In a previous issue of Kiplinger’s magazine, Kathy Kristof wrote a column that compares the lessons learned in the movie Moneyball with investing advice.
For those that haven’t seen the movie, Moneyball is a baseball movie about the Oakland Athletics General Manager Billy Beane. The A’s are a small market team, meaning they can’t spend a ton of money on high priced free agents. They have to find a way to win with a small payroll. Beane accomplishes this by looking at statistics of players and building his team around this. In many cases, he looks at statistics that other general managers overlook. It has proven successful as the A’s have been a competitive team most years since he took over. This is quite an accomplishment when there are so many other teams spending large amounts of money on the best players in the world.
In the magazine, Kristof takes the lessons from the movie and applies them to investing. In summary the investing lessons are:
- Don’t Believe Your Eyes
- Capitalize On Inefficiencies
- Don’t Watch The Game
- One Game Is Not A Season
- Experience Reduces Risk
I love all of these investing lessons. Here is my takeaway from each one.
5 Investing Lessons
Don’t Believe Your Eyes
For baseball, not believing your eyes simply means to dig deeper into analyzing a player. Just because he hits the ball the farthest doesn’t mean he is the best player. He may have artificial help or maybe he is playing against inferior opponents. The key is to not trust what you see, but to do the research to get to the real reasons why a certain player is successful.
When it comes to investing, not believing your eyes is the same as not allowing your emotions to get involved. Just because you see a “hot” stock rise day after day doesn’t mean it will continue to do so. There will come a point when investors will feel that the stock is overvalued and begin selling it.
The same can be said of a falling market. You see the market dropping every day and think the world is coming to an end. Don’t believe your eyes – stay rational. Over the short-term, the market will be choppy, but over the long-term, the market trend is positive.
Capitalize On Inefficiencies
There are many ways to capitalize on inefficiencies in baseball. If the starting pitcher you are going against doesn’t have great command, you could swing less, forcing the pitcher to throw strikes, otherwise he will walk a lot of batters. Likewise, maybe the right fielder doesn’t have a strong arm, so you know you can try to score on balls hit to him.
Great investors capitalize on inefficiencies as well. Corporations all have bad periods. When this happens, investors beat them down by selling the stock, forcing it down. When the price drops on a good company, this is the time to buy. Your strategy here would be to identity a handful of stocks and do the research to see if they are over-valued or under-valued. If they are over-valued, determine the price that would make them under-valued and wait until they hit that price. Then you buy.
Unfortunately, this is easier said than done. No one can time the market. Because of this, you should set up a recurring investment into the market to capitalize on the inefficiencies of the market. When you do this, you take advantage when prices drop without lifting a finger. I personally use Betterment. You can read my review of their service here. For other investment broker options, check out my online broker comparison chart.
Don’t Watch The Game
Beane rarely watches the game. This is because he doesn’t want to make a quick decision based on a play he saw and trade a player for the wrong reason.
Watching what the market does every day will drive you crazy. Up 100 points today. Down 50 tomorrow. Down 150 the next and then up 25 after that. You have to remember that you aren’t investing for the short term; you are investing for the long term.
When you watch the market every day, you are going to have your emotions enter into the picture and that spells doom for most of us. We don’t make smart decisions when we are emotional. Stop watching the market and concentrate on the long term.
One Game Is Not A Season
Beane knows that for the most part, one loss or one win isn’t going to make or break your season. A baseball season is 162 games in length that spans from April through September. If you are playing poorly in April, you have plenty of time to change course.
Similarly, one stock is not your entire portfolio. You can have some losers in your portfolio. As long as you are diversified, you can ride things out over the long term. Don’t make the mistake of getting caught up and focusing on your poor performing investments. You will always have some holdings that aren’t performing great.
For the market as a whole, one bad day isn’t the end of the world. Chances are you don’t need the money you have invested for 20 or more years. That is plenty of time to recover from a bad day in the market. Focus on continually investing for the long term and you will be OK.
Experience Reduces Risk
The draft in baseball is littered with failure. This is expected since so many players are drafted out of high school. At 18 years old, you never know who will make it and who won’t, who has the drive and who doesn’t. On the flipside are current professional players. You have statistics on these guys and know how they perform over the long term. They are less risky because of this.
The longer a corporation has been in business, the more you can see how it handles both the good and bad times. A newer, smaller company doesn’t have this history. The length of time in business reduces the investor’s risk. This is because you see that historically, the corporation can handle the bad times without going belly up. This is not to say they never will go belly up, but the chances of it are less likely than if they are a new corporation.
The same applies to you as an investor. The longer you invest, the more craziness you will see in the market. You will be able to rationalize more volatility the longer you are invested. In my short life, I’ve seen 2 bubbles burst, 3 wars and 3 recessions (that I can remember). Each time, the stock market has come roaring back. If I were a younger investor, I might be scared and run from the market. But the more experience I have, the smaller the chance I react and sell when times get tough. In other words, the less risky behavior I exhibit.
Final Thoughts
These are just a few investing lessons that I thought were great. If you can learn to follow them, you will put yourself in good financial shape for the long term and set yourself up for being a successful investor.
Readers, what are your thoughts on this list of investing lessons? Would you add any investing lessons to this list?
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