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A Historical Look-Back to the Future?

By Wayne Firebaugh CPA CFP® CMP™

www.CertifiedMedicalPlanner.org

It is not unusual for endowment fund managers to compare their endowment allocations to those of peer institutions and that as a result, endowment allocations are often similar to the “average” as reported by one or more survey/consulting firms.

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

Peer Comparison

Although peer comparisons can be useful in evaluating your institution’s own processes, groupthink can be highly contagious and dangerous.

For 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, 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.

The Travails

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. Subsequent disappointing performance of this strategy only revealed that common wisdom is often neither common nor wisdom.

[Wall Street Reform?]

More Current Examples

More recently, 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 represent some of the smartest names on Wall Street, including  JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, and Deutsche Bank.[4]

Assessment

Despite its efforts Bear Stearns had to inform investors less than a week later on June 27th that these two funds had collapsed.

Conclusion

Is this same Groupthink mentality happening on Wall Street, today? Your thoughts and comments on this ME-P are appreciated. Feel free to review our top-left column, and top-right sidebar materials, links, URLs and related websites, too. Then, subscribe to the ME-P. It is fast, free and secure.

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Filed under: Investing, Portfolio Management | Tagged: Bear Stearns High Grade Structured Credit Strategies, David Edward Marcinko, endowment fund, Enhanced Leveraged Fund., Mutual Funds, Nifty Fifty, Wayne Firebaugh | 4 Comments »