Thursday, 28 August 2014

One big advantage small individual investors have over bigger funds

It is clear that managed funds may have some advantages over us smaller guys, such as the ability to meet management. However, one huge disadvantage they face over us are liquidity/portfolio size constraints. Managed funds managing $1 billion will have big difficulties moving a substantial portion of their money into smaller companies. This provides us with a huge structural advantage. In a sense, buying into large cap stocks is throwing away this advantage we have. The reason why smaller caps may be beneficial is because they tend to be under-researched companies and not invested in by bigger funds. For these reasons, there is a greater chance of securities being mis-priced. 

Yes, smaller companies tend to be riskier, but not all. A company that comes to mind is Nick Scali. I'm not saying to go out and buy it, but it's an example of a wonderful business that huge funds will have trouble getting their hands on. I hope this may make you think a little differently or broaden your scope in terms of the investment landscape of which you have at your disposal.

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