Johannesburg - Online trading and investment forums, blogs and articles have drawn increasingly cynical responses to "fund damagers" (previously known as fund managers), who have urged clients to 'stay in for the long haul' and not withdraw their funds from local money managers.
Fin24.com turned to the highly rated Daniel Malan of Regarding Capital Management (RECM) for some advice.
Malan is a portfolio manager with the RECM team, which is widely regarded in industry circles as among the best money managers (or 'stewards' as they preferred to be called) in South Africa.
He doesn't mince his words either: "Fund managers would tell investors not to pull their funds out, because the only way they typically make money for themselves is by being asset-gatherers as opposed to stewards of their clients' capital."
Balanced perspective
According to Malan, over the past 60 years in South Africa 'boring' balanced funds have delivered around 6% real returns to their investors after fees. "In our view this is an
excellent return," he said.
A balanced fund aims to combine equities and fixed income assets like bonds or interest-bearing instruments such as cash in money market funds to protect investor capital.
He believes that sensible balanced fund managers have the ability to protect an investor's capital by lowering exposure to equities during times when they are expensive, and vice versa.
Time to sharpen pencils
With the world stock markets in turmoil, investors are totally unsure where to turn, and many are wondering whether current market conditions warrant a panic mindset.
Malan said: "First off, we would argue that if you don't have an understandable, sensible and repeatable investment philosophy and process that you should always be panicking and that you will find more enjoyment and possibly better 'entertainment-adjusted' investment returns in a casino."
To answer the question of whether investors should panic, investors need to return to the most basic investment principle of all - buy stuff cheap.
Malan points out that investor and trader behaviour over the last few years has been strange.
He says that many participants in modern financial markets handed over something of value (their life savings) in exchange for goods (stocks, currencies, property) of questionable relative value, which they didn't even bother to measure in the first place.
"This is certainly strange behaviour and likely not something our ancestors would have approved of, but it happens every day," he says.
While many investors and traders would argue that 'value' is a relative concept in the current market climate, the RECM team believes that the market is beginning to offer some value to investors.
Malan said: "Currently our assessment is that there are a growing number of good quality listed businesses in South Africa that offer good value again, with attractive valuation multiples and high starting dividend yields.
"We have slowly been increasing fund capital allocation to equity as prices have come down."
Malan believes that in the current environment where markets are being driven by fear, it is time for investors and investment managers to sharpen their pencils to find value and understand the investments they are making.
These principles of "value investing" are also followed by legendary investor Warren Buffett. Arguably the world's most successful investor, Buffett refuses to put money into businesses he does not understand.
While these principles have often meant that investors in Berkshire Hathaway (Buffett's company) have not always participated in the success of events such as the 'dot-com' bubble, they were also protected when technology stocks came crashing down to more realistic valuations.
What to look for
For investors who are not sure about what to look for in an asset manager to manage their investments, Malan provides the following advice:
- Are they true stewards of my capital?
- What edge or advantage do they over their peers?
- Do they have a proven sensible investment philosophy and process?
- Do they implement it consistently, ie have they proven that they stick to their guns through several market cycles?
- Lastly, ask them "why can your historical performance be repeated in the future"?
Timing matters
Malan believes that shares are able to be the ultimate long-term wealth creation instrument, but that investors need to take a measured long-term view.
He said that investors need to concentrate on measuring investment returns over full market cycles - that is from the bottom of one bull market to the end of the following bear market.
This, he believes, is typically between seven and 10 years.
- Fin24.com