Concentration versus diversification

The academics will tell you to diversify, and they will probably tell you that there's no such thing as too much diversification.

I beg to differ.

It all depends on your objective. If your objective is to match market performance, which, by the way, will beat 80-90% of individual and profession investors, then by all means diversify to your heart's content.

In diversifying, make sure you have all asset classes, including stocks, bonds, real estate, commodities, etc. And, make sure you have subclasses within in those asset classes, like small and large stocks, foreign and domestic stocks, etc. Finally, make sure you keep your costs as low as possible.

But, if you want to out-perform the market, you have to concentrate your investments.

By definition, investing in all the stocks in the S&P 500 will, after fees, never significantly beat a low priced S&P 500 index fund. That seems obvious.

The only way to out-perform the index is to invest heavily in a few stocks that you believe can out-perform the index. Once again, that's definitional.

It makes intuitive sense, too. Is it even possible to keep track--really understand and accurately assess the value--of 500 stocks? Not in this world.

It doesn't seem reasonable to expect your 21st, 51st, 101st, or 501st idea to be as good as your top 5, 10 or 20, either.

It makes as much sense empirically as it does intuitively.

The folks who out-perform the market--really out-perform after fees by a worthwhile margin--are always concentrated on less than 50 or, more likely than not, 20 stocks.

And, they probably size their positions to correspond to the return and probability characteristics of the investments they make. By that, I mean they buy more of the stocks they believe have a high probability of getting outstanding returns and buy less of the stocks they believe have a lower probability of achieving merely good returns.

If you don't believe me, look at Warren Buffett, or Bob Rodriguez, or Wally Weitz, or Bruce Berkowitz, or Glenn Greenberg.

Warren Buffet recently said that if he were managing $50 - $200 million right now, he'd have 80% in the top 5 stocks and 25% positions in the top few. If you aren't as good as Warren Buffet, you probably don't want to be that concentrated, but you get the idea.

Do you have to have conviction to invest this way? You betcha!! And nothing hones your investing focus like putting a lot of your money into a few stocks.

I've been investing this way for over 12 years now, and I've been quite happy with the results. I've beaten the market by a significant margin (past results are no guarantee of future performance), and this has allowed me to grow my net worth quite quickly.

If you want to match the market, diversify broadly and do it with the lowest fees possible.

But, if you want to beat the market, you should concentrate.

Nothing in this blog should be considered investment, financial, tax, or legal advice. The opinions, estimates and projections contained herein are subject to change without notice. Information throughout this blog has been obtained from sources believed to be accurate and reliable, but such accuracy cannot be guaranteed.