinion. After all, when you understand the precise definitions of saving and investing you realize that our portfolios actually look more like saving accounts than investment accounts. That is, they’re not really these sexy get rich quick vehicles. Yes, the allure of becoming the next Warren Buffett by trading stocks is powerful. But the reality is that you’re much more likely to get rich by making real investments, ie, spending to improve your future production. Flipping stocks isn’t going to do that for you.
This leads you to realize your portfolio is a place where you are simply trying to grow your savings at a reasonable rate without exposing it to excessive permanent loss risk or excessive purchasing power loss. It’s not a place for gambling or getting rich quick. In fact, it’s much the opposite. It’s a nuanced view, but one I feel is tremendously important to financial success.
I have promised myself I will stop using “investing,” “getting market exposure” and “allocating savings” interchangeably.
For me, the semantic line between investing and “getting market exposure” is a little different from what Cullen proposes. For me it’s this: as an investor you are looking to compound capital at a rate exceeding your cost of capital (opportunity cost), while avoiding permanent impairment of capital.
Yes, “extraordinary” is a fuzzy term. To me, pretty much anything above 10%, net of expenses, is extraordinary. That will give you nearly a 7x return over 20 years. If you can do 15% (an extraordinary achievement, btw), that multiple jumps to over 16x.
Some of you are no doubt thinking you can net 10% annually forever in an S&P 500 index fund. And maybe you are right. In my view the odds are stacked against you over the next 10 years. In fact, I would gladly take the other side of that bet over next 10 years. But beyond the next decade or so it is hard to tell.
The reason is broad market returns measured over long time periods are sensitive to starting valuations. If you ask the average equity analyst he will probably tell you the market is “fairly valued” today based on the one-year forward price/earnings multiple. Which is another way of saying “meh.” By other measures, such as the Shiller CAPE, the US market is extremely expensive. But if you are allocating your savings based on one-year forward earnings multiples you’ve got bigger problems than parsing the nuances of various valuation multiples.
Also, analysts kind of suck at forecasting earnings growth. So the forward price/earnings multiple is a flawed input at best.
Anyway, if none of this stuff interests you, you aren’t thinking like an investor. The whole point of investing is to seek out asymmetric risk/reward propositions. That’s very different from “simply trying to grow your savings at a reasonable rate without exposing it to excessive permanent loss risk or excessive purchasing power loss.”