Investing in undervalued securities worldwide

Weekly Update 21 October 2024

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This content is provided for information purposes only. It is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any security.

Investment bank Goldman Sachs published a report last week analysing what kinds of returns investors can expect from the $SPX500 over the next 10 years.
moneycheck.com/the-partys-over-goldman-sachs-projects-below-average-stock-returns-for-next-10-years/

Investors have enjoyed an easy ride over the past decade. Company earnings grew, valuations expanded, and the S&P 500 returned 13% a year.

Goldman predicts the future will be rather different. Their return forecast for the S&P 500 is only 3% a year. The reasons are that:

1. The S&P 500 is highly valued, with a Shiller CAPE ratio of 37.
Valuation has historically been the strongest single predictor of 10-year future returns.
www.multpl.com/shiller-pe

2. The market is heavily concentrated in a few top stocks, whose fortunes the index depends on. Highly concentrated markets have historically led to low future returns.

3. Over the past decade, the US economy was in recession only 5% of the time. Goldman assumes it will be in recession 10% of the time over the next 10 years, more in line with the historical average.

Goldman concludes that the S&P 500 has a more than 2/3 probability of underperforming bonds. It even has a 1/3 probability of losing to inflation.

It’s not all bad news for investors. Goldman sees an equally-weighted portfolio of S&P 500 stocks ($RSP) outperforming the index itself by 2-8% a year.

3% a year is on the pessimistic side of forecasts available from different sources. The average professional forecast is 6%. I myself believe 4-5% a year is achievable with the S&P 500. But this is less than what many investors expect.

Getting 10%+ a year returns going forward will require a portfolio entirely different from the S&P 500, under any reasonable analysis.

2024 performance
@triangulacapital +38.0%
SWDA.L +19.9%

Portfolio changes
None

Copy Trading does not amount to investment advice. The value of your investments may go up or down. Your capital is at risk. Past performance is not an indication of future results.

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Disclosures

eToro is a multi-asset platform which offers both investing in stocks and cryptoassets, as well as trading CFD assets.

CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 51% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work, and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

eToro (Europe) Ltd., a Financial Services Company authorised and regulated by the Cyprus Securities Exchange Commission (CySEC) under the license # 109/10.

eToro (UK) Ltd. is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) under the license FRN 583263.

Your capital is at risk. Other fees may apply. For more information, visit etoro.com/trading/fees.

Pietari Laurila is not a registered investment advisor and does not offer investment advisory, fund management or wealth management services.

Triangula Capital is a brand name, not an incorporated entity.

This page is provided for information purposes only. It is not a recommendation to copy the Triangula Capital strategy or to buy, sell or hold any security.

2009-2020 performance figures are from Pietari’s personal Interactive Brokers account. They are time-weighted returns calculated in accordance with the Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS).

From 2021, performance is calculated by eToro.

Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Track Record

It is often said that past performance is not a guarantee of future performance.

That is true. But there is also some evidence indicating that portfolios that performed better in the past, do perform better in the future.

“[…] top-decile prior-alpha funds produce annual future alphas of about 150 bps, net of fees” Source

Risk warning: That is only one study. In general, past performance is not indicative of future results.

Aligned Incentives

Pietari invests the majority of his net worth in the strategy. This ensures that his interests are aligned with investors who copy the strategy.

“Funds with high-incentive contracts deliver higher risk-adjusted return, and the superior performance remains persistent. The top incentive quintile of funds outperforms the bottom quintile by 2.70% per year” Source

Risk warning: Pietari holds accounts with multiple brokers and may therefore have a conflict of interest when deciding which accounts he should trade in first.

Unconstrained Investments

The strategy has fewer constraints on its investments than traditional mutual funds.

The strategy portfolio can be invested in stocks, bonds or cash and these allocations can vary over time.

Compared to traditional mutual funds, the strategy also:

  • holds fewer securities
  • trades more
  • avoids following the index

Each of these points has been shown to be an important predictor of portfolio performance.

“We […] find that portfolio concentration is directly related to risk-adjusted returns for institutional investors worldwide” Source

“A one-standard-deviation increase in turnover is associated with a 0.65% per year increase in performance for the typical fund” Source

“We find that truly active funds significantly outperform closet indexers. Further, we find that the truly active funds are able to outperform their benchmarks on average by 1.04% per year” Source

Risk warning: Concentrated portfolios with few positions can suffer large losses if bad news arrives about any of the companies in the portfolio.

Cheap Stocks in Cheap Sectors

The strategy invests in geographies and sectors where values have collapsed due to macroeconomic problems.

Within these geographies and sectors, the strategy overweights stocks that trade at low valuations on measures such as price-to-earnings or price-to-net asset value.

Every stock in the strategy portfolio must also be a good company, with no obvious red flags or long-term threats to its business model.

The aim of the strategy is to maximize returns, even if this means taking more risks than usual.

Risk warning: The strategy portfolio tends to be concentrated in risky stocks, which means that its losses in any market downturn will likely exceed those of the market index.