That expert advice can be wrong

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#1
Jul 10, 2011
small change
That expert advice can be wrong

Going by stock tips from analysts can at best yield mixed results, so you must do your own homework
By Aaron Low

From politics to exercise and finance, turning to experts for advice when confronted with a problem is probably the first thing many of us do.

After all, it's what we have been doing since we were young, when we looked to our parents or teachers to provide answers to problems.

But this method of problem-solving, especially when it comes to investing and buying stocks, is not the best way of approaching the issue, as I found out.

Many research firms and financial institutions regularly issue their analysis of companies and give forecasts of how high they think a stock price could rise.

Of course, these predictions are often laced with many caveats, and advisers are quick to state that the forecasts are not meant to act as investment advice.

But regardless, many people do read these pieces of research and use them to guide their decisions on which stocks to buy.

I, too, had previously bought shares of companies based on such advice without really doing my own homework.

The result? Mixed at best.

Sometimes, the research firms get the direction of the share price correct, but it is very rare for the piece of research to get the price exactly correct within the timeframe.

I didn't lose money overall, but I certainly did not profit that much either.

A study by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) confirmed my suspicions: Experts get it regularly wrong too.

In a WSJ report in January, 10 of the most-favoured stocks by analysts showed they had an impressive 24 per cent return. By contrast, the S&P 500 overall gained just 13 per cent.

But here's the kicker: The 10 least-liked stocks - the ones with the sell signs - had a whopping 32 per cent return.

The journalist concluded rather snidely: 'When your broker calls to offer you his analysts' top picks for 2011, maybe you'd be better off asking him which stocks his analyst hates. Or you could just let the phone ring.'

These observations are backed up by a bigger study of expert opinion as a whole by American psychologist Philip Tetlock.

In 2005, he published a book based on a 20-year study of hundreds of experts across a wide range of fields, from politics to psychology, economics and sociology.

He made them do a forecast on the areas they had expertise in, and meticulously tracked all 28,000 of these predictions.

The conclusion? They didn't do better than random chance.

Or, in other words, they did not do significantly better than throwing a dice.

I am not discounting the ability of these experts and am certainly not saying they are not good at their work.

But what these studies simply imply is that making a forecast on a subject such as investing in a world as complex as ours is an extremely difficult thing to do.

The interweaving lines of influence means that in a complex world, no one is sure exactly what, for example, an event like the Japanese earthquake would mean for stock markets and companies.

For instance, some analysts predicted that Apple shares would fall following the earthquake, because supply chain disruptions would affect the company's ability to deliver its popular iPad product.

It did fall from US$360 by more than 10 per cent in two weeks. But quite soon after, it rose right back again, even though the supply disruptions were still there.

And here is the last reason why people should not trust experts: They do not owe you a single cent if they get their predictions wrong. You are responsible for your own hard-earned money.

So I have learnt to try to be an expert on my own, because there's no one I'd rather trust than myself.

aaronl@sph.com.sg

My Value Investing Blog: http://sgmusicwhiz.blogspot.com/
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#2
Thank you for sharing this article Musicwhiz - a good read,

Three personal observations/opinions regarding analysts of Singapore stocks:

- Many analysts appear unable or unwilling to look beyond the next quarter. They are by-and-large very short-term in their perspective and do not assess underlying strategies of a company or their competitive differentiators. I usually buy a stock for my perception of its long term attractiveness and quality of their management - I suspect most other viewers of this forum do as well - and I would give analyst "research" pieces more credence if they had a longer term strategic focus.

- Most Singapore analysts appear to follow a herd instinct. When a couple of analysts plonk a "BUY" recommendation on a stock, others simply follow, with little new to say/add and with an apparent unwillingness to differ. Some proof points: a) the HPH Trust IPO, where the majority of analysts had a "BUY". Look where HPH's stock price is today - admittedly about 10% above its post-placement low, b) several other IPO subscription "BUY" recommendations, with only rare focus on over-pricing risks; this to be viewed against a generally miserable post-placement share price performance (in my less charitable moments I sense this may be linked to analyst parent or affiliate companies being involved in the book running, placement effort) and c) analyst unwillingness to review some of the more price volatile stocks.

- An unwillingness to put a "SELL" rating on a stock. Proof point - Kim Eng, for example, claims to cover seventy-odd stocks - only one of them has a "SELL" (i.e Armstrong). I simply do not beleive it...... or are the relationships between analyst organisations and the assessed Companies simply too cosy?

So what do I do about this? Yes I do a bit of my own (admittedly amateur) digging ........ and I read contributions to this forum. I believe the collective assessments and judgements of participants in this forum, with their diverse views and know-how, is more valuable than most analyst reports.

Lest I appear as tainting all analysts with the same brush, I accept that there may be rare individual exceptions to the three personal observations stated above - but I have yet to see it.
RBM, Retired Botanic MatSalleh
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#3
(10-07-2011, 01:02 PM)RBM Wrote: - An unwillingness to put a "SELL" rating on a stock. Proof point - Kim Eng, for example, claims to cover seventy-odd stocks - only one of them has a "SELL" (i.e Armstrong). I simply do not beleive it...... or are the relationships between analyst organisations and the assessed Companies simply too cosy?

Analyst report that put a "SELL" rating is normally less attractive than "Buy". For those that own the "Sell" rating share will probably be less than pleased to see their stocks being put down and for those that do not own the share, they will probably skip the report.
Besides that, these analysts that operate from the buy side will likely to generate more trades for their brokerage when they issue buy calls. Shorting a stock based on sell call has much lesser following.

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#4
Some hard truths about analyst research:

1. In most organizations, people are paid to make decisions or sell stuff. Unfortunately, returns tend not to go to people who design better widgets or provide suggestions. What follows is:

2. What they're really paid for is to help sell things: brokerage commissions. Follow the money; Charlie Munger very recently said that even he has under-estimated the power of incentives.

3. If the analysts were really good, they would be making decisions (either for other people or themselves) not giving suggestions; and that's what happens to the best ones.

4. In fact, if following sell-side analyst research is a consistently good strategy for making money; some reasonably competent quant programmer would have found a way to use a computer to follow their recommendations and start a fund to make money. It's certainly a lot cheaper than looking for trends in the news and twitter. No one seems to have done that.

But that said, it's enormously helpful for digging up charts (historical data, correlations, the last 20 years of oil / property / CPO prices), scanning the industry, talking about the competitors & management - resources that are not available to the typical retail investor. Most of us who put a chunk of our piggy bank in Keppel / Sembcorp don't subscribe to Upstream / Petroleum Economist.
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#5
So true redcorolla95.

It's not just those "experts" we turn to that can be "wrong", it's also unsolicited well-intentioned "advice" that can be "wrong" too.

I've written a bite-size story on it: http://singaporemanofleisure.blogspot.co...-next.html

We can be our own worst enemy too. I do 2nd guess myself too often in the past by listening to too many views from the "experts" in the media. Now I block out a lot of "noise" from the media once I've made an investment/trading decision. Let the outcome decide whether I've made a profit or discover another learnign lesson!
Just google singapore man of leisure
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