Pim van Vliet, PhD, is the writer of High Returns from Low Risk: A Remarkable Stock Market Paradox with Jan de Koning.
On the planet {of professional} investing, a scary obsession has taken maintain: the fixation on benchmarks and relative efficiency. This phenomenon, which I’m coining “benchmarkism,” is distorting incentives and pulling many institutional buyers within the incorrect path. It’s time to discover how we are able to escape this benchmark lure for smarter investing the place the main focus is on steady long-term wealth development.
The Rise of the Benchmark
The rise of funding benchmarks began within the late nineteenth century when Charles Dow launched the Dow Jones Industrial Common in 1896. At the moment, the position of benchmarks was minimal. Traders had been primarily centered on dividends, as demonstrated by funds like these provided by Robeco. Benchmarks performed no position in Robeco’s funds till many years after the agency was based in 1929.
It wasn’t till the environment friendly market speculation gained prominence within the Nineteen Sixties that benchmarks began turning into the funding trade’s central efficiency yardstick. Right now, beating benchmarks is commonly seen because the definitive measure of success, overshadowing essentially the most basic guidelines of investing — don’t lose capital and obtain an enough return. Traders are more and more fixated on relative short-term efficiency.
John Maynard Keynes as soon as quipped, “It’s higher to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally.” Nowhere is that this assertion embraced with as a lot approbation as in in the present day’s benchmark-driven world.
The Core Drawback of Benchmarkism
The crux of the issue with benchmarkism is that it shifts the investor’s focus away from absolute returns and capital preservation. Benchmarkism shifts the main focus to outperforming the benchmark. However this can lead to irrational decision-making. Think about a portfolio supervisor selecting between a steady inventory providing an 8% return and an index fund that averages 8% however fluctuates wildly. Logically, most buyers would choose the steady inventory for its decrease absolute danger. But, a supervisor aiming to beat the benchmark may keep away from the steady inventory as a result of it affords durations of no outperformance, which is a considerable danger within the realm of benchmarkism. This dilemma is illustrated in Determine 1.
Exhibit 1. Secure inventory versus unstable benchmark.
A hypothetical instance of returns of a inventory and the benchmark in two durations.
This conduct displays how the drive to beat benchmarks can push buyers to tackle extra dangers, diverting consideration away from the 2 basic funding ideas: capital preservation and long-term wealth development. In bond markets, for instance, debt-laden nations or firms typically get bigger weights in bond indices. In consequence, portfolios are sometimes tilted towards the riskiest issuers, just because they carry extra debt. That’s the paradox of benchmark investing: it encourages risk-taking in pursuit of relative good points, typically on the expense of widespread sense.
Historic Lesson of Fisher Black
The concentrate on relative return over danger administration isn’t new. Fisher Black — one of many architects of the now 60-year-old capital asset pricing model (CAPM) — tried to launch a low-risk fairness fund at Wells Fargo within the early Seventies. His analysis demonstrated that low-beta shares might obtain market-like returns with lowered capital danger. The fund aimed to revenue from this precept of “successful by shedding much less.” But, it didn’t take off. The issue? Black’s modern technique confronted leverage constraints, and buyers had been extra centered on beating the market than decreasing danger.[i]
Paradoxically, it wasn’t till the dot-com bubble burst in 2000 and the monetary disaster of 2008 that defensive, low-volatility methods gained actual traction. A number of low-volatility ETFs grew to become extremely popular, attracting massive inflows within the early 2010s.[1] Right now, Black’s concept is extra related than ever. Defensive methods have demonstrated their resilience by outperforming throughout downturns akin to in 2022. Nonetheless, the emphasis on relative efficiency typically makes these methods seem much less interesting in opposition to an more and more concentrated benchmark in bullish markets, as seen within the ongoing US tech rally of 2024.
The Broader Dangers of Benchmarkism
The unintended penalties of benchmarkism lengthen past particular person portfolios. By focusing solely on beating the benchmark, many institutional buyers have develop into hostages to indices. This focus can result in misallocation of capital, the place dangerous investments develop into overvalued and safer ones stay underappreciated. A transparent instance of this was in the course of the late Nineteen Nineties tech bubble, when expertise shares grew to become grossly overvalued as they gained bigger and bigger weights within the indices.
Worse nonetheless, regulatory frameworks can reinforce this conduct. In nations just like the Netherlands, company pension funds are required to elucidate why their efficiency deviates from the benchmark, typically penalizing funds that pursue extra defensive methods. In Australia, the “Your Future, Your Tremendous” legislation pressures buyers to stay to benchmark-like returns, even when it may not be in the very best long-term curiosity of their beneficiaries.
The end result? Skilled buyers, certain by fiduciary duties and regulatory oversight, can not scale back absolutely the danger of their fairness portfolio to keep away from falling behind their more and more concentrated benchmark, even in markets that exhibit speculative bubbles or systemic instability.
The Function of Index Committees
The affect of benchmark suppliers, akin to MSCI, is one other crucial issue to contemplate. These committees wield immense energy in deciding which shares or nations are included in an index. Their choices, typically formed by lobbying efforts, have profound implications for world funding flows. A notable instance is the inclusion of native Chinese language shares in world indices since 2018, which prompted buyers worldwide to allocate capital to China, no matter particular governance points or geopolitical danger concerned.
Index suppliers are additionally lobbying to embed their benchmarks into regulatory frameworks. Latest strikes in Brussels to include Paris-Aligned benchmarks into the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) illustrate how the subjective decisions of index suppliers can steer large-scale funding flows. But these indices should not all the time constant.
For instance, Nexans, an organization central to the power transition, was excluded from the Paris-Aligned Excessive Yield Index because of its carbon emissions, whereas Ford Motor — a largely carbon-fuel-based automaker — was included. Such inconsistencies reveal the dangers of relying too closely on benchmarks.
Benchmarks Unchained: Is There an Escape?
How can buyers break away from the benchmark lure? Over the previous decade, sustainable and influence investing have gained appreciable momentum. Excluding tobacco or fossil gas shares, for example, typically results in deviations from customary benchmarks. As extra buyers undertake sustainability standards, they’re pressured to rethink the position of benchmarks. They’ll now not justify their funding choices by merely saying, “It’s within the index.”
This shift encourages a rethinking of funding targets. By incorporating sustainability standards and influence of their funding course of, buyers are beginning to transfer past the slim concentrate on relative danger and return, embracing a 3rd dimension: sustainability. This opens the door to decreasing benchmark dependence, prioritizing absolute danger, and fostering a clearer understanding of “figuring out what you personal.”
Worse than Marxism?
A provocative article by Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in 2016, “Why Passive Funding is Worse than Marxism,” ignited the debate on benchmark investing. Whereas the comparability was exaggerated, it highlighted an essential query: Who might be left to find out market costs — speculators or buyers?
If skilled buyers adhere too strictly to benchmarks, market costs will more and more be set by a small group of energetic gamers. The composition of this group is essential, however there’s no assure they’ll make markets extra environment friendly. As we noticed with the 2021 GameStop brief squeeze, speculative retail buyers leveraging high-risk positions can drive costs to bubble ranges and push extra disciplined buyers who’re centered on fundamentals to the sideline. The extra buyers align with benchmarks, the extra fragile markets develop into as capital is allotted based mostly on the composition of an index quite than fundamentals.
Adapting Laws and Funding Rules
To totally escape the benchmark captivity, there must be a broader rethinking of regulation and funding ideas. Regulators, for example, might focus extra on absolute danger quite than relative danger when evaluating efficiency. This is able to shift consideration away from short-term monitoring error and as an alternative emphasize long-term danger administration. By specializing in a portfolio’s volatility or resilience throughout market downturns, quite than its proximity to the benchmark, buyers can regain the liberty to make extra considerate, risk-aware choices.[ii]
Furthermore, pension funds and institutional buyers frequently revisit their funding ideas. Benchmarks can develop into inflexible requirements that don’t align with the fiduciary responsibility to guard and develop capital over the long run. Common evaluate of the benchmarks’ position in portfolio administration may help be certain that managers stay centered on sustainable development and preservation of capital, quite than getting slowed down in short-term relative efficiency discussions.
A Return to the Basic Benchmark
Finally, one of the simplest ways to beat the benchmark is to disregard it — not less than within the brief time period. Warren Buffett’s well-known rule, “Don’t lose capital,” must be the guiding benchmark for all buyers. By specializing in absolute returns and minimizing pointless danger, buyers can keep away from the distortions attributable to benchmarkism.
Underrepresented segments in benchmarks, akin to small caps or defensive shares, typically present compelling alternatives, particularly in durations of elevated market focus like in the present day. Equally, fallen angels — bonds that downgrade from funding grade to excessive yield — can develop into attractively priced because of pressured promoting by benchmark-driven buyers. These inefficiencies are the funding alternatives that contrarian buyers can exploit.
An investor’s edge may due to this fact come not from being smarter, however from being much less constrained. Right here lies the paradox: by letting go of the fixation on benchmarks and specializing in fundamentals and important dangers like shedding capital, buyers can unlock hidden worth and obtain long-term efficiency — even outperforming the benchmark.
Listed below are some film concepts: Misplaced in Benchmarkland, The Benchmark Redemption, Gone with the Benchmark, and Breaking Benchmarks
Link to research papers by Pim van Vliet.
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/low-volatility-etfs-attracting-big-inflows-2011-12
[i] See Bernstein (2012) Capital Concepts: The Unbelievable Origins of Fashionable Wall Road.
[ii] Swinkels, L., Blitz, D., Hallerbach, W., & van Vliet, P. (2018). Fairness Solvency Capital Necessities-What Institutional Regulation Can Study from Non-public Investor Regulation. The Geneva Papers on Threat and Insurance coverage-Points and Follow, 43(4), 633-652.
