Tuesday, September 06, 2011

Averaging Up or Down?

I guess the question above would be particularly applicable to value investors, as they often know and understand their own companies best over a period of time and thus are often faced with the question of whether to purchase more shares in these same companies. An investor would be confronted with the simple question of whether he should average up (i.e. purchase shares at a higher price compared to his original purchase) or average down (purchasing at a lower price than his original purchase in order to reduce his overall average cost per share). Let’s analyze both situations to see what insights can be gleaned as to the actions to be taken, and also the ramifications and consequences of each action.

Averaging Down

I guess this would be viewed as a simple decision – to purchase more shares in a company in order to reduce the cost of your holdings. Note that this can usually only be done in a major correction or in a protracted bear market, as the value investor would have usually purchased his shares with a requisite margin of safety to begin with. This means that it will be unlikely and improbable (but not impossible) for the share price to fall below his purchase price and remain there for a long enough period for him to accumulate comfortably. Even if this does happen, the investor must not only be nimble enough to be able to capture the opportunity to buy more shares in his favourite company, but must also control his emotions of fear and panic when market valuations plunge. The logic of buying more when prices fall may be sound, but in reality it can be difficult and uncomfortable to go against the crowd as human nature dictates that we feel more at ease following the direction of the herd. Hence, a seemingly simple action such as averaging down comes with a lot of emotional hang-ups, and as an investor who has done this before, I can only say that one must have both conviction and fortitude. In short, one must do the necessary research and be convinced in one’s own analysis to be able to carry out the transaction; and along with it also comes the ability to withstand short-term market price swings without batting an eyelid.

Another danger of averaging down comes in the form of the Value Trap. As one reader recently commented on my post on divestment of GRP, the one big mistake which all value investors face is the seemingly attractive low PER and valuations offered by a company which hides the true extent of its unsuitability. An investor must carefully assess the future prospects of the business, and convince himself that the business is able to at least sustain its cash flow generation to be able to pay out steady dividends, or that it is growing slowly but steadily. There is a fine line to be drawn between a company in a declining industry which is floundering, and one which is in a mature industry with little growth potential; but the difference can be of paramount importance in determining the returns to be obtained over the long-term.

It all boils down to an investor performing a conscious evaluation of a business’ potential to continue to generate profits and cash, in order to justify his averaging down strategy. A business is not always more attractive just because it has lower valuations, and vice versa; as everyone knows that conditions in the business world are never so simple. Hence, it involves a detailed assessment of valuations in relation to profit and FCF-generation capability. I am the first to admit that this is far from easy, therefore the decision to average down should not be taken lightly and should be a matter of grave importance – significant judgement is required to ensure that one’s investment does not spiral down into the depths of a black hole or chasm.

Averaging Up

Averaging up, I feel, is a lot trickier than averaging down. Perhaps a reader might attribute it to a matter of perception, as it never seems to make sense to purchase something at a higher price (and by extended definition higher valuations) compared to one’s original purchase price. At this juncture, perhaps, I should clarify a few mis-conceptions about the process of averaging up which even I was prone to make prior to writing about this topic. These mis-conceptions do not just include those of valuation, but also involve psychological biases under the umbrella of behavioural finance.

When one thinks of averaging up, one immediately thinks of violating the basic principle of investing, which is to purchase at a more affordable valuation as compared to a higher valuation as provided by Mr. Market. But things are not always as simple as they seem – a business is dynamic in nature and is always changing, therefore valuations and prospects do not stay constant either. The difficulty is in determining what constitutes a margin of safety in purchasing at a higher price as the business may have improved or deteriorated since your previous purchase. The hard work involved is to assess and ascertain once again if the business is worth purchasing in its current form, by incorporating all new information, news flow and corporate actions and events since your last purchase.

To give a recent example of mine, I had averaged up on purchase of Boustead after an absence of 2.5 years. Essentially, I had to make another assessment of the Company based on the recent corporate newsflow, as well as reading the Annual Report FY 2011 thoroughly and by talking to and questioning the Management during the recent AGM in July 2011. This evaluation has to be conducted to ensure that at the current price level and valuation, Boustead would still make a decent and compelling investment. Once the assessment was done and the conclusion was made, I then proceeded to execute my order to accumulate more at a market price of 85 Singapore cents, and this was blogged about some time back in late-August 2011.

The behavioural bias involved in averaging up is anchoring bias, which means that one tends to use their historical purchase price as a mental “anchor”, and anything which is higher in PRICE tends to look more expensive in relation to your purchase price. However, this is a wrong attitude to have as your previous purchase price is considered history and should not be relevant to your current decision. In fact, one should behave as if one is considered the stock for purchase without owning any in the first place, as it is irrelevant to one’s purchase decision to always mentally anchor oneself to a historical purchase price.

Conclusion

From the above, it can be deduced that whether one decides to average down or up, the common theme in both cases is to do a rational and objective assessment of the business to see if it continues to be investment-worthy. It is never an easy and clear-cut decision and one has to be prepared for losses in case things do not pan out as planned; but we should take such lessons stoically and continue to learn from them. As investors it is impossible to avoid mistakes, but we should always aim to make small financial mistakes and to reap big financial rewards, which in the long-run would translate into an increase in financial assets and would bring one ever closer to the dream of financial independence.

8 comments:

Singapore Man of Leisure said...

Profound and interesting post as usual MW!

Just for fun, I would like to use the Pavlov example to show we must not forget our basic instincts:


Investor A
-----------
Buy stock X at $10. Market respond with negative feedback by dropping the price to $8. Oooh. Pain!Investor A buys more. Market again punish with price drop to $5. Investor A buys more again! Pain is good! Investor A is masochistic!?


Investor B
-----------
Buy stock at Y at $10. Market rewards the decision by raising the price to $12. Hey! I am right!
Investor buys more at $12 and market again rewards investor by pushing the price up to $14. Bingo!Let the good times roll! Investor buys more! Investor B is hedonistic!?

Maybe the quesiton of average up or average down may lie within us whether we prefer pain or pleasure.

Moans of pleasure from SMOL - I love leather and steel.

LOL!

Anonymous said...

Almost all financial book's authors do not approve of average down or better(pyramid down). They think it is a very dangerous/disadvantage practice. But they approve of average up or better pyramid up. They say when you pyramid up you are always in the money, technically speaking. So you can take profit should you chicken out or change your mind about this stock.
I have read this very long ago. But psychologically, it's very hard to pyramid up for we like to pay for thing getting "cheaper & cheaper" and not more and more "expensive".
In actual fact, we are doing the "same thing" whether pyramid down or up. But there is definitely a lot of advantage when pyramid up.
i want to try pyramid up after all these donkey years of average down.
i think i am wrong in the past.
May i know your opinion?
All opinions are welcome.
Shalom.

Calvin said...

Temperament, there is nothing wrong with averaging down when you have absolute faith in the stock and you believe in defensiveness of the stock. Most importantly you must be investing in for the long term. Such stocks could include REITs, Infrastructure, Telcos which will not be affected regardless of what's going on in the outside world. People still need to go shopping, take public transport, use the handphone etc.

As to overall post, I don't really care about averaging up or down, I just care about getting a value buy. The truth is nobody can time the market so if you have capital to deploy and you spot an undervalued stock. You should just buy it. Stay invested for the long term and you will eventually realize your value.

Calvin
http://www.investinpassiveincome.com

Musicwhiz said...

Hi SMOL,

Erm....ok interesting analogies there. I can sense that you have a very good sense of humour and it would be a pleasure talking to you in real life!

But just to set the record straight, an investor should not feel fearful or euphoric should the share price move up or down after his purchase. After all, if it was supported by a detailed assessment of the business in the first place, then he should just sit back and relax and go about his life without worrying about Mr. Market's manic mood swings.

Masochism and hedonism? I guess we all have a bit of both! I can attest to that, but that's another topic! Haha!

Cheers,
Musicwhiz

Musicwhiz said...

Hi Temperament,

It depends on which school of thought you subscribe to. Traders who trade on momentum tend to "go with the flow" and buy more when they spot a trend of the price increasing. I tend to frown on such practices as I believe risk increases whe price increases without any corresponding visible improvement in fundamentals.

From an investment perspective, we should always seek to affirm our beliefs and test our judgement by assessing objectively and rationally to the best of our ability. Only then can we sleep well at night!

Regards,
Musicwhiz

Musicwhiz said...

Hi Calvin,

Very nice blog you have, and your portfolio contains a lot of REITs. Any reason for your heavy weightage on REITs?

Noted too that you started blogging in June 2011. Keep up the great work! Will be visiting your blog often.

And yes I agree. We should focus on a value buy and wait for time to realize the true value of the investment!

Thanks,
Musicwhiz

Anonymous said...

Hi,
Thank you all for your opinions. OF course, most financial authors favor the pyramid-up system only when "all things are being equal".

Pyramid down or up is just a form of "money management" in buying/selling a stock because nobody really can know what the market going to do next.
If i know, then i will only buy at the bottom and sell at the top. Then any stock will do.
i will be richer than WB.
What a joke.
Ha! Ha!

Musicwhiz said...

Hi Temperament,

You have a point when you mention money management. For me, I'd call it "Portfolio Management", more so because you are actually tweaking weightages within the portfolio and also deciding on which stock you wish to own more of as a fraction of the entire portfolio.

Thanks,
Musicwhiz