There need to be more "sell" and "strong sell" ratings on stocks for the ratings to have any meaning. For the most part, if you look over how the Wall Street analyst community rates stocks, the ratings completely inhabit the narrow range of "neutral" to "strong buy."
Yet there are so many areas where a good "strong sell" rating would help investors immensely. The kind of help that might put, oh, about $40 billion or more annually into the pockets of investors.
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Here's an example of a much-needed "strong sell" rating. There's a recent study out (link opens PDF file) titled "Assessing the Costs and Benefits of Brokers in the Mutual Fund Industry." It's the most detailed work ever conducted comparing the record of financial advisors to those who make their own mutual fund purchases.
Here are the results for returns for 1996 through 2002:
Financial advisors:
2.9%
Individual investors:
6.6%
*Raw returns, net of all expenses. Includes bond and equity funds.
The study measured the results of literally trillions of dollars of mutual fund purchases, including those from the most well-known and trusted names in the industry. The study demonstrates that Wall Street's brokers don't find better-performing funds than individuals, don't allocate assets among different asset classes better than individuals, and don't display fewer biases toward the "hot" stock than individuals.
Every honest financial advisor needs to start issuing a "strong sell" rating to the world of managed mutual funds. But don't expect that to happen anytime soon -- not with $40 billion (yes, that's
billion) going to brokers and mutual fund managers every year from sales fees and management costs.
Where's the strong buy?To the extent that mutual funds have any true benefits, they can provide investors with a diversified portfolio. But you can create that diversification directly by owning the same stocks that mutual funds own, at a fraction of the annual cost.
To begin to get the right diversification, become aware of the major divisions of stocks, as defined by the Global Industry Classification Standards (GICS):
- Energy
- Materials
- Industrials
- Consumer discretionary
- Consumer staples
- Health care
- Financials
- Information technology
- Telecommunication services
- Utilities
A portfolio with the greatest possible diversification benefits can be built by owning about two companies from each of these classifications. Here's an example. I've selected companies with low-ish price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios and high-ish returns on equity (ROE) relative to the industry averages. That combination of factors has historically produced better-than-average returns:
GICS
Company
P/E
ROE
Energy
Hess (NYSE: HES)
6.3
27%
Materials
Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold (NYSE: FCX)
3.4
17%
Industrials
Caterpillar
6.2
42%
Consumer Discretionary
Tempur-Pedic (NYSE: TPX)
5.5
174%
Consumer Staples
Archer Daniels Midland
6.4
19%
Health Care
Wyeth (NYSE: WYE)
10.1
24%
Financials
Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC)
14.2
14%
Information Technology
Versant (Nasdaq: VSNT)
6.4
35%
Telecom
France Telecom (NYSE: FTE)
9.2
20%
Utilities
Alliant Energy
7.4
16%
Copyright © 2008 Universal Press Syndicate.
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