Day trading versus value investing

It is no secret that we at Caribbean Value Investor Corporation are biased towards the value investing approach to investing. However, given the recent surge in interest in topics such as day trading, cryptocurrency, and forex trading, I thought it timely to discuss the differences between the approaches of day trading and value Investing. In this article, we will look specifically at the differences between day trading and value investing as it relates to capital allocation, time horizon, and expected returns.

I will begin with a layman’s explanation of day trading and value Investing. Simply put, day trading is the act of buying and selling shares within a single day in order to make a profit whereas value investing is the act of analysing a business, identifying the value of the business, and buying the shares at a price below that value.

Capital allocation

The literature suggests that one should not be risking more than two per cent of one’s portfolio on a single trade. Many traders utilise margin in their day trading practice. By margin, we mean that the trader is using money provided by his/her broker. A day trader will, sometimes, have situations where he/she is deploying more capital than he actually owns. There are also day traders that will take bigger risks, such as deploying 30-50 per cent of their capital on a trade based on opportunities that they may observe in the market. A value investor, typically, invests 70 to 100 per cent of their capital after doing their research on a company. Value investors, typically, subscribe to the notion of putting all of their eggs in one basket and watching that basket. The reason why a value investor will deploy this much capital is that he/she typically waits until conditions are just right to deploy capital aggressively.

Time Horizon

Whereas a value investor will invest his capital with the expectation for his returns to be made over a number of years, day traders invest with a shorter time horizon. As their names suggest, day traders tend to want to see their returns in a day. A value investor scouts the market for opportunities that might not currently be appreciated by the market and buys into those companies with the hope that, in time, the market will come to realise the value they have calculated and reprice the stock accordingly. Value investors believe that the market is largely irrational and that a large part of this irrationality is driven by day traders. We believe that in the short term, some investors and traders make decisions that create opportunities to buy strong companies at a discounted price. Our approach is to buy those companies and wait for the companies to be revalued by the market.

Expected Return

The day trader deploying huge amounts of capital typically aims to realise a return of 2-5 per cent daily. Day traders are accustomed to higher returns. Value investors generally display a more conservative expectation of the market in terms of annual returns. One reason for this is that many value investors compare their returns to those documented by other value investors who have been investing over a number of years. One of the most successful value investors is Warren Buffett. His returns have been estimated to be between 22 and 27 per cent compounded annually. To a day trader, a 27 per cent return per year might be deemed a tragic underperformance.

To be clear, value investors do not expect that their initial investment will appreciate by 27 er cent each year, rather, we invest in companies at bargain prices so that over a 5-10-year-period, the average annual return amounts to something close to the aforementioned 27 per cent. By way of example, today marks the tenth anniversary of Tesla Inc’s (NASDAQ: TSLA) listing on the NASDAQ. The stock which listed at US$17.00 per share, traded today at US$1,119.63. That’s 6,482 per cent since their IPO or an annual return of 648 per cent on your investment. Said another way, if you bought TSLA stock on the day it IPOed and held it till today, you would have made 648 per cent on your initial investment for each year you held it. Interestingly, many day traders have lost thousands of dollars trading and shorting TSLA stock.

Caribbean Value Investor is an investment media company focused on promoting and enabling value investing in the Caribbean region.