Investing Overview

As individuals, each of us is unique. But when it comes to investing, while we each have distinct investment objectives, we tend to fall into two general groups for the core of our portfolios - investors adopt either an actively managed or passively managed investment approach. Why do we strongly recommend you adopt a passive approach?

An Efficient Debate
A long-standing debate about the stock markets has been whether or not they are "efficient." The Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) is the basis for the body of academic work known as Modern Portfolio Theory, upon which the American Law Institute built its prudent investing guidelines for trust fiduciaries.

EMH states that markets quickly and accurately reflect available information, and are setting "fair" prices for buyer and seller. Inefficient markets, in contrast, would enable a savvy investor to exploit security prices that do not accurately reflect all available information or do not respond quickly to new information.
Few would argue either extreme - that markets are purely efficient or inefficient. But those who actively invest believe that markets are at least inefficient enough to make it worth the treasure hunt. They will pay the costs involved in attempting to find mispriced stocks, bonds, sectors or markets to buy and sell. Instead heeding the academic evidence, the conclusion is that markets are too efficient to allow investors to consistently overcome the costs involved in identifying potentially mispriced securities.

We Can Be Our Own Worst Enemies
Despite the academic evidence, many of us still are tempted to pursue that undiscovered stock-picking method or broker who can successfully pick the winners and avoid the losers. Behavioral economists have studied this tendency toward investor overconfidence - as well as a large array of behavioral traits (such as regret avoidance, irrational exuberance, and the endowment effect, to name just a few).

Illuminating these ingrained behavioral instincts under the light of academic scrutiny, researchers have detected numerous examples of how they can have a significant negative impact on a portfolio's long-term outcome for those who are unwary of their existence.
To provide one example related to overconfidence, the consulting firm FutureMetrics studies the performance of major U.S. corporate pension plans; their most recent analysis included 201 firms during the 17-year period 1987-2003. Out of the 201 pension plans attempting to outperform the benchmark, 13 percent (26 plans) succeeded. Eighty-seven percent failed to outperform the simple passive benchmark. It would be logical to assume that individual investors, with far fewer resources available to them, would likely fare even worse.

Our Conclusion
By accepting the Efficient Markets Hypothesis as fundamental to your investment strategy (whether "you" are an individual, family or retirement plan), you don't have to spend time chasing the very few mispriced securities that might occur. Instead, you can focus your efforts on:

• Defining and incorporating an appropriate amount of risk within your investments
• Capturing as much of the market returns as possible given your risk tolerances
• Minimizing costs that might otherwise detract from your returns
• Periodically rebalancing your portfolio according to these guidelines
• Spending your leisure time pursuing your life's interests, rather than trying to predict or react to every market fluctuation.
To achieve these goals, Focus helps you:

(1) Implement and maintain a disciplined investment strategy using investment vehicles specifically designed for this purpose.
(2) Recognize and successfully avoid behavioral traits that can weaken your resolve to stay the course in a continuously volatile market.