Content provided by Magellan
Written by Hamish Douglass, CEO, CIO and Lead Portfolio Manager
In December 2009 I wrote that “we are in the business of investment and not speculation”. To be in the business of “investment” is to have a mindset that when purchasing shares on stock markets, you are buying an entitlement to a share of the cash flows that a business will produce over time. Your job as an investor is to assess (if you can) the likely cash flows a business will generate over its lifetime, discount these cash flows back to the present value (at an appropriate discount rate) and determine whether you are likely to generate an acceptable rate of return via buying a share in the business at the prevailing share price. Conversely, speculation involves trading in anticipation that a share price will move upwards or downwards over a short time horizon, typically less than 12 months.
In 2008, John Bogle, founder of The Vanguard Group, said in a speech to a conference of Financial Planners:
“Investing to me, is all about the long-term ownership of businesses, focussed on the gradual accretion in intrinsic value that is derived from the ability of our corporations to produce the goods and services that our consumers and savers demand, to compete effectively, to thrive on the entrepreneurship, and to capitalise on change, adding value to our society.”
