Too Much Tech, Too Many Treasurys
If your portfolio is out of whack, you could ask an investment adviser for help. But you might have better luck with your therapist.
It's a common dilemma: You know you have the wrong mix of investments, but you cannot bring yourself to fix the mess. Maybe you are overweighted in bonds, a legacy of the bear market. Maybe you are overloaded with technology stocks, a bitter reminder of the late 1990s bull market.
Why is it so difficult to change? At issue are three mental mistakes -- and they're proving awfully tough to overcome in 2004's tepid market.
Chasing winners. Looking to lighten up on bonds and get back into stocks? Sure, you know stocks are a long-term investment and, sure, you know they are best bought when cheap.
Yet it's a lot easier to pull the trigger and buy stocks if the market has lately been scoring gains. And this year, gains have been hard to come by, with the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index up just 2%.
"People are influenced by what has happened most recently, and then they extrapolate from that," says Meir Statman, a finance professor at Santa Clara University in California. "But often, they end up being optimistic and pessimistic at just the wrong time."
Consider some results from the UBS Index of Investor Optimism, a monthly poll conducted by UBS and the Gallup Organization. Each month, the poll asks investors what gain they expect from their portfolio during the next 12 months. Result? You guessed it: The answers rise and fall with the stock market.
For instance, during the bruising bear market, investors grew increasingly pessimistic, and at the market bottom they were looking for median portfolio gains of just 5%. But true to form, last year's rally brightened investors' spirits and by January 2004 they were expecting 10% returns.
That burgeoning enthusiasm, however, has been nixed by this year's wobbly market. Indeed, May's poll found that investors were expecting median 12-month portfolio gains of just 7%. My hunch: Many folks, who were tempted to buy stocks after last year's rally, have since backed off, deterred by 2004's lackluster results.
Getting even. This year's choppy stock market hasn't scared off just bond investors. It has also made it difficult for stock investors to rejigger their portfolios.
Blame it on the old "get even, then get out" syndrome. With stocks treading water, many investors are reluctant to sell, because they are a long way from recovering their bear-market losses. The S&P 500 remains 26% below its March 2000 peak, while the Nasdaq Composite Index is off a whopping 61%.
To be sure, investors who bought near the peak are underwater, whether they sell or not. But selling losers is still agonizing, because it means admitting you made a mistake.
"If you're rational and you have a loss, you sell, take the tax loss and move on," Prof. Statman says. "But if you're a normal person, selling at a loss tears your heart out."
Folks who bought in early 2000 won't necessarily wait to recoup their full losses before selling. Instead, if breaking even seems unlikely, investors will often lower the selling price they deem acceptable. But at this point, many folks clearly aren't ready to cut their losses.
Mustering courage. Whether you need to buy stocks or buy bonds, it takes confidence to act. And right now, investors just aren't confident.
"There's this status-quo bias," says John Nofsinger, a finance professor at Washington State University in Pullman, Wash. "We're afraid to do anything, because we're afraid we'll regret it."
Once again, it's driven by recent market action. When markets are flying high, folks attribute their portfolio's gains to their own brilliance. That gives them the confidence to trade more and to take greater risks. But 2003's growing confidence has been damped by this year's weak results.
You can see this trepidation in the pattern of buying and selling at Ameritrade Holding Corp. In February 2003, there were 100,000 trades per day through the Omaha, Neb., online-brokerage firm.
Eleven months later, after 2003's stock-market rally, that number had spiked to 254,000. But as stocks have struggled this year, Ameritrade's activity has subsided, slipping in May to 144,000 trades per day.
Similarly, this rising and falling confidence is reflected in mutual-fund sales. Brian Reid, an economist at Washington, D.C.'s Investment Company Institute, says withdrawals from U.S. stock funds don't change much from one month to the next.
Instead, to gauge investor sentiment, you need to look at new stock-fund sales. "In 2002, sales continually weakened, and they bottomed in February 2003," Mr. Reid says. "They picked up after that, as the market picked up. But recently, they've backed off a bit, because the market has softened."
Overreacting to short-term market results is, of course, a great way to lose a truckload of money. But with any luck, if you are aware of this pitfall, maybe you will avoid it.
Or maybe I'm being too optimistic. "You can tell somebody that investors have all these behavioral biases," says Terrance Odean, a finance professor at the University of California at Berkeley. "So what happens? The investor thinks, 'Oh, that sounds like my husband.' I don't think many investors say, 'Oh, that sounds like me.' "
调整投资要克服认识误区
如果你的投资组合不合理，你可以寻求投资顾问的帮助。但是，经过你自己调整的投资组合会给你带来更多的回报。
我们经常会碰到这样的两难处境：你知道自己的投资组合不合理，但自己又想不出解决的办法。刚刚过去的熊市可能让你持有太多的债券；或者是90年代晚期的大牛市给你的投资组合留下太多的科技股。
为什么调整一下投资组合就这么难？问题的关键是你思想上的三个认识误区，而今年平淡的股市又让你很难克服它们。
爱追逐个股
你现在是不是想卖出债券多买些股票呢？你当然知道股票是一种长期的投资，应当在其低位时买入。
然而，市场近期已经积累了一定涨幅，此时这样做恐怕并不容易。股市今年很难让人赚钱，标准普尔500指数仅仅上涨了2%。
“人们的决策总是会受到市场近期的表现影响”，加州圣克拉拉大学(Santa Clara Univerisity)金融学教授迈尔?斯塔特曼(Meir Statman)说。“通常的结果是，他们总在不应该的时候乐观或悲观”。
让我们看看瑞士银行投资者信心指数(UBS Index of Investor Optimism)，它是根据瑞士银行(UBS)和盖洛普公司(Gallup Organization)每个月对投资者进行的调查编制。调查的问题是让投资者预计其投资组合在未来12个月的回报率。你猜结果怎样？这个指数随著股市的上涨和下跌同向波动。
比如在熊市跌的最狠的时候，投资者总是愈来愈悲观，当股市处于底部时，他们对投资组合回报率的预期中值只有5%。而在去年股市大涨的时候，投资者又倍感振奋，截至2004年1月的调查结果显示他们的预期回报率达到10%。
然而，这股热情如今已经被后来左右波动的市场走势浇灭了。5月份的调查结果显示，投资者对未来12个月投资组合回报率的预期中值仅为7%。我觉得很多看到去年股市大涨就想买股票的投资者开始退却了，2004年的平淡走势让他们不想再买股了。
等股市涨回来
股市今年的震荡走势不仅仅吓跑了债券投资者，就连股票投资者也感到很难对投资组合进行操作。
要怪就怪那句人们常说的话吧，“股市会涨回来的，绝对不能割肉”。股市总是来回波动，只要不往上涨，很多投资者就不愿意卖掉自己的股票，目前价位卖出还远远不能弥补他们在熊市中的亏损。标准普尔500指数目前的点位比其2000年3月份的高点下降了26%；那斯达克综合指数更是下降了61%。
可以肯定的是，在当年高点附近买进股票的人，不管你卖不卖股都亏损了。卖出股票会很痛苦，这意味著你要承认自己曾经的错误。
“如果你是一个富有理性的人，亏损了也应该卖掉股票，这样你还能在税收方面得到一定的补偿”，斯塔特曼教授说。“如果你是个普通人，亏损时卖股简直让你椎心”。
那些在2000年初买股票的人未必一定要等到所有的损失都回来了再卖股票。如果扭亏无望，投资者只能降低卖价。但在这个时候，很多人显然是不肯这样做的。
没有勇气
不管是买债券还是买股票，都需要你有足够的信心。但目前的情况下，投资者很难有勇气这样做。
“人们总是倾向于维持现状”，华盛顿州立大学(Washington State University)金融教授约翰?诺夫辛
格(John Nofsinger)说。“我们总是害怕做点什么，因为我们担心做了以后会后悔”。
同样，这种心态也是受到市场走势的影响。股市大涨的时候，人们总把赚钱归因于自己的英明睿智。他们从中获得信心从事更多交易，承担更大风险。但投资者2003年积攒的一点信心全被2004年市场的疲软走势打消了。
从网上经纪商Ameritrade Holding Corp.提供的股票交易量走势中，我们就可以看出股市走势疲软的痕迹。2003年2月份，其网上股票买卖的日交易量只有100,000笔。
十一个月之后，也就是经过一轮大涨，日交易量就攀升至254,000笔。但随著股市今年又开始停滞不前，Ameritrade的日交易量又下来了，五月份时只有144,000笔。
同样，投资者信心的起伏在共同基金的销售情况中也得到反映。位于华盛顿特区的投资公司学会(Investment Company Institute)经济学家布莱恩?瑞德(Brian Reid)说，美国股票基金的赎回率月与月之间的差别并不大。
不过，要衡量投资者的信心，你需要看看新基金的销售情况。“2002年，基金的销售量一直很小，到2003年2月份达到最低”，瑞德说。“随后，基金销量有所增长。但最近，由于股市不涨，销量又降了一点。”
对市场短期走势的过度反应无疑会导致大量金钱损失。但如果你幸运地意识到这一点，也许就能规避不少损失。
