Why don’t I trade like my peers?
The CEO is sure it’s because investors don’t understand something – how you manage inventory, your internal rate of return targets. Pick something.
Investors ask the same question. Why does that stock lag the group? For answers, they root through financials, technology, leadership, position in the market, to find the reason for the discount (or opportunity).
What if these assumptions are wrong?
At prompting from friend and colleague Karla Kimrey in the Rocky Mountain NIRI chapter (which we sponsor) who knows I’m a data geek, I’m reading Michael Lewis’s The Undoing Project, his latest. It’s a sort of sequel to Moneyball, about how baseball’s Oakland A’s changed professional sports with data analytics (read both and you’ll see that ModernIR is Moneyball for IR).
The Undoing Project focuses on why incorrect assumptions prevail. I don’t have the punch line yet because I’m still reading. But I get the point already and it’s apropos for both investor-relations professionals and investors in markets that often seem to defy what we assume is the rationale behind stocks and the whole market.
Perception overwhelms reality.
The CEO, the IR professionals, investors, are all focused on the same thing. The collective assumption is that any outcome varying from expectations is a deficiency in story. Personal perceptions have shaped our interpretation of the market’s behavior.
Yet statistically, rational thought is a minority in market volume – about 14% of it, give or take. When markets surged Monday, the Dow Jones Industrials up 183 points, we were told it was enthusiasm about earnings.
The data showed the opposite – Asset Allocation. Money that pays no attention to earnings. It’s 33% of market volume.
Why would it buy now? Because options are expiring today through Friday (and derivatives directly influence 13% of trading volume marketwide). Asset Allocation uses options and futures to nimbly track benchmarks, and with markets down it’s probable that derivative positions were converted to the actual stocks.
But then it’s over. Mission accomplished. Yesterday the market gave back 114 points to go with 138 points last Thursday. The qualitative assumption – the gut instinct – that earnings enthusiasm lifted stocks Monday was not supported by subsequent data.
Daryl Morey, general manager of the Houston Rockets, gives The Undoing Project a literary push in the early pages. An MIT man and not a basketball player, Morey came into the job because team owner Leslie Alexander wanted “a Moneyball type of guy.”
He sought data-driven results. And it worked. Houston is in the top ranks for success with draft picks and getting to the playoffs, and other teams have copied them.
Morey says knowledge is prediction. We learn things to understand what may happen. It’s a great way to think about it. Suppose it works in IR and investing too.
It starts with questioning assumptions. What gut instincts do you hold about your stock that you can’t support with data? How do they compare to the data on market volume?
I know there’s a swath of people in every walk including IR and investing who think data is BS. Who cares? they’d say. I go with my instincts. Besides, what difference does it make if we know or don’t?
Knowledge is prediction. Data align perception and reality. In Undoing, Lewis uses the Muller-Lyer illusion. Your mind perceives one line longer. Nay. Measurements prove it.
I’ll leave you with this data on the market. I wrote last week about volatility insurance. Now we’ve got volatility. Insurance policies are expiring right now, with the VIX today kicking off April expirations through Friday. Our Sentiment Index trend is like mid-2014.
We don’t know what may come. But we’re thinking ahead. Assumptions are necessary but should be the smallest part of expectation.
That’s a good rule of thumb in life, investing and IR (and if you want help thinking about what IR assumptions may be wrong, ask us. We may not have the answer. But we’ve got great data analytics to help sort reality from perception).