Global Q&A: A rebound-ready portfolio

Filed under: International markets, Barclays plc ADS (BCS), Rio Tinto plc ADS (RTP), Stocks to Buy

I am the Global Editor at MoneyShow.com and each week I interview an investing expert. This week, I spoke with Chris Gilchrist, editorial director of EveryInvestor, who tells investors how they should protect themselves, diversify, and position their portfolios for a rebound.

Q. Chris, in an interview at the recent World Money Show in London, you discussed the failure of the most widely used diversification strategies during the current global market declines. Why did it happen?

A. There are two major reasons. First, current portfolio planning techniques are based on portfolio theory, which systematically underestimates the frequency of extreme events as well as the size of potential losses. 'Standard deviation' is a false measure of risk because investment returns are not 'normally distributed'. Inadequate recognition of risk meant advisers recommended too high a proportion of capital be invested in equities.

Second, finance theorists hold that the excess annual return on equities above risk-free bonds should be no more than 2% to 3% as against a historical 5% to 7%, but this, too, is contrary to what we know about investors. It assumes investors are indifferent between loss and gain, when we know investors are about twice as risk-averse as they are gain-seeking and that this systematically skews their behavior.

Nevertheless, if you follow the theory, you end up putting more capital into risky assets in order to achieve your target rate of return. So, the failure arose not from diversification itself-though that, too, has been problematic-but from putting too high a proportion of assets into riskier assets.

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Global Q&A: A rebound-ready portfolio originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 16 Dec 2008 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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