How Warren Buffett Thinks About Micro Cap Stocks
The key to understanding why a stock picker like Warren Buffett made his best returns when he was investing in micro caps is understanding that a neglected stock is more likely to offer a mispriced bet.
The idea that there’s a trade-off between risk and return only makes sense if people are paying attention to a stock and correctly pricing it. In other words, the more people are correctly handicapping the situation, the more there is a trade-off between risk and return. The less people are correctly handicapping the situation, the less there is a trade-off between risk and return. This trade-off is not inherent to the situation itself. A fast horse and a slow horse – a good company and a bad company – only become equal in risk adjusted terms when the necessary and correct bets are placed to move the odds to the point that equalizes the expected payoff.
The trade-off between risk and return comes from price. And the price comes from the betting public placing their bets correctly so that favorites pay less and long shots pay more. If the public bets wrong, there is no trade-off between risk and return.
As Ben Graham said:
“…the influence of what we call analytical factors over the market price is both partial and indirect – partial, because it frequently competes with purely speculative factors which influence the price in the opposite direction; and indirect, because it acts through the intermediary of people’s sentiments and decisions.”
In other words, objectively observed prices are the outputs of subjective analysis. Obviously, both the inputs and the black box – the human minds – into which the data is being input will together determine the market price.
People set prices using their minds.
And here’s the thing about minds. They work from experience. And they only experience what they pay attention to.
Here’s William James:
“…one sees how false a notion of experience that is which would make it tantamount to the mere presence to the senses of an outward order. Millions of items of the outward order are present to my senses which never properly enter into my experience. Why? Because they have nointerestfor me.My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which Inoticeshape my mind – without selective interest, experience is an utter chaos.”
So prices depend on attention.
The mere presence of data means nothing. People have to read 10-Ks. And they have to care about them. If nobody pays attention to a 10-K, that 10-K doesn’t enter into a stock price. Because the data in a 10-K only moves stock prices through people’s minds.
If you want to think about it like advertising you can. Some stocks are advertised by analysts and newspaper reporters and their own well-known consumer brands and products. Other stocks are unknown because they’re headquartered in the wrong state or wrong country, because they make stuff you’ve never heard of, and because you …
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