The financial media is pleased to report that the best performing mutual fund of the decade is Ken Heebner’s CGM Focus fund.
Through the end of January, 2010, the mutual fund annualized 18.03%, easily outpacing the S&P 500’s annualized return of -0.55%.
Did you miss these returns? Not to worry, because the typical investor in the CGM Focus mutual fund also missed out on the returns. Unfortunately, there is a big difference between investment returns and investor returns.
The financial media always focuses on investment returns. In other words, what did a specific investment return? In this case, the media focuses on the great track record the CGM Focus mutual fund had over the last decade.
Of course, the media rarely focuses on investor returns. In other words, how did the typical investor perform in the same investment? Luckily, Morningstar calculates dollar-weighted returns, which represents the returns real investors receive based on buying and selling.
Here are the 10-year annualized results through the end of January, 2010:
- CGM Focus: 18.03%
- Typical CGM Focus Investor’s return: -13.73%
How can this be? How did investors lose money in the best performing stock fund of the decade?
Simple. Poor investor behavior.
Most investors make buy and sell decisions based on past performance. As the financial media was happy to point out, CGM Focus returned 80% in 2007.
Believing this trend would continue, investors poured a whopping $2.6 billion into the fund in 2008.
Then, in horror, investors watched as the fund tanked -48.2%. Disappointed with the results, investors yanked more than $750 million out of the fund.
The typical CGM Focus investor missed all the gains in 2007 and captured all the losses of 2008.
Don’t fall victim to poor investor behavior and media hype. Understand there is a difference between investment returns and investor returns.
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