So why does almost everyone believe that one needs a perfect hit rate to achieve good returns? This myth is quite common as one can see from comments in the media, where people are surprised when some well-known investor has a losing position.
I think it speaks to the ignorance of the following points
- A losing position has a downside of 100% at the most, but a winning position can go up much more than that and cover for several such losses. Let’s say you have a portfolio of three stocks and two go to 0, but the third stock is a 5 bagger. Even in such an extreme example, the investor has increased his portfolio by 50% with equal weightage in all the three positions.
- Let’s take the previous example again and instead of equal weightage, let’s say the two failed position were only 10% of the portfolio, whereas the winning position was 90%. In such a happy scenario, the overall portfolio is up 4.5X.
Read complete article at http://valueinvestorindia.blogspot.in/2016/07/a-statistical-analysis-of-failures.html
I think it speaks to the ignorance of the following points
- A losing position has a downside of 100% at the most, but a winning position can go up much more than that and cover for several such losses. Let’s say you have a portfolio of three stocks and two go to 0, but the third stock is a 5 bagger. Even in such an extreme example, the investor has increased his portfolio by 50% with equal weightage in all the three positions.
- Let’s take the previous example again and instead of equal weightage, let’s say the two failed position were only 10% of the portfolio, whereas the winning position was 90%. In such a happy scenario, the overall portfolio is up 4.5X.
Read complete article at http://valueinvestorindia.blogspot.in/2016/07/a-statistical-analysis-of-failures.html
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