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Helping Doctors Understand Peer Comparisons

By J. Wayne Firebaugh CPA, CFP® CMP™

By Dr. David E. Marcinko MBA, CMP™

Source: http://www.CertifiedMedicalPlanner.org

More than a few mutual, hedge and endowment fund managers have noted that they commonly compare their endowment and portfolio allocations to those of peer institutions and that as a result, allocations are often similar to the “average” as reported by one or more surveys/consulting firms.

One interviewed endowment fund manager expanded this thought by presciently noting that expecting materially different performance with substantially the same allocation is unreasonable. It is anecdotally interesting to wonder whether any “seminal” study “proving” the importance of asset allocation could have even had a substantially different conclusion. It seems likely that the pensions and funds surveyed in these types of studies have very similar allocations given the human tendency to measure one-self against peers and to use peers for guidance.

This is a truism in medicine as well as the financial services sector.

Understanding Peer Comparisons

Although peer comparisons can be useful in evaluating your portfolio, or your hospital or medical practice’s own processes, groupthink can be highly contagious and dangerous.

For historical example, in the first quarter of 2000, net flows into equity mutual funds were $140.4 billion as compared to net inflows of $187.7 billion for all of 1999. February’s equity fund inflows were a staggering $55.6 billion, the record for single month investments. For all of 1999, total net mutual fund investments were $169.8 billion[1] meaning that investors “rebalanced” out of asset classes such as bonds just in time for the market’s March 24, 2000 peak (as measured by the S&P 500).

Of course, physicians and investors are not immune to poor decision making in upward trending markets. In 2001, investors withdrew a then-record amount of $30 billion[2] in September, presumably in response to the September 11th terrorist attacks. These investors managed to skillfully “rebalance” their ways out of markets that declined approximately 11.5% during the first several trading sessions after the market reopened, only to reach September 10th levels again after only 19 trading days. In 2002, investors revealed their relentless pursuit of self-destruction when they withdrew a net $27.7 billion from equity funds[3] just before the S&P 500’s 29.9% 2003 growth.

Amateurs versus Professionals [is there such a thing?]

Although it is easy to dismiss the travails of mutual fund investors as representing only the performance of amateurs, it is important to remember that institutions are not automatically immune by virtue of being managed by investment professionals.

For example, in the 1960s and early 1970s, common wisdom stipulated that portfolios include the Nifty Fifty stocks that were viewed to be complete companies.  These stocks were considered “one-decision” stocks for which the only decision was how much to buy. Even institutions got caught up in purchasing such current corporate stalwarts as Joe Schlitz Brewing, Simplicity Patterns, and Louisiana Home & Exploration.  Collective market groupthink pushed these stocks to such prices that Price Earnings ratios routinely exceeded 50 [nothing in the internet age]. Subsequent disappointing performance of this strategy only revealed that common wisdom is often neither common nor wisdom.

The Bear Sterns Example

Recall that The New York Times reported on June 21, 2007, that Bear Stearns had managed to forestall the demise of the Bear Stearns High Grade Structured Credit Strategies and the related Enhanced Leveraged Fund.  The two funds held mortgage-backed debt securities of almost $2 billion many of which were in the sub-prime market.  To compound the problem, the funds borrowed much of the money used to purchase these securities.  The firms who had provided the loans to make these purchases represented some of the smartest names on Wall Street, including JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, and Deutsche Bank.[4]  Despite its efforts Bear Stearns had to inform investors less than a week later on June 27 that these two funds had collapsed. The subsequent fate of these firms, and the history of the past two years, need not be repeated to appreciate that the king surely had no clothes.

Assessment

What broader message lies in this post relative to such medical initiatives as P4P, various clinical quality improvement endeavors and benchmarks, hospital peer-review, PROs, Medicare compliance, etc?  

Conclusion

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Speaker: If you need a moderator or speaker for an upcoming event, Dr. David E. Marcinko; MBA – Publisher-in-Chief of the Medical Executive-Post – is available for seminar or speaking engagements. Contact: MarcinkoAdvisors@msn.com

OUR OTHER PRINT BOOKS AND RELATED INFORMATION SOURCES:

• PRACTICES: www.BusinessofMedicalPractice.com
• HOSPITALS: http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466558731
• CLINICS: http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781439879900
• ADVISORS: www.CertifiedMedicalPlanner.org
• FINANCE: Financial Planning for Physicians and Advisors
• INSURANCE: Risk Management and Insurance Strategies for Physicians and Advisors
• Dictionary of Health Economics and Finance
• Dictionary of Health Information Technology and Security
• Dictionary of Health Insurance and Managed Care

References

[1]   2001 Fact Book, Investment Company Institute.

[2]   Id.

[3]   2003 Fact Book, Investment Company Institute.

[4]    Bajaj, Vikas and Creswell, Julie. “Bear Stearns Staves off Collapse of 2 Hedge Funds.” New York Times, June 21, 2007.

Filed under: Investing, Portfolio Management | Tagged: Arbitrage Pricing Model, Bank of America, Bear Sterns, behavioral finance, Deutsche Bank, endowment fund, Goldman Sachs, group thnk, hedge fund, JP Morgan, medical peer review, Medicare compliance, Merrill Lynch, modernm portfolio theroy, P4P | 2 Comments »