Investors looking for a bargain, are often misled by stocks or investments that appear to be priced low. These stocks are often trading at low valuation metrics, such as multiples in terms of price to earnings (P/E), price to cash flow (P/CF), or price to book value (P/B) for an extended period. They seem reasonably priced in comparison to historical valuation multiples of the stock or relative to those of industry peers or the prevailing market multiple. The pitfall of such investment happens when the stock goes down or drops further after an investor buys into the company.
Hence, value traps are investments trading at low levels and appear as lucrative deals but turn out to be misleading. In case of a value trap investment, the low price is accompanied by extended periods of low multiples as well. A value trap investment often turns out to be a poor deal as the low price, and the low multiples are due to long-term financial instability and little growth potential. A stock also turns out to be a value trap to an investor when there’s no effort to improve the circumstances of the company, whether in its ability to contain costs, innovate, improve its management, or become more competitive.
Value traps indicator
A company may have been successful in the past. It might have experienced rising profits and a healthy share price. Yet it could very well fall into a situation wherein its unable to bring in profit and revenue. This often happens due to management changes, operating costs, a lack of new products or services, rising production, among others.
It’s easy for an investor to fall prey to deals that look attractive on the outside. Value investors are mostly the ones who are the victims. Hence, it’s advisable to do thorough research and scrutiny before investing in any company that appears cheap based on conventional metrics.
If you spot any company’s stock trading at a low trailing PE ratio, then it could be a value trap. Or, the stock could be a low forward PE ratio, high dividend yield or low price-to-book ratio.
Likewise, an investor should analyse the stock as a standalone asset. One should assess the stock in relation to others in the industry. In case the company is at the top of its operating cycle but still showing lower growth as compared to its peers, then it calls for further scrutiny. It’s essential to look for reasons behind the lack of performance.
More value trap indicators
All companies go through ups and downs. A change in the company’s stock price or earnings is proportional to the management’s pay structure. In case the company’s revenues declined, but the pay structure has not been revised, it’s likely to fall by the wayside and can become a value trap in the long run.
Again, market share is a significant indicator of value traps. If a company has been consistently losing market share, then there is a strong possibility of it being a value trap. Usually, an increasing market share is directly proportional to a rising stock price and vice versa.
Then there could be inefficient capital allocation. Often, a company has sufficient capital, but it fails to allocate the money efficiently to improve business. If you look at the cash flow numbers and compare it with the company’s peers, you might fall into the ‘value trap.’ It would help if you determined the efficiency of capital allocation too. The investor could look at the Return on Equity (RoE) ratio to assess whether the company is utilising the shareholder equity optimally. The Return on Assets (RoA) ratio could also tell us further about how the company is managing its overall assets.
What are the other value trap indicators?
Over-promising and under-delivering is yet another sign of value trap. A company’s management always declares long-term and short-term goals based on a plan. However, when the operational results are out, a lot of companies fail to live up to those goals. This suggests a gap between management and operations. Hence, it’s always important for companies to under-promise and over-deliver.
Debt too happens to be a significant ‘value trap’ indicator. Most companies use financial leverage or debts for working capital requirements, leases, among others. However, they should be able to sustain it too. In case a company has more financial leverage than a multiple-year turnaround, it could be a dangerous value trap. A meaningful way to identify this is by looking at the debt ratio of the company. This is calculated with total liabilities divided by the total assets of the company.
How to avoid value traps?
The simplest way to avoid a value trap is by doing one’s due diligence. It’s important to know that the cheapest stocks do not necessarily make the best investments. It’s worth considering other aspects of investment too. Market sentiment also happens to be an essential factor while determining the price of stocks. It’s also important to take into cognisance all sorts of biases that might impact a particular stock’s worth in the future.
At the portfolio level, diversification and asset allocation reduces the impact of an investment that is likely to be a value trap. Mutual funds and passive investing funds like ETFs are usually sufficiently diversified to avoid value traps. The impact of a value trap is minimised by keeping the position size of individual stock holdings low.
Conclusion
It’s always important to be prudent while making long-term investments. One must take one’s time out to weigh all pros and cons about a stock or an investment. Moreover, one must keep patience to buy quality stock at a good price. To avoid investing in a value trap, one must also research to find out the factors and catalysts that might trigger the rise in the stock price in the future. An investor must also take into account forces such as political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal macroeconomic ones, to determine whether he is getting a fair deal on a stock or just a value trap.
What gives an experienced investor edge over an average investor is the ability to avoid value traps. It’s advisable to invest in a company that has a long history of successful business, the one that has survived many business cycles. This kind of investment mostly turns out to be right in the long-term.
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