Buy and hold

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Buy and hold, also called position trading, is an investment strategy whereby an investor buys financial assets or non-financial assets such as real estate, to hold them long term, with the goal of realizing price appreciation, despite volatility. [1]

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This approach implies confidence that the value of the investments will be higher in the future. Investors must not be affected by recency bias, emotions, and must understand their propensity to risk aversion. Investors must buy financial instruments that they expect to appreciate in the long term. Buy and hold investors do not sell after a decline in value. They do not engage in market timing (i.e. selling a security with the goal of buying it again at a lower price) and do not believe in calendar effects such as Sell in May. [2]

Buy and hold is an example of passive management. [3] It has been recommended by Warren Buffett, Jack Bogle, Burton Malkiel, John Templeton, Peter Lynch, and Benjamin Graham since, in the long run, there is a high correlation between the stock market and economic growth. [4] [5]

Efficient-market hypothesis

According to the efficient-market hypothesis (EMH), if every security is fairly valued at all times, then there is really no point to trade. Some take the buy and hold strategy to an extreme, advocating that you should never sell a security unless you need the money. [6] However, Warren Buffett is an example of a buy and hold advocate who has rejected the EMH in his writings, and has built his fortune by investing in companies when they were undervalued.

Lower costs

Others have advocated buy-and-hold on purely cost-based grounds. Costs such as commissions are incurred on all transactions, and the buy and hold strategy involves the fewest transactions for a constant amount invested, all other things being equal. Taxation law also has some effect; long-term capital gain taxes may be lower than those incurred from short term trading, and tax may be due only when and if the asset is sold. [5]

See Stock market cycles and Market timing. Market timing can cause poor performance. [7]

Return-Chasing Behavior

At the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, YiLi Chien, Senior Economist wrote about return-chasing behavior. The average equity mutual fund investor tends to buy them with high past returns and sell otherwise. Buying mutual funds with high returns is called a “return-chasing behavior.” Equity mutual fund flows have a positive correlation with past performance, with a return-flow correlation coefficient of 0.49. Stock market returns are almost unpredictable in the short term. Stock market returns tend to go back to the long-term average. The tendency to buy mutual funds with high returns and sell those with low returns can reduce profit. [8]

Related Research Articles

Passive management is an investing strategy that tracks a market-weighted index or portfolio. Passive management is most common on the equity market, where index funds track a stock market index, but it is becoming more common in other investment types, including bonds, commodities and hedge funds.

Investment is traditionally defined as the "commitment of resources to achieve later benefits". If an investment involves money, then it can be defined as a "commitment of money to receive more money later". From a broader viewpoint, an investment can be defined as "to tailor the pattern of expenditure and receipt of resources to optimise the desirable patterns of these flows". When expenditure and receipts are defined in terms of money, then the net monetary receipt in a time period is termed as cash flow, while money received in a series of several time periods is termed as cash flow stream. Investment science is the application of scientific tools for investments.

An index fund is a mutual fund or exchange-traded fund (ETF) designed to follow certain preset rules so that the fund can replicate the performance ("track") of a specified basket of underlying investments. While index providers often emphasize that they are for-profit organizations, index providers have the ability to act as "reluctant regulators" when determining which companies are suitable for an index. Those rules may include tracking prominent indexes like the S&P 500 or the Dow Jones Industrial Average or implementation rules, such as tax-management, tracking error minimization, large block trading or patient/flexible trading strategies that allow for greater tracking error but lower market impact costs. Index funds may also have rules that screen for social and sustainable criteria.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Efficient-market hypothesis</span> Economic theory that asset prices fully reflect all available information

The efficient-market hypothesis (EMH) is a hypothesis in financial economics that states that asset prices reflect all available information. A direct implication is that it is impossible to "beat the market" consistently on a risk-adjusted basis since market prices should only react to new information.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benjamin Graham</span> American economist, professor, and investor

Benjamin Graham was a British-born American economist, professor and investor. He is widely known as the "father of value investing", and wrote two of the founding texts in neoclassical investing: Security Analysis (1934) with David Dodd, and The Intelligent Investor (1949). His investment philosophy stressed investor psychology, minimal debt, buy-and-hold investing, fundamental analysis, concentrated diversification, buying within the margin of safety, activist investing, and contrarian mindsets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Value investing</span> Investment paradigm

Value investing is an investment paradigm that involves buying securities that appear underpriced by some form of fundamental analysis. The various forms of value investing derive from the investment philosophy first taught by Benjamin Graham and David Dodd at Columbia Business School in 1928, and subsequently developed in their 1934 text Security Analysis.

Market timing is the strategy of making buying or selling decisions of financial assets by attempting to predict future market price movements. The prediction may be based on an outlook of market or economic conditions resulting from technical or fundamental analysis. This is an investment strategy based on the outlook for an aggregate market rather than for a particular financial asset.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John C. Bogle</span> American investor, money manager (1929–2019)

John Clifton "Jack" Bogle was an American investor, business magnate, and philanthropist. He was the founder and chief executive of The Vanguard Group, and is credited with popularizing the index fund. An avid investor and money manager himself, he preached investment over speculation, long-term patience over short-term action, and reducing broker fees as much as possible. The ideal investment vehicle for Bogle was a low-cost index fund representing the entire US market, held over a lifetime with dividends reinvested, and with a minimum 20% bond allocation.

Active management is an approach to investing. In an actively managed portfolio of investments, the investor selects the investments that make up the portfolio. Active management is often compared to passive management or index investing.

In finance, an investment strategy is a set of rules, behaviors or procedures, designed to guide an investor's selection of an investment portfolio. Individuals have different profit objectives, and their individual skills make different tactics and strategies appropriate. Some choices involve a tradeoff between risk and return. Most investors fall somewhere in between, accepting some risk for the expectation of higher returns. Investors frequently pick investments to hedge themselves against inflation. During periods of high inflation investments such as shares tend to perform less well in real terms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Asset allocation</span> Investment strategy

Asset allocation is the implementation of an investment strategy that attempts to balance risk versus reward by adjusting the percentage of each asset in an investment portfolio according to the investor's risk tolerance, goals and investment time frame. The focus is on the characteristics of the overall portfolio. Such a strategy contrasts with an approach that focuses on individual assets.

Investment style, is a term in investment management, referring to a characteristic investment philosophy employed by an investor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stock trader</span> Person or company involved in trading equity securities

A stock trader or equity trader or share trader, also called a stock investor, is a person or company involved in trading equity securities and attempting to profit from the purchase and sale of those securities. Stock traders may be an investor, agent, hedger, arbitrageur, speculator, or stockbroker. Such equity trading in large publicly traded companies may be through a stock exchange. Stock shares in smaller public companies may be bought and sold in over-the-counter (OTC) markets or in some instances in equity crowdfunding platforms.

<i>A Random Walk Down Wall Street</i> 1973 book by Burton Malkiel

A Random Walk Down Wall Street, written by Burton Gordon Malkiel, a Princeton University economist, is a book on the subject of stock markets which popularized the random walk hypothesis. Malkiel argues that asset prices typically exhibit signs of a random walk, and thus one cannot consistently outperform market averages. The book is frequently cited by those in favor of the efficient-market hypothesis. As of 2023, there have been 13 editions. After the 12th edition, over 1.5 million copies had been sold A practical popularization is The Random Walk Guide to Investing: Ten Rules for Financial Success.

Tactical asset allocation (TAA) is a dynamic investment strategy that actively adjusts a portfolio's asset allocation. The goal of a TAA strategy is to improve the risk-adjusted returns of passive management investing.

<i>The Little Book of Common Sense Investing</i> Book by John C. Bogle

The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns is a 2007 and 2017 book on index investing, by John C. Bogle, the founder and former CEO of the Vanguard Group. He focuses on index funds, which will give the investor the average market return, and on keeping investing costs low, so that the index fund investor will consistently do better than other investors after costs are considered. Trying to beat the market "is a loser's game," according to Bogle and "the more the managers and brokers take, the less investors make."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Class B share</span> Type of common or preferred stock

In finance, a Class B share or Class C share is a designation for a share class of a common or preferred stock that typically has strengthened voting rights or other benefits compared to a Class A share that may have been created. The equity structure, or how many types of shares are offered, is determined by the corporate charter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stock</span> Shares into which ownership of the corporation is divided

Stock consist of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided. A single share of the stock means fractional ownership of the corporation in proportion to the total number of shares. This typically entitles the shareholder (stockholder) to that fraction of the company's earnings, proceeds from liquidation of assets, or voting power, often dividing these up in proportion to the amount of money each stockholder has invested. Not all stock is necessarily equal, as certain classes of stock may be issued, for example, without voting rights, with enhanced voting rights, or with a certain priority to receive profits or liquidation proceeds before or after other classes of shareholders.

A period of financial distress occurs when the price of a company or an asset or an index of a set of assets in a market is declining with the danger of a sudden crash of value occurring, either because the company is experiencing increasing problems of cash flow or a deteriorating credit balance or because the price had become too high as a result of a speculative bubble that has now peaked.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Investment fund</span> Way of investing money alongside other investors

An investment fund is a way of investing money alongside other investors in order to benefit from the inherent advantages of working as part of a group such as reducing the risks of the investment by a significant percentage. These advantages include an ability to:

References

  1. BEERS, BRIAN (May 13, 2020). "Buy And Hold Definition". Investopedia .
  2. Lake, Rebecca (June 19, 2019). "8 Mistakes That Can Wreck Your Buy-and-Hold Strategy". U.S. News & World Report .
  3. Malkiel, Burton G. (Jan 5, 2015). A Random Walk Down Wall Street. W. W. Norton. ISBN   9780393248951. ISBN   0-393-03888-2
  4. Elkins, Kathleen (September 18, 2018). "Warren Buffett and Jack Bogle agree on the formula for long-term success: 'Buy and hold'". CNBC .
  5. 1 2 TUN, ZAW THIHA (August 22, 2019). "Pros & Cons Of A Passive Buy And Hold Strategy". Investopedia .
  6. Meadows, Richard (May 14, 2020). "Kindly Stop Saying The Efficient Market Hypothesis is Dead". Deep Dish.
  7. copied from wikipedia article Market timing Metcalfe, Guy (18 July 2018). "The mathematics of market timing". PLOS ONE. 13 (7): e0200561. arXiv: 1712.05031 . Bibcode:2018PLoSO..1300561M. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0200561 . PMC   6051602 . PMID   30021021.
  8. copied from the wikipedia article Market timing "Chasing Returns Has a High Cost for Investors | St. Louis Fed On the Economy". Archived from the original on 2014-12-27. Retrieved 2020-10-15.