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72 - Binary Investing Outcomes: How the Coronavirus is impacting stock portfolios
Episode 72

72 - Binary Investing Outcomes: How the Coronavirus is impacting stock portfolios

The DIY Investing Podcast · Trey Henninger: Private Investor, Portfolio Manager, Business Strategist, and Value Investing Expert

April 19, 202029m 18s

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Show Notes

Mental Models discussed in this podcast:
  • Normal Distribution (Statistics)
  • Resulting (Read: Annie Duke's book)
  • Efficient Market Hypothesis
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Show Outline

The full show notes for this episode are available at https://www.diyinvesting.org/Episode72

How coronavirus has modified the distribution of investment returns
  • Typical investing outcomes - single distribution of possibilities
    • High likelihood of a single point of returns (say 6%)
    • Low probability of super high returns (>12%)
    • Low probability of super-low returns (
  • Today's environment has a bimodal outcome for many companies directly impacted by the coronavirus shutdown.
    • Instead of a single point of high probability outcomes, we have two center points. (15% and -80%)
    • One may be around 15-20% annualized returns, but the other is highly negative and bounded by the zero-based outcome of the bankruptcy of the company.
  • "The market has priced it in."
    • It is almost impossible for the market to accurately price in a bimodal distribution of potential returns.
Summary:

Investors today are likely underestimating the potential for bankruptcy of their favorite companies. Regardless of the long-term return of underlying assets, bankruptcy is possible when debt covenants are breached or a negative liquidity event occurs.

Both are possible outcomes in today's investing environment as most companies are not well situated for handling a long period of zero revenues. (Not zero profits, but zero revenues)