Can Underperformance Be a Good Thing?

At first glance, that question probably sounds ridiculous. Let’s be honest – no one in their right mind would want to hire (and pay) any investment advisor who underperforms the market. But the important question that needs to be answered is, “over what period of time?”.

When you are working with a risk-adjusted portfolio you are never going to outperform the market in years when it goes straight up without even a hint of a correction (yes, we’re looking at you 2013…) Such is the nature of building a risk-averse portfolio. In our opinion, nobody makes this point better than esteemed money manager, Seth Klarman of the Baupost Group.  Consider his recent comments: 

Most U.S. investors today have a clear opinion about what everyone else has no choice but to do. Which is to say, with bonds yielding next to nothing, the only way investors have a chance of earning a return is to buy stocks. Everyone knows this, and is counting on it to remain the case.

Investing, when it looks the easiest, is at its hardest. When just about everyone heavily invested is doing well, it is hard for others to resist jumping in. But a market relentlessly rising in the face of challenging fundamentals–recession in Europe and Japan, slowdown in China, fiscal stalemate and high unemployment in the U.S.– is the riskiest environment of all.

And a word for those who believe that swing and/or momentum trading, about as effective as a coin toss in “forecasting” the future as a coin toss, is the way to go.

Only a small number of investors maintain the fortitude and client confidence to pursue long-term investment success even at the price of short-term underperformance. Most investors feel the hefty weight of short-term performance expectations, forcing them to take up marginal or highly speculative investments that we shun. When markets are rising, such investments may perform well, which means that our unwavering patience and discipline sometimes impairs our results and makes us appear overly cautious. The payoff from a risk-averse, long-term orientation is–just that–long term. It is measurable only over the span of many years, over one or more market cycles.

Our willingness to invest amidst failing markets is the best way we know to build positions at great prices, but this strategy, too, can cause short-term underperformance. Buying as prices are falling can look stupid until sellers are exhausted and buyers who held back cannot effectively deploy capital except at much higher prices. Our resolve in holding cash balances–sometimes very large ones–absent compelling opportunity is another potential performance drag.

But we know that in a world in which being anti-fragile is good, what doesn’t kill you can make you stronger. Short-term underperforrnance doesn’t trouble us; indeed, because it is the price that must sometimes be paid for longer-term outperformance, it doesn’t even enter into our list of concerns. Patience and discipline can make you look foolishly out of touch until they make you look prudent and even prescient. Holding significant, low or even zero-yielding cash can seem ridiculous until you are one of the few with buying power amidst a sudden downdraft. Avoiding leverage may seem overly conservative until it becomes the only sane course. Concentrating your portfolio in the most compelling opportunities and avoiding over diversification for its own sake may sometimes lead to short-term underperformance, but eventually it pays off in outperformance.

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This post was written by Conscient Capital