ADDITIONAL FUND STUDIES
VII. STUDIES OF INDIVIDUAL PORTFOLIO PERFORMANCE
7.1 Early Findings
Early studies that address the individual in the investments arena are those by authors including Blume, et al. (1975) and Cohn, et al. (1974), among others, who deal with institutional issues such as the relative role of individuals versus institutions and issues of risk aversion in financial markets. Yet other studies of interest address tax issues.
In a different vein, one of the first studies that focuses on individual investors' performance is "Realized Returns on Common Stock Investments: The Experience of Individual Investors" (1978) by Schlarbaum, Lewellen, and Lease. In this work the authors focus on the individual securities transactions for a sample of roughly 2,500 retail investor brokerage accounts over the period 1964-1970 that made approximately 180,000 common stock trades. The authors analyze those "roundtrip" trades, that approximate 75,000 in number, or roughly 80% of all equity transactions. The vast majority of these trades are long positions, and 75% are round-lots. For each completed roundtrip, both a pre- and post-transactions-cost realized rate of retum is computed.
After a discussion of their methodology the authors turn their attention to trading patterns and report "a mean investment cycle duration of approximately 8/4 months and a median of 4 months"
for their sample. (It should be noted that approximately 80% of the trades are roundtrip; thus one-in-five roundtrips are not completed.) They report that the most active 10% of investors account for 57% of the roundtrips and the least active 10% account for less than 1% of the trades.
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Next, they report that the raw returns for roundtrip trades are 9.9% annually and 5.5% annually for pre- and post-transactions costs (see Table 7.1). Commissions and fees consume approximately 44% of the returns eamed over the entire period, with short-term consumption being 63%, compared to 26% for roundtrips lasting more than one year. They report a strong inverse relationship between the length of a roundtrip and the annualized return rate eamed on the trade.
Table 7.1: Relationship of Transaction Costs All Round Trips Mean Rates of Return:
1. Before Costs (%) 2. After Costs (%) Median Rates of Return:
1. Before Costs (%) 2. After Costs (%)
9.9 5.5 8.3 6.2
After their discussion of retums, they tum to the issue of benchmarking. For this purpose they employ seven different test portfolios, including both a value-weighted composite of NYSE and ASE stocks, and an equal-weighted portfolio of NYSE, ASE, and OTC securities. Note that the average annual retum for the first benchmark is 6.9%, compared to 14% for the second. As reflected in Table 7.2, the authors compare the after-transactions- costs realized investor retums with corresponding-period retums for the NYSE/ASE value-weighted portfolio. It is evident that the performance differential pictures a much less positive view of the individual investors' management skills, especially considering that no allowance for transactions costs are made for the market portfolio.
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Table 7.2: Comparison between the After-Transactions Costs Realized Rates of Return on Investment Round Trips and Corresponding-Period Rates of Return NYSE/ASE Value-Weighted Portfolio (%)
Round-Trip Category All Round Trips
0 - 3 0 days 3 1 - 1 8 2 days 183-365 days Over 365 days
Post-Transactions-Cost Annualized Performance Differential Mean
.9 35 1.4 1.0 .1
Median .5 24 .3 2.0
.2
Table 7.3 gives gross differential rates of return using the equal-weighted benchmark. Here, an even less favorable assessment emerges as the sample would be characterized as underperforming the market and especially so over longer time periods. The authors consider such a comparison to be a curiosity rather than particularly meaningful.
Table 7.3: Differences between Before-Transactions-Costs Rates of Return of Actual Investment Round Trips and Similarly Timed Round Trips with Equal Dollar Investments in All NYSE and ASE Securities (%)
Round-Trip Category All Round Trips
0 - 3 0 days 3 1 - 1 8 2 days 183-365 days Over 365 days
Equal-Weighted Index Annualized Performance
Mean -1.7
100 5.3 -.2 -5.1
Median -5.2
63 1.7 -.2 -6.4
In concluding, the authors state that individual investors display an overall picture of respectable investment acumen, especially in their short-term trading. Their rationale for such results is conjectural, and they speculate that this may result from trading responses to temporary securities price disequilibria. It may be that small investors can trade under these circumstances
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better than larger institutional investors, which might eliminate profit opportunities via their large-block transactions. Another speculation put forth is that the high quality of brokerage house recommendations to retail customers allows these customers to outperform the market.
The same authors, in a related paper, "The Common-Stock- Portfolio Performance Record of Individual Investors: 1964-70,"
compare the investment performance of individuals and institutions. They employ the same data set as above in contrasting individual investor returns with both naively-selected portfolios of similar risk profiles and with investments in mutual funds. The data comprise roughly $100 million of equity positions in portfolios approximating $40,000 each.
For the 84-months under consideration, the authors reconstruct the beginning-of-month portfolio balances for approximately 2,500 customer accounts. Four rate-of-retum series are then constructed for the aggregated portfolios, as well as for four comparable benchmark collections of securities, and one series for mutual funds. Table 7.4 shows the annualized returns for after- transactions costs equal-weighted and value-weighted portfolios, as well as for the market benchmark and for mutual funds. As can be seen, there is little difference in the four series.
Table 7.4: Rate of Return Series: 1964-70.
Series Rates of Return Annualized A. Individual investor portfolio returns:
(1) Portfolios equal-weighted:
Actual trade basis, after transaction costs 8.73%
(2) Portfolios value-weighted:
Actual trade basis, after transaction costs 8.60%
B. Market benchmark portfolio returns
Value-weighted portfolio of capital 8.09%
NYSE/ASE stocks
C. Equal-weighted mutual fimd portfolio 8.99%
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In further analysis the authors use a two-factor version of the market model and are unable to find alphas significantly different fi-om zero. Thus, neither mutual fixnds nor individual investors appear to either outperform or underperform the overall market. In light of these findings, the authors conclude that perhaps one reason individual investors manage their own portfolios is because of the enjoyment they receive from doing so. This is consistent with their finding via questionnaires that investors enjoy the responsibility and challenge of securities management.
7.2 Taxes
In a different vein, but also of interest pertaining to individual investor behavior, is the issue of taxes. The literature on taxes as related to investing is broad, as evidenced by, among others, the earlier works of Dyl (1977), Branch (1977), and Reinganum (1983), who address year-end market behavior, tax trading rules, and the January effect, respectively. However, one of the first works to directly address tax-loss selling by investors at year-end is "Evidence on Tax-Motivated Securities Trading Behavior" by Badrinath and Lewellen (1991). In this work the authors explain that earlier inquiries into this arena, such as those of Constantinides (1984) and Chan (1986), have been largely inferential. Next, they proceed with an analysis of investor timing as to the realization of capital gains and losses from stock investments. The data employed comprise records of over 80,000
"round trip" investments in stocks by approximately 3,000 customers of a large brokerage house during the period 1971-1979.
These data allow them to directly observe when heavy loss-taking activity by investors occurs. Table 7.5 shows that the number of losses realized (12,340) in the fourth quarters over the period far exceed the number of gains realized (7,513). As seen in the table.
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the profile of gains to losses over a year reflects an increase in the frequency of losses taken and a decrease in gains realized. In their conclusion they discuss that this pattern holds for investments which qualify for both short- and long-term gains treatment. They also report that a reduced tax rate on long-term gains and losses affects the timing of trades, but to a much lesser degree.
Table 7.5: Monthly Distribution of Realized Losses and Gains from Completed Investment Round Trips.
Month First Qtr Second Qtr Third Qtr Fourth Qtr Year Total
Number of Losses
Number of Gains Realized Realized Realizations 8860
9551 9634 12340 40385
12978 11189 9954 7513 41634
Losses as Percent of Total 41
46 49 62 49