Trader’s Narrative

The chart below is from James Montier. It shows the average holding period for NYSE stocks (expressed in years) from 1920 to today.

Montier is an economist and global strategist who uses behavioral finance to make sense of the financial markets. He started his career at Dresdner Kleinwort, moved to SocGen and just recently moved to the hedge fund world. Montier has written several books, among them, Behavioural Investing: A Practitioners Guide to Applying Behavioural Finance.

I’m not sure where exactly Montier got the raw data for this graph but considering the caliber of research he does, I’m assuming it is an accurate reflection of the underlying change in the structure of the market over time. The chart is remarkable in setting out what we all intuitively know to be true. Driven mostly by high frequency trading, we’ve seen an explosion in advance decline volatility.

It seems I was wrong, when I said this isn’t your grandfather’s stock market. This is exactly your grandfather’s stock market. Indeed, your grandparents would readily recognize the sort of stock market we’ve had recently. What I should have said is this is not your father’s stock market (1950’s - 1960’s) where people actually invested by holding stocks for years at a time. In comparison, what we do now is push buttons with the attention span of a housefly:

Source: James Montier formerly of Société Générale

It is absolutely remarkable to notice that the turnover in 1929 - a time where trading was done over telegraphed message or scribbled notes and hand gestures - is equivalent to recent times when trading is done by blazing fast computers interconnected directly via FIX to the exchange.

If you enjoyed this, don’t miss Montier’s brutal take down of EMH (via John Mauldin’s Investor Insights). Also, in a world where we are all traders, the least we can do is be better traders:

• Why do traders fail?
• How to Fail as a Trader in 10 Easy Steps
• Dennis Gartmen’s Rules of Trading
• The Definitive Guide to Trading Mastery & Success
• 5 Fatal Flaws of Trading

According to a June 1st press release from Dow Jones: “The Travelers Companies, Inc. (TRV) is taking the place of Citigroup, Inc. (C) and Cisco Systems, Inc. (CSCO) is going in for General Motors Corp. (GM).”

The changes will go into effect on the opening of trading next Monday - June 8, 2009. The last time the Dow Industrial Average was changed was about a year ago when Bank of America and Chevron (CVX) replaced Altria (MO) and Honeywell (HON) (Dow Jones Technical & Fundamental Analysis)

There is an ongoing debate between ‘passive’ vs. ‘active’ portfolio management. Very few money managers are able to beat wide indexes over time. But when you think about it, we don’t really have passive portfolios. If the Dow was truly passive it would still be comprised of companies like Standard Rope & Twine (a component from 1898). But obviously, such an index would have long ago ceased to exist; just like its component companies. To continue to exist and be relevant, an index must evolve along with the stock market. And that makes it an actively managed portfolio.

The only real difference is that a ‘passive’ investment portfolio like the Dow Jones has a much lower turnover rate than more actively traded portfolios managed by you or a hedge fund trader or a mutual fund portfolio manager. So the debate is really about turnover. When you start to buy/sell at a furious pace, not only do you have to deal with transaction costs but shrinkage due to spreads, errors and taxes. Unless you have an edge that can beat those costs, you’re trying to get out of a hole by digging faster.

The funny thing is that although these index changes are necessary, most of them result in lower performance. There have been a lot of studies done on indexes like the Dow and the S&P 500 which show that in the short term, companies that are removed provide higher returns than those which they were replaced by. Which means that GM (GMGMQ) and Citigroup (C) are probably going to outperform Cisco (CSCO) and Travelers (TRV) going forward. So the price that you pay for having an index like the Dow or the S&P 500 continue indefinitely is that their performance is actually lower than it would be, had there been less interference with their composition.