High Returns from Low Risk

HIGH RETURNS from LOW RISK If you lie awake at night worrying about your retirement, paying for your children’s schooling or your general financial security, High Returns from Low Risk is your solution to a sound sleep. This unique wealth management guide is written by a fund manager who oversees billions of dollars in portfolio assets, and who wants to share his approach with individual investors, advisors, bankers and everyone interested in the stock market. Despite all the appeal exciting stocks have, his evidence-based strategy repeatedly proves low-risk stocks historically beat high-risk ones going back well over eighty years. By how much? Over eighteen times the returns! Growing wealth doesn’t have to be stressful, and it shouldn’t be risky when you get High Returns from Low Risk. ‘The low-risk effect, that is the idea that historically, unlike many well-known theories, average return across stocks doesn’t appear to go up with most standard measures of risk, is one of the most important “anomalies” in modern finance. Pim van Vliet is one of the pioneers in studying this effect and using it to improve investor portfolios. Anyone interested in systematic equity investing should carefully read this important book.’ — Clifford S. Asness, Founder, Managing Principal and Chief Investment Officer at AQR Capital Management, USA ‘Pim van Vliet’s experience as one of the pioneers of low-volatility investing gives him unique insight into one of the most fascinating economic anomalies of our time. The idea that risk, properly defined, generates a positive return, is one of those ideas that becomes even more profound when we learn it is not true. There is no cosmic risk karma that pays people for taking risk, and this book will help people understand what types of investment risks generate premiums, and which will actually cost you money.’ —Eric Falkenstein, Author of The Missing Risk Premium: Why Low Volatility Investing Works, USA

Introduction 1 Chapter One The Opposite of What You’re Aiming For 5 Chapter Two Mr Thrifty Enters the Stock Market 11 Chapter Three The Tortoise Beats the Hare 19 Chapter Four A Little Bit Is Enough 29 Chapter Five Ignoring the Eighth Wonder of the World 35 Chapter Six It’s All a Matter of Perspective 43 Chapter Seven The Dark Appeal of Risk 53 Chapter Eight Buy Them Cheap and Remember the Trend Is Your Friend 59 Chapter Nine All Good Things Come in Threes 67 Chapter Ten Spotting Tortoises and Hares 77 Chapter Eleven Slice and Dice, But Do It Wisely 83 Chapter Twelve Sit Back and Relax 91 Chapter Thirteen Trade Little, Be Patient 101 Chapter Fourteen The Biggest Victory of All 109 Chapter Fifteen The Golden Rule 117 Chapter Sixteen The Paradox Is Everywhere 123 Chapter Seventeen Will the Paradox Persist? 129 Chapter Eighteen Final Reflections 133 Epilogue Jan’s Perspective 137 Appendix ParadoxInvesting.com 143 Acknowledgments 145 References 147 Index 151