In Pursuit of the Perfect Portfolio: Myron S. Scholes
Resumo
TLDRIn the discussion on the 'perfect portfolio,' Professor Myron Scholes emphasizes that while the perfect portfolio may not exist, it should prioritize absolute returns, compound growth, and effective risk management. He critiques conventional investment strategies that focus on benchmarks and relative performance, arguing that these often neglect the significance of absolute wealth accumulation. Scholes advocates for a focus on time diversification and the adaptability of portfolios in response to market volatility. He also discusses the valuable insights that derivatives can provide for understanding market risks, emphasizing the importance of a dynamic investment approach tailored to individual risk appetites.
Conclusões
- 📈 Focus on absolute returns, not just relative performance.
- 🔍 Compound returns are crucial for wealth growth.
- ⚖️ Risk management can be effectively achieved using derivatives.
- ⏳ Time diversification can enhance portfolio performance.
- 🚫 Beware of the limitations of traditional asset allocations.
- 🔄 Portfolio strategies should be dynamic and adaptable.
- 💡 Derivatives provide insights into market risks.
- 📝 Target date funds may not adequately address risk changes.
- 💥 Convexity cost impacts compound returns.
- 👥 Investors should be proactive in managing their investments.
Linha do tempo
- 00:00:00 - 00:05:00
Steve Foerster introduces the project "In Pursuit of the Perfect Portfolio" and welcomes Professor Myron Scholes, known for the Black-Scholes option pricing model. He queries Scholes on the concept of the perfect portfolio.
- 00:05:00 - 00:10:00
Myron Scholes explains that the perfect portfolio doesn't exist in absolute terms but focuses on terminal wealth, compound return, and managing drawdown. He criticizes the finance industry for emphasizing relative returns over absolute returns, suggesting that investors should focus on compound growth rather than how they perform relative to benchmarks.
- 00:10:00 - 00:15:00
Scholes further disputes the value of average returns, presenting the analogy of the Titanic to show that focusing on relative benchmarks can lead to disastrous outcomes. He stresses the crucial nature of understanding returns in real time and addresses the flawed nature of relying on average returns.
- 00:15:00 - 00:20:00
He elaborates on the importance of focusing on compound returns, asserting that investments must account for real-time fluctuations. Scholes critiques the common assumptions in finance about normal distributions and constant volatility, advocating for a focus on time diversification in portfolio management.
- 00:20:00 - 00:25:00
Scholes introduces the concept of time diversification, suggesting that investment strategies should consider varying levels of risk over time instead of sticking to rigid allocations. He discusses how ignoring this aspect can result in significant losses in terms of compound returns.
- 00:25:00 - 00:30:00
Discussing the Black-Scholes model, Scholes describes its foundation in replicating portfolios and its utility in handling varying risks over time. He emphasizes the model’s initial assumptions of constant interest rates and volatility, admitting limitations but noting its foundational role in understanding option pricing.
- 00:30:00 - 00:35:00
He addresses concerns regarding derivatives, reflecting on Warren Buffett's characterization of them as "weapons of mass destruction." Scholes explains that while derivatives can leverage risk, they also contribute significantly to risk management when used correctly by professionals.
- 00:35:00 - 00:40:00
Scholes notes that despite negative perceptions, the derivatives market is essential for finance, helping to create flexibility and individualized investment strategies. He suggests that concerns about derivatives stem from a misunderstanding and historical context rather than inherent flaws.
- 00:40:00 - 00:45:00
He highlights that the option market provides critical information about risks and returns, arguing that it enables a deeper understanding of future risks and portfolio management. The reliance on options can help mitigate significant losses through informed risk management.
- 00:45:00 - 00:50:00
The conversation shifts to portfolio structure, with Scholes advocating for customized strategies focused on drawdown and tail risks rather than traditional allocations like a 60/40 strategy, which he considers inadequate for dynamic risk environments.
- 00:50:00 - 00:56:47
Finally, Scholes emphasizes the significance of managing convexity costs in investment portfolios. He critiques target date funds for their static approach to risk and suggests that a more dynamic, risk-managed portfolio structure would better serve investors. The discussion concludes with Scholes encouraging more adaptive investment strategies and a shift from benchmark performance to proactive risk management.
Mapa mental
Vídeo de perguntas e respostas
What is the perfect portfolio according to Myron Scholes?
The perfect portfolio focuses on absolute returns, compound returns, and risk management, rather than relative performance to benchmarks.
Why are absolute returns more important than relative returns?
Absolute returns directly affect investors' terminal wealth, while relative returns may ignore significant market risks.
What role do derivatives play in investment management?
Derivatives can help manage risk and provide valuable insights into market pricing and tail risks.
How can investors manage risk more effectively?
By focusing on time diversification and adjusting their portfolios based on market conditions rather than sticking to fixed asset allocations.
What are the shortcomings of a traditional 60/40 portfolio strategy?
It does not account for changing risks or provide a dynamic approach to managing investments over time.
How should investors approach target date funds?
Investors should view these funds critically, as they often rely on static assumptions that may not accurately reflect current risks.
What is convexity cost in investments?
Convexity cost refers to the losses incurred due to volatility, affecting compound returns and the overall growth of the portfolio.
What advice does Scholes give to typical investors?
Investors should seek dynamic, risk-adjusted portfolio strategies, focusing on absolute performance and adapting to market changes.
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HANDEBOL: FINTAS INDIVIDUAIS (AS MELHORES)
- 00:00:07[Steve Foerster] Hello, I'm Steve Foerster. Welcome to our project "In Pursuit of the Perfect
- 00:00:13Portfolio. Today I have the pleasure and honor of speaking with Professor Myron Scholes famous
- 00:00:22for the Black-Scholes option pricing model. Welcome Myron. [Myron Scholes] Thank you.
- 00:00:27[Steve Foerster] Our project is is focusing on an elusive concept perhaps the perfect portfolio
- 00:00:35and and we'd love to hear your insights in terms of what is the perfect portfolio mean to you.
- 00:00:40[Myron Scholes] Well obviously that perfect portfolio does not necessarily exist but the
- 00:00:53idea of the way I think about the perfect portfolio is to really think about what
- 00:01:00investors are interested in. Investors are interested in my view on terminal wealth,
- 00:01:07they're interested in compound return, and they're interested in drawdown so they would like to for
- 00:01:14a level of drawdown have the best experience they possibly can. Now the problem with a lot of what
- 00:01:21we have done in finance over the last number of years is forgotten about compound return,
- 00:01:28we forgot about growth in our portfolio and we forgot about drawdown. What we have done
- 00:01:35is talked about relative return we've talked about relative how we are doing relative to a benchmark
- 00:01:41so we doing better than the standard Poor 500 are we doing better than a 60/40 strategy in terms of
- 00:01:49compounding return and getting terminal wealth enhanced through our activities. The interesting
- 00:01:57point about average returns, or Sharpe ratios, or information ratios which look at the difference
- 00:02:06between what we're doing and the benchmark portfolio is really ignoring the most important
- 00:02:14part of investment and that's the absolute return. And the interesting part about investing that is
- 00:02:22being ignored so moving to what I think the ideal portfolio should be which is concentrating on
- 00:02:29absolute return and not relative return is that relative return ignores the benchmark itself
- 00:02:36ignores the risk of the benchmark itself. So the analogy I like to give is that who's someone on
- 00:02:44the deck of the Titanic and the music is playing and everyone is very happy to be on the deck of
- 00:02:51the Titanic because those in the lower deck are dying first and basically when you have the idea
- 00:02:57of benchmarks or average returns you're ignoring really the most important part of investing which
- 00:03:04is compound return the average return is a flawed measure it might be able to evaluate
- 00:03:10whether a manager is outperforming on average but it doesn't talk about the ideal portfolio
- 00:03:18and investing. In other words the problem is when someone is thinking about crossing a river you
- 00:03:27don't tell the person if they can't swim then on average this river is only a half a foot deep
- 00:03:34because the individual is very interested where they're crossing the river now. Right, that's the
- 00:03:40most important thing and you're gonna ask them more questions how deep is it where I'm crossing
- 00:03:44or and because you only have one run of time you don't have an ability to have average you can't
- 00:03:51and it returns are not averages. When we start off an investment we start with $100 today if that
- 00:03:59hundred dollars falls by 50% today or tomorrow and the investment and then triples thereafter
- 00:04:07it'll go from 100 to then it'll go to two half so 50 and then triples to go to 150. Or if you
- 00:04:17invest today and it goes to triples first goes to 300 and then goes to 150 by having at that
- 00:04:24time it will still be 150. So the interesting thing about investment is not a horizon of five years or
- 00:04:32ten years but the fundamental question is that what happens each period of time? So the ideal
- 00:04:40portfolio must not assume that I have a 10 year horizon it must assume what happens each period
- 00:04:48of time in the compounding process because compound returns multiply they don't average.
- 00:04:54This when you start off with a hundred you go to 120 you're now investing 100 you initially
- 00:05:00invest it and the 20 additional dollars if you then lose 20 on top again 20 percent you lose 20
- 00:05:08percent of your original hundred and 20 percent the 20 that you left invested that ends up at
- 00:05:1496. And similarly, if you go to 80 to start with you're investing only 80 and it makes 20% it
- 00:05:22goes back to 96 because why you didn't invest an additional 20 when you talk about average
- 00:05:27return we're assuming always investing 100 and in in the strategy so the interesting part about
- 00:05:35compound returns if we refocus our attention on compound returns and what affects compound
- 00:05:41returns that's the key another key of this problem of the ideal portfolio is we've assumed normal
- 00:05:49distributions we've assumed constant volatility and constant mean of a portfolio and that and we
- 00:05:58know that's impossible you can't have an S&P 500 portfolio and assume that the returns are constant
- 00:06:08the interesting part about investing is if cross-sectional diversification is
- 00:06:15free that's claimed by academics and others diversify cross-sectionally if that's free
- 00:06:21then it has to be the time diversification is also free in the sense that and you can prove
- 00:06:28mathematically this is the case that if you have a target level of risk for a given levels
- 00:06:34of return okay then basically if you allow your risk to fluctuate around the target then it's
- 00:06:42the case that you've taken excess volatility or idiosyncratic volatility over time and I'd
- 00:06:48like to refocus our attention away from the cross section which is everyone concentrates
- 00:06:54on and think about time diversification or the effects of time on portfolio performance to do
- 00:07:02that we have to ask the question what's the most important thing in terms of time when you only
- 00:07:10have one run of time you only can cross to cross the river many many times on average okay you're
- 00:07:15fine but if you cross the river at the 20 foot part of the river and you can't swim you draft
- 00:07:21you don't get back again one leg to live one life to live and so in return space the most important
- 00:07:28thing in returns is the tails of the distribution of returns the idea that you could lose a lot of
- 00:07:33money or you can miss an opportunity to make a lot of money in your performance of your portfolio and
- 00:07:39how that compounds over time and so I think the distribution returns are changing all the time if
- 00:07:48you have an index fund such as the S&P 500 there's no way the risk of the S&P 500 can be constant
- 00:07:55over time the composition is changing sometimes technology has a larger weight sometimes utility
- 00:08:02companies have a larger weight so the volatility or risk has to be changing of that index that's
- 00:08:07number one number two is the fact that at times the correlation structure among the assets
- 00:08:15within the index changes sometimes there's a more idiosyncratic list sometimes most of the risk is
- 00:08:21done by all the assets moving together either down as they did in 2007-2008 or up as they've done in
- 00:08:302012 or so you know when the market went up a lot and so the core the diversification is not
- 00:08:38there times when the correlation structure changes and so thinking about the assumption of constant
- 00:08:44correlation thinking about the assumptions of having constant means and constant returns are
- 00:08:51fine from a theoretical point of view but it's a one period model it's not a multi period model
- 00:09:02you are always associated with the the well-known black-scholes option pricing model you've had lots
- 00:09:08of questions about it perhaps you can talk a little bit about how it came to be and also
- 00:09:14if you could comment on there are a wide range of views of not only options but derivatives in
- 00:09:23general some argue that they're weapons of mass destruction and and perhaps you could talk about
- 00:09:29those two themes okay Steve first of all you know there's two aspects of the option pricing
- 00:09:37technology and model one is the technology itself and the other is the model and the technology was
- 00:09:49at Fischer black and I and Bob Merton developed was really trying to think about how to create a
- 00:09:58replicating portfolio that's by a combination if we have a stock a combination of stock and bonds
- 00:10:06that would replicate the returns on the option now the technology allowed us to have every period of
- 00:10:16time a changing risk or changing volatility and the changing interest rate and to be able them
- 00:10:26to think about how that hedging portfolio could be established each period of time and how it
- 00:10:34would evolve over time now what we developed was a differential equation which described how the
- 00:10:43option changed with regard to changes in the time and and and the interest rate and volatility and
- 00:10:53you know the expected return fell away because we had a hedging portfolio or replicating portfolio
- 00:11:01so I didn't care about what the expected return was for the underlying security for that period
- 00:11:07of time and the interesting but we did care about this volatility we did care about that and we did
- 00:11:15care a lot about the interest rate and time and so that problem was that Fisher and I initially
- 00:11:25and took a very long time to try to think about how to solve this general case so what we did
- 00:11:33was we assumed you know that the interest rate was constant and we assumed that the volatility
- 00:11:38Wisconsin we got a nice ball even though we knew that was false right we got our model which
- 00:11:44gotta start somewhere I guess well which took low-hanging fruit we couldn't do it a general
- 00:11:48case without you know numerically trying to do that we had to do that in a in a way that would
- 00:11:57be numerical and if you wouldn't understand it as well so what we did is we assumed that the
- 00:12:01interest rate was constant and we assumed that the volatility was constant and then we ended up with
- 00:12:07this call the black Scholes model now Fischer black and I used you know the tools we have and
- 00:12:18assume that you know that investors could set up the replicating portfolio over a very short period
- 00:12:24of time allowed time to compress Bob Merton used his technology which is the ito processes and the
- 00:12:34like and ended up with a differential equation Fischer black and I and Bob Merton you know had
- 00:12:43lots of discussions about what was the correct approach or what we approach was more susceptible
- 00:12:49to really evaluate the options but and basically it was more of a theoretical distinction but we
- 00:12:59always liked the our approach better than Bob Merton this approach but we obviously respected
- 00:13:07his approach and it thought it was really a terrific approach as well so I think that
- 00:13:12the derivation of our the black Scholes technology and model allowed one to you options and initially
- 00:13:25we have had a lot of empirical validation over the years as to the import of the option prices
- 00:13:34that we have seen has giving us information about risks as I said earlier in the marketplace I think
- 00:13:43that the whole development or use of derivative technology allowed for us to change the whole
- 00:13:53nature of finance what it has allowed us to do is go from the big okay to more individualized
- 00:14:02more it isn't kradic more things that a particular entity a corporation needs or an individual needs
- 00:14:10and away from when I started the profession and Fisher black and Bob Merton were in the
- 00:14:16profession as these things were big and what finance does and what we've had in terms of
- 00:14:24financial innovation is the ability to actually compress time make things faster do things more
- 00:14:32than individuals want and to is to make them more individualized right and three is to make things
- 00:14:44flexible flexibility is optionality or the idea to be flexible all three of these things I talked
- 00:14:51about speed of doing things individualization and flexibility all involve options they've had huge
- 00:14:59valuation and derivatives have huge implications for our society and ability to innovate and create
- 00:15:07more things that entities and individuals want in terms of how they manage risks or how they
- 00:15:16actually transfer risks and also how they build new instruments and securities so it's not as
- 00:15:24if derivatives replace other instruments it's not as if derivatives could be a complement
- 00:15:32to or a substitute to various other of how the economy operates but fundamentally they help you
- 00:15:40do things more quickly to help you do things more individualized and they help with flexibility and
- 00:15:45how one manages their portfolios and how would you respond to to claims that they're that they
- 00:15:59could be used as weapons of mass destruction well the interesting part is that even if I
- 00:16:06remember correctly if it was Warren Buffett who coined the phrase weapons of mass destruction
- 00:16:12I think what he was referring to was at the time he acquired general reinsurance there
- 00:16:20were many many long-dated option contracts in the portfolio twenty years thirty year contracts and
- 00:16:28that when he bought the company he realized that the liability for was much larger than
- 00:16:37he had thought when he had actually acquired the company because the payoffs those options were
- 00:16:44or the value of the payoffs and they often were much larger than he had anticipated I think that
- 00:16:50that's what led him to say these longer-dated options were weapons of mass destruction but I
- 00:17:00do believe that the statement that options are weapons of mass destruction has to do with the
- 00:17:08ability to lever options or use leverage in options and we also have myriad other ways
- 00:17:16to use options or derivatives for leverage or other things other ways in the economy but they
- 00:17:28do have that levered component now you know again it's sort of survival of the fittest one of the
- 00:17:35interesting things about a derivative or an option there's one buyer and one seller you know I mean
- 00:17:42it's a zero-sum game in that sense and it's not and so if I have a buyer and the buyer overpay
- 00:17:51for the option a seller is willing to come in and write that option and basically you know
- 00:17:59protect the person in the pricing sense against against a mispricing or tremendous risk pricing
- 00:18:07and I think that's forgotten a lot about this when market prices fall and derivatives fall and value
- 00:18:14then other instruments also fall in value that I think that the fundamental question is are the
- 00:18:23prices the best or accurate in the sense of the best estimate and as the market really get out
- 00:18:30of hand and I think no that's not been true you don't see that over time the market pricing of
- 00:18:37options conveys much more information than does the spot markets you had that in 87 crash you
- 00:18:43know the futures market had much better pricing than the smog Marya the spot market wasn't even
- 00:18:48trading it was completely asynchronous well the option markets on the portfolio's were giving
- 00:18:53much richer information to what was happening in the marketplace it's true that some people
- 00:18:59will lose money some people will make money in options if they misuse them just the same way
- 00:19:05as people who put all their money into a valiant drug stock or whatever and it collapses in value
- 00:19:12lose money as well I think that the reason options or derivatives have had a misnomer
- 00:19:20or Mis named is simply because they're the newest ones on the block you know the same way as if we
- 00:19:27had had electric cars or self-driving cars to start with you know given the technology that
- 00:19:33is being developed and will be developed and we wouldn't allow humans to drive but the only
- 00:19:38reason why humans are driving cars and causing the self-driving cars to have difficulty because
- 00:19:42humans don't drive as well as the self-driving cars can drive at the current moment so I I
- 00:19:49think that you know that there's it's always when people want to find something to blame they tend
- 00:19:57to blame those things that are new and so there's a tyranny of this at its core there's a tyranny
- 00:20:02of the herd what exists first but if you look at the extent of which derivatives are still involved
- 00:20:09in me and have even grown dramatically since the 2007 2008 crisis then wanted to be amazed to say
- 00:20:18if these are such awful things why are they still being used so dramatically it's you know Stiglitz
- 00:20:24Stiegler once said that you know survivorship is a very good method of determining value and
- 00:20:30they survive and they flourish and they grow now it's true that certain things in the crisis of
- 00:20:36those 7:08 came to the fore namely that AIG had this price contracts because that but that was
- 00:20:45an internal control problem with in AIG it wasn't something and it's not the derivative themselves
- 00:20:52you know people want to write derivatives even if they're a fairly priced if you write derivatives
- 00:20:58to the extent you can lose all your money by doing it fine but you're making you're making a little
- 00:21:04bit you know one of the interesting things about writing these options even on Triple A structures
- 00:21:09is that you're gonna make a little money a lot of the time but occasionally you take a big loss
- 00:21:14there's nothing guarantee that you're gonna do that if you don't so it's the risk management
- 00:21:19issue within the firm a governance issue that counts more so than using these instruments
- 00:21:30and so the way I think about the market the market gives us tremendous amounts of information about
- 00:21:38how risks are changing in the market and one of the interesting parts about risk changing
- 00:21:44in the market is that the option market among other markets but the option market tells us a
- 00:21:51tremendous amount about the distribution of future returns the distribution of future returns when
- 00:21:57we look at a stock the information in the stock price is rich it has but it has two components
- 00:22:04to it it has changes in risk and expectations of changes in risk it also has expectation of
- 00:22:12growth or cash flows if it has two things you have one number it's hard to separate the mean
- 00:22:18effect from the uncertainty effects while the option mark and the beauty of the black-scholes
- 00:22:24technology and Merton follow-on is essentially it decomposes it and tells you what the risk
- 00:22:31is okay because we have proved that you can value an option based on the idea of assuming that it's
- 00:22:41the risk-free rates the appreciation rate so we have a huge market and telling us what tail risks
- 00:22:47are which are the most important and it tells you about the entire distribution of possible returns
- 00:22:53now the mark why is the market options market so valuable to give us information about risk simply
- 00:23:02because it's the tails of the distribution that are so hard to measure yet those in the option
- 00:23:09market who are valuing how the money put options or other than money call options are giving us
- 00:23:15tremendous amounts of insight as to risk as to the future risk that the market the risk
- 00:23:21that we see now you say well this the option market is not that far sighted it's only has
- 00:23:27three-month options or six-month options or your option doesn't have a 5-year option but a 5-year
- 00:23:33option is not important if you go back to compound return what's the most important thing is what's
- 00:23:39gonna happen in the next three months that's what can happen five years from now and that's where
- 00:23:43the option market has a huge rip richness a huge richness as far as telling us information about
- 00:23:49how the distribution of returns is changing and so using these information to construct the ideal
- 00:23:56portfolio one can change the composition of the portfolio based on risk and how risk is changing
- 00:24:05if one keep the risk of their portfolio cause then you reduce a huge amount of the convexity
- 00:24:11costs that occur because you allow your portfolio to fluctuate and risk why is that the case let me
- 00:24:24give you an illustration let's say I call it time diversification but if you think about
- 00:24:30a portfolio let's say you have a 50/50 strategy you want to have 50% of your money in bonds 50%
- 00:24:40of your money in stock let's assume incorrectly that the risk of stocks is the same and the risk
- 00:24:46of bonds is zero okay okay now 50/50 strategy if you have a 50/50 strategy let's say you always
- 00:24:56keep your risk 50% stock and 50% bond let's have an alternative strategy the alternate strategy I
- 00:25:04call that's called the bangbang strategy half the time you're fully invested in stocks the half the
- 00:25:10time you're fully invested in bonds okay now if you have no skill that's allowing your strategy
- 00:25:17than bagging the risk to change dramatic you have no skill your expected return is exactly the same
- 00:25:22in the bangbang strategy as it is in the 50-50 strategy using the analogy of beta you know if
- 00:25:30half the time you have a beta one and half the time you have a beta 0 then basically you're
- 00:25:34gonna have an expected return of one half the bait of that one half the market return if you have no
- 00:25:40skills so your expected return doesn't change but your what about your volatility of your portfolio
- 00:25:45your volatility in the bangbang strategy will be about 0.7 one of the volatility of market because
- 00:25:53you 100% of the 50% time you're 100% invested in stop while the portfolio of the 50/50 strategy
- 00:26:00always having a vaild of 0.5 or 1/2 the risk okay it will give you 1/2 the volatility of the market
- 00:26:06so time diversification is volatility management because it affects your convexity cost and if you
- 00:26:13reduce your convexity cost that's free that is free diversification but we have ignored in time
- 00:26:21diversification in the way we think about investment and I think the ideal portfolio
- 00:26:26has to involve a lot of discussion about time diversification and thinking about how to obtain
- 00:26:32information about how risks are changing adjusting the portfolio take account of time diversification
- 00:26:44interesting and not enough in finance and investment management we see broadly most
- 00:26:51investment management have said I want to be measured relative to a benchmark I want to be
- 00:26:56measured relatively I don't want to be measured absolutely I want to be measured relatively
- 00:27:01and the reason is because they give up the responsibility of asset allocation to whom
- 00:27:09this investor or to the institutional man the institution or to the pension fund or whomever
- 00:27:17else it is they give up that ability they want to be compensated and how well they do relative to
- 00:27:23the benchmark or not absolutely so the responsibility of Investment Management is not theirs they're
- 00:27:28only a component or a provider of service to the portfolio and they ignore changes and risk
- 00:27:35they ignore the asset allocation problem so the asset allocation problem is the most important
- 00:27:40and I don't care about diversification I don't care about cross section over it I think that's
- 00:27:45a smaller component of how your wealth is gonna cumulate over time so if I can just jump in here
- 00:27:50so if I'm an investor I care about my terminal wealth or my wealth at retirement and you don't
- 00:27:58care about volatility you care about drawdown okay I care about the downside and then the
- 00:28:03drawdown you talked about getting information from derivatives that will give me some information
- 00:28:10should I be should I be using derivatives as an investor as part of this perfect portfolio to
- 00:28:17help manage the risk for example yeah I mean if I were if I was doing and I certainly would do that
- 00:28:22I mean if you're holding risk in your portfolio they want to have the lowest cost source changing
- 00:28:30your risk composition or managing your reason and the very liquid instruments that exist in
- 00:28:36the data management debate your risk management is is really the least expensive way through the
- 00:28:43derivative market whether it's the futures markets or whether it's the options market
- 00:28:47ways in which you can adjust your portfolio to manage this risk now I'm not saying necessarily
- 00:28:53the individual could do that but professional management certainly can do that and do it in
- 00:28:59a very efficient way so rely on a professional manager once they understand what what my concerns
- 00:29:06are in terms of drawdown then then we can use these the interesting the interesting thing is
- 00:29:10the optimal structure of investment has a lot of agrees of freedom to it mm-hmm one is that
- 00:29:18we have in my view drawdown is important and why is drawdown important because if you can
- 00:29:25reduce the drop down then and basically one could achieve a higher terminal value for
- 00:29:33their portfolio and it's really the tales that have the best the most important effect so what
- 00:29:38might my portfolio look like so I'm concerned about the tail risk what what might my portfolio
- 00:29:44look like to help me achieve my goals well the interesting thing is every investor has to ask
- 00:29:52in a global sense what the asset constraints are you know am i limiting myself to invest in
- 00:29:59a more limited set of assets that's the first question and the second car and then once one
- 00:30:06has that constraint of some form or other than the portfolio can be formed optimally to manage
- 00:30:14the risk over time and to optimize the portfolio over time using either either active portfolios
- 00:30:25or combination of active portfolios and passive investments and then that optimal portfolio then
- 00:30:33the investor would have to determine the level of risk they want to run a portfolio to be run at
- 00:30:45so let's talk active versus passive and maybe we could go back in and talk about some of your
- 00:30:51earlier contributions in terms of passive investing what what what role did you play
- 00:30:57early on in your career in terms of what now is a multi trillion dollar industry right in
- 00:31:06nineteen 1968 when I was leaving the universe Chicago as a newly minted PhD and on my way to
- 00:31:15MIT as an assistant professor at the Sloan School of Management I spent three weeks or so in San
- 00:31:25Francisco evaluating the investment management process of Wells Fargo Bank under Wells Fargo
- 00:31:31back was the investment management area was run by Bill Burton and then John McLeod Mack McLeod
- 00:31:40was running the management science group so I actually looked at what the management science
- 00:31:46group was doing in terms of asset management and I wrote a report afterwards saying that they had
- 00:31:54little skills in the inputs to their in their management their management process and they
- 00:32:04had a few clients I recommended that instead of concentrating on active management that they
- 00:32:11should concentrate on passive management and six months later John McCone called me up and said he
- 00:32:18would like to and be engaged in research on this idea of passive management because no one had
- 00:32:24ever talked about passive management before and I want to distinguish between passive management and
- 00:32:31index fund management index fund management says no tracking error to an index I never thought that
- 00:32:38you'd want exactly tracking index because of the cost of maintaining a no tracking error portfolio
- 00:32:45so what did passive mean to use and passive man to me was just thinking about at the time replica
- 00:32:52or been close to replicating and index but as the index composition changed we trade off the
- 00:32:58basis cost associated with having not a perfectly correlated structure with the transaction cost of
- 00:33:05having to make the adjustment instantaneous layer to make the adjustments more slowly over time and
- 00:33:11so I'm on Macleod Macklin column phoned me up and said I'd like to see research on this idea
- 00:33:19I said that I had being an assistant professor at MIT and responsible for my teaching and research
- 00:33:27that I had this fellow Fischer black who was a consultant in the Boston area we had several
- 00:33:36conversations together and he was thinking of setting up his own firm maybe he could be the
- 00:33:41one who travels back and forth between Boston and San Francisco and I would be with him there and
- 00:33:50I did describe to McLeod that Fischer and I had been doing research with Mike Jensen on testing
- 00:33:57the capital asset pricing model and that and so we started an association wells fargo wanted to have
- 00:34:05a lot of research done and seeing what we can do passively not actively picking stocks but passive
- 00:34:12investment management and it led to several papers that I wrote at the time not being an academic was
- 00:34:21a lot of fun because there's a lot of research empirically and at the same time there are the
- 00:34:26practical implications of what we were doing and developing a portfolio at that time so in
- 00:34:38you you are a rare animal in in the academic world having made major contributions both on the theory
- 00:34:46side and the empiric side can you talk about the the marriage of the two and the importance
- 00:34:52of that because it often is is overlooked in our profession well I I think that interesting enough
- 00:34:58I think that one of the things all of science is trying to do when all of business is trying to
- 00:35:03do is to see how we can have theory on the one hand and experience on the other hand and bring
- 00:35:10experience and Theory closer and closer together because we always think you need Theory first okay
- 00:35:15then you got experience second and my view has always been in Fisher black and other people's
- 00:35:22views have always been that they're really rich together because if you can have great empirical
- 00:35:28testing or experience okay that helps your theory and vice versa without theory experiences
- 00:35:34meaningless and without experience theory is meaningless right because I had everything in
- 00:35:40science is inductive I don't care what we say we don't go from first principles because you have to
- 00:35:46data mining things your inductive and hafta with if your inductive you have to be very careful
- 00:35:50that you don't gather the wrong data and do the wrong things without some theoretical underpinning
- 00:35:57whether it's an economics or other sciences you can come completely nonsensical results and you
- 00:36:02can add and so I think that at the time when I was starting off it would became obvious to me
- 00:36:10that we would have to combine empirical work with theory and I enjoyed both of those and think it's
- 00:36:17very important to our science very important and a lot of ways to do the empirical work that I
- 00:36:23did there was no data you know we had to develop the data and and I worked very hard to make sure
- 00:36:29that we did develop the data and and then as we develop the data we made that data there to the
- 00:36:37community at large and the community at large was then able to do empirical reserve which then fed
- 00:36:42back on a theory the theory became richer and the two of them together were hand and glove
- 00:36:47and you know and some things were rejected some new things were born puzzles came about and into
- 00:36:53the profession and as a result of that it builds a much richer science and I think the interesting
- 00:36:59thing is what we're trying to do and in academics is shorten the time shorten the time from theory
- 00:37:07to experience and those drug trial drug trials would that be sort of the analogy do you think
- 00:37:13well yeah I mean even in in a lot of what we do is there's research and development I always think
- 00:37:21research and development arm is named because it's not really research and developments research and
- 00:37:26testing its development and testing and they all feedback with each other so if you go into drug
- 00:37:31analogies you're doing the trial it's testing testing everything is not R&D R&D is the wrong
- 00:37:38name it's not research and developments research and testing it's development and testing and then
- 00:37:42back and forth and that creates a richness now if true yeah I think very careful when you're
- 00:37:48doing that that you don't end up in the situation where you have a dead end because you you've data
- 00:37:54mined you know and you've garnered from the past information which then tells you that the future
- 00:38:00but one of the nice things we have in finance and academics and and financial economics is we have
- 00:38:09theory and we have a richness of theory we have empirical testing of the theory and then mapping
- 00:38:15back into the theory and also a willingness to throw out you know what we think is not working
- 00:38:22and add to things we think is working and look a lot of the innovation inventions and innovations
- 00:38:28that I've seen over in my myriad years in that profession came from a theoretical side you know
- 00:38:34and then they were developed and applied you know passive investment is this said is is what's been
- 00:38:41applied generally that's about 40 or so percent of the market now is managed passively when when
- 00:38:47I started and brought to Wells Fargo we talked to institutions about it you know people looked
- 00:38:52at us like we're crazy how can you manage your portfolio believing in market pricing
- 00:38:57see the interesting thing is that why would market pricing work market the ideal portfolio
- 00:39:09we have to use market prices we have to use option prices the information in these option prices is
- 00:39:15information you can either believe the market gives you information or you can say the market
- 00:39:20gives you no information if the market gives you information you use that that's the way I started
- 00:39:25off I say the market has information you know the market let's use the information in my faith many
- 00:39:31people don't believe the market has information you look at the government Federal Reserve policy
- 00:39:35or other people they say Oh market doesn't have any information we gotta use that and anything we
- 00:39:40do that's crazy yeah to me it's cuz why not get people are putting their money on the table you
- 00:39:46know I mean even I think we've had these prices of I don't know if it's legal in Canada I know it's
- 00:39:51somewhat now illegal in the United States but you can have these markets you say who's gonna
- 00:39:57win the election you know they have election mark it's right people say how can a market
- 00:40:02know anything about elections this comes up once every every four years or so you know and they're
- 00:40:06having these elections the market is amazing how accurate is relative abundance they get polls do
- 00:40:12you know they do all this stuff you go to a pocket tells you what the odds are to me that's a huge
- 00:40:16amount of information and that's we thought it we have to use this information the prices give
- 00:40:21us information and we can form portfolios we can know what's going on so if the ideal portfolio
- 00:40:26doesn't use information in the market to do it it's not an ideal portfolio and so you need to
- 00:40:31look at the prices and how the market is telling us information so derivative markets are telling
- 00:40:36us information the spot markets are telling us information the forward markets in other
- 00:40:42ways they're telling us huge amounts information and I think it's better to use the consensus or
- 00:40:49the wisdom of crowds you know millions of people making decisions and that that's we're trying to
- 00:40:55do like we're trying to think of now the whole world is saying the government in releases a
- 00:41:00report every court you know there's also the null cast I mean everyday you're getting now Google is
- 00:41:06doing searches and knowing how many people are buying this or asking questions about that you
- 00:41:10know so it's we're trying to figure out how to price how to get information and use those prices
- 00:41:15so what happens when you mentioned 2008-2009 the so called financial crisis where 2007-2008 doesn't
- 00:41:23send 2008 where where we had some major changes in terms of equity prices going down from from an
- 00:41:31individual investor perspective what do you think were some of the lessons that they should have
- 00:41:39taken away from that and and how did derivatives play into the whole you know I mean I remember
- 00:41:45that Federal Reserve or other bankers saying it was a bolt out of the blue nothing was there if
- 00:41:52you looked at the option market though the put options were for forecasting crisis ahead they
- 00:42:00change in the distributional shape you saw at a financial the financial firms the tail risks the
- 00:42:07put option prices were increasing dramatically as you went into those seven it was like a tsunami
- 00:42:14was coming in a market new to tsunami was coming the Fed Reserve I don't carry they want to they
- 00:42:19want to look at the data fine they don't want to look at the information in prices fine they can
- 00:42:22ignore that but the market would wasn't stupid you know market was already pricing this in you
- 00:42:28got oh is spreads were increasing the options implied accreditor the idea of the LIBOR spreads
- 00:42:34were increasing you know they Ted spreads were increasing I mean credit spreads were increasing
- 00:42:39I mean it wasn't as if this is all of a sudden you know my god this is our affair so yes there's
- 00:42:46tremendous information in prices and the options market or a derivative markets give you this
- 00:42:51information you don't have to use it but when the reinsurance premiums go up you know if you
- 00:42:57have reinsurance premiums that go up and does that mean that risk of insurance is going up certainly
- 00:43:04it is you know so if risk is going up then you could use that information or not you know and
- 00:43:10so the market was had tremendous and information in fact if you looked at it the market all the
- 00:43:18sectors of the S&P 500 that's 10 sectors they were in the S&P column had elevated tail risks
- 00:43:26where I'm being elevated and a nice part about it is even though crises if you look historically
- 00:43:32don't happen that frequently you know millions of people are betting on crisis and the elections
- 00:43:38every day and millions of people are betting on or you know changing their views and protecting
- 00:43:44themselves you know it's Darwinian survival of the fittest if you're gonna be out there writing
- 00:43:48options and the tales of distribution and you're gonna be wiped out pretty soon in a leopard market
- 00:43:55unless you have some skills we've talked about many of your contributions to the profession
- 00:44:05in terms of in terms of obviously the option pricing model and early tests of the capital
- 00:44:13asset pricing model you also did a lot of work in in the area of taxes how important is that from
- 00:44:19an investor's perspective and and what are some of the insights that you could provide in that
- 00:44:24area do we do we overlook the impact of taxes migrators thing to me should if I were to find
- 00:44:32assigning a tax policy when I talk about risk management is trying to keep your risk of your
- 00:44:38portfolio constant or at your target and then not allow it to fluctuate around that I wish it were
- 00:44:45the case that we would allow investors to adjust the risk to their portfolio as opposed to being
- 00:44:51locked in through a tax policy that currently penalized is you if you adjust your portfolio
- 00:44:58only for the sake of trying to manage its risk now the interesting part about tax management
- 00:45:05are the things I've written on in taxes it's tax minimization is not the correct model what the
- 00:45:11tax is it always the fact is that you have there is a cost to paying taxes but there's a cost not
- 00:45:18to paying taxes as well so if you there's that the implicit return or the loss return that you
- 00:45:24would have by not in your portfolio and obviously that if you had a time sequence in the Optima or
- 00:45:33ideal portfolio then why do you want to do is you here managing your risk okay it's much easier to
- 00:45:40tax manage your portfolio if you're trying to just change beta and control for downside risk than it
- 00:45:48is if you have a view of a particular security if you have a view of a particular security or
- 00:45:54locked into that asset and therefore the tax costs might be higher because you really love
- 00:46:02that you know on you and you can't manage your taxes efficiently but I've always felt that it's
- 00:46:08possible that if you're talking about beta risk or managing the risk of your optimal portfolio
- 00:46:15that it's much easier to manage your taxes within that confined that it is if you have
- 00:46:21a situation where you have a particular asset you love or a particular asset you don't love
- 00:46:32so it maybe if we could come full circle to to the the perfect portfolio so some of the themes
- 00:46:39you've talked about I should be concerned with absolute returns as opposed to relative returns
- 00:46:45because I if I only consider relative returns I'm doing less worse than others perhaps in
- 00:46:52a down market I should be listening to the derivatives market which has some important
- 00:46:58information what about what my portfolio might look like for a typical investor I don't think
- 00:47:06that necessarily a buy-and-hold portfolio or an ass allocation such as a 60/40 allocation is the
- 00:47:14optimal allocation because the risk of a say an index fund is changing all the time and so
- 00:47:25I think the investor has to take account of that in deciding on compound return as I said earlier
- 00:47:31a 60/40 strategy is an interesting strategy which is a common strategy you 60% in stocks 40% in bond
- 00:47:40I don't exactly know where that came from by the way I sort of maybe historically someone said oh
- 00:47:46this gives me approximately the volatility that I want you know on average but average volatility
- 00:47:52is not as important as volatility each period if you have average volatility 60/40 on average you
- 00:48:01could have that volatility but if you can manage the interim volatility and keep it
- 00:48:06constant it's much better a 60/40 strategy or an asset allocation strategy just determined
- 00:48:12by market weights does not take account of risk at all nor does it take a kind of a return okay
- 00:48:19and so I was saying even if you assume that the returns are constant we know that compound return
- 00:48:29is affected by the volatility and by the skewness of the distribution you know that is we've known
- 00:48:37that from option pricing technology and option pricing theory but somehow it doesn't come in
- 00:48:43to any discussion about how to run a portfolio the option theory taught us a lot about how to
- 00:48:50run a portfolio but somehow has never got into the literature or people have talked about compound
- 00:48:56return never talked about time diversification as I've described here so the idea portfolio
- 00:49:01has to start talking about time because we only have one run of time and time is very important
- 00:49:09and I want us to refocus on thinking about time and how you run your portfolio depends on how
- 00:49:16your risk is and how you want to manage your risk over time I think there's three ways of
- 00:49:23making money in the markets and if it's the case that I'll just concentrate on time the
- 00:49:32reciprocation but if as I said cross-sectional diversification is not putting here all your eggs
- 00:49:39in one basket is a good model not assuming that risk is constant of your portfolio or a 60-40
- 00:49:48strategy or whatever strategy you have will be optimal each period of time it's also something
- 00:49:54that is free if you want to readjust to reduce the convexity cost or the compound return drag
- 00:50:01that you have by taking excess volatility for the average investor can you explain what you
- 00:50:06mean by convexity risk well convexity risk is the idea that basically if you had a situation
- 00:50:16let me give you the illustration if you have a choice and let's say your portfolio would have
- 00:50:25fluctuation plus 20 minus 20 that if on average is 0 that plus 20 minus 20 is not a very good
- 00:50:36result because if you make 20 percent you know and then lose 20 percent you're down at 96 for a $100
- 00:50:43investment if it goes to 80 only recover back to 96 so the convexity cost is 4 percent in this case
- 00:50:50and we know that the greater than volatility if you have a greater volatility portfolio
- 00:50:56you're gonna have that convexity cost because the greater the volatility the more you have the loss
- 00:51:02return because the volatility effect just that bounces back and forth that volatility hurt you
- 00:51:07in terms of compound return on the on the other hand if you have a strategy which has a target
- 00:51:16level of volatility and you allow your volatility to bounce around that target level of volatility
- 00:51:22that's wasted convexity costs in other words it's it has if you really have a target volatility of
- 00:51:28twenty five ten right and you allow it to be minus twenty thirty thirty zero or some so on average it
- 00:51:37could be ten we've been awaiting that reduces the compound return of your portfolio because
- 00:51:43you've taken excess volatility the more xs/small to you take the more you have lost compound return
- 00:51:50and so if you don't ever manage the risk of your portfolio to keep it at your target you
- 00:51:56have excess volatility that excess volatility has a huge cost let me give an illustration I
- 00:52:02mean let's say you had a KO loss okay you you you took a large loss in your portfolio this is
- 00:52:10not a normal distribution it's just to realize loss it takes a long time to recover yeah so
- 00:52:15that's a huge convexity only go to one lunch in one run atomic right you got it you take
- 00:52:20that huge loss it takes a long time to recover or if you sit around you know and you miss the
- 00:52:25big gain it takes a long time to recover you know so that it's the fundamental difference is that
- 00:52:31we have to think about those convexity costs and what they're doing to the compound return
- 00:52:42what do you think of products that are that are out there that claim to the so-called target date
- 00:52:48funds that that claim to take into account that the years I have until a retirement for example
- 00:52:54and therefore reallocating my equity bond split I'm a very old man at this time and they tell me
- 00:53:02that I should be involved now maybe in 1980 if I was a young man at that time and I did
- 00:53:10invest in bonds you know there's an asymmetry of the fact that the bond returns could be very big
- 00:53:17as well and nowadays it tends to me that there could be a lot of pay losses in bonds so the
- 00:53:23risk of bonds today might be far different from the risk of bonds and 90 getting given a current
- 00:53:28low interest rate environment correct so the ideas why I I think that this is a stupid thing because
- 00:53:35what it's saying is that well you really want to do is say as you get older maybe your risk
- 00:53:41appetite Falls because your human capital Falls but the ideal portfolio should take out of risk
- 00:53:49not bonds versus stock and the target date funds would say when you're young you should invest in
- 00:53:55stock when you're old you should invest in bonds it's not the correct model the correct model is
- 00:54:00risk when you're young what risk do you want to take and what is the risk as a function of your
- 00:54:05realized return you know what is the risk you want to take as to what has to do with the other
- 00:54:10parts of your of your human capital other parts of your wealth structure and so the target date
- 00:54:16funds which are sort of stylized ways in which a thinking of numerical asset allocation are not
- 00:54:23taking account of what we should be accounting for what's the risk and how is the risk changing and
- 00:54:28what is the dynamics of risk you know nothing to do with forecasting weather returns are gonna be
- 00:54:34great or not just efficient risk management and a new target date front of the future will be
- 00:54:39a risk managed fund not a target date fund not a fun and not one is saying I have a ten year rise
- 00:54:46in her three or as I've heard so many people say I have a 20 year horizon therefore I should run
- 00:54:52my portfolio differently from one year horizon or a six-month horizon that's not true we need
- 00:54:58a new way of looking at we have a new we have all the ways we have all the ways today are available
- 00:55:04we're just not focusing correctly we're not focusing on what we should be why because this
- 00:55:09relative value performance has taken over everyone says the bet you know the benchmark is king if the
- 00:55:15benchmark is king and we just looked at relative performance when I developed her involved that was
- 00:55:20Mike Jensen and others who develop performance measurement it was just to say how can we say
- 00:55:26this manager is uh performing the benchmark that doesn't mean he says-- uh performing
- 00:55:30the benchmark or not outperforming the benchmark you should forget about the benchmark it's stupid
- 00:55:41what advice would you have for for typical investors I would like to see those who
- 00:55:49have skills or managers you know start dividing defining the portfolio that I'm describing and
- 00:55:56offer that to investors is a way to think about this is then the investors can choose different
- 00:56:05levels of risk different levels of drawdown they can have and different stock demux then
- 00:56:12have that as the way to run a portfolio not ignoring this entirely something that's more
- 00:56:19dynamic has to be dynamic changing that's the be dynamic thank you well myron on behalf of
- 00:56:25investors everywhere i want to thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with us
- 00:56:44you
- portfolio
- Myron Scholes
- investment
- absolute returns
- risk management
- derivatives
- time diversification
- compound returns
- benchmarks
- convexity cost