6 Habits of a Rule Breaker Investor

In this episode of Motley Fool Answers, host Alison Southwick and Personal Finance Expert Robert Brokamp are joined by Motley Fool Co-Founder and Chief Rule Breaker David Gardner, who is back to share his Six Habits of a Rule Breaker Investor. Plus, Robert reconsiders retiring after age 67 (wait, what?!).

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This video was recorded on May 11, 2021.

Alison Southwick: This is Motley Fool Answers, I'm Alison Southwick and I'm joined, as always, by Robert fully vaccinated Brokamp, Personal Finance Expert here at The Motley Fool. Hi Bro, how are you doing?

Robert Brokamp: Vaccinated and it feels so good. Yeah, I'm feeling good. How are you, Alison?

Southwick: [laughs] God, I can't believe you just did that. Well, David Gardner is back, you lucky ducks. Last week we talked about David's Six Traits of a Rule Breaker Stock, and this week he'll cover his Six Habits of a Rule Breaker Investor. All that and more, on this week's episode of Motley Fool Answers. [...] 

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So, Bro, what's up?

Brokamp: Well, Alison, we often talk on the show about the power of delaying retirement even by just a few years. I've mentioned that I don't have any plans to retire early. I think the age that I generally have in mind is 67, which like all people born in 1960 or later is my full retirement age for social security. Of course, you could take it earlier, but then you have a smaller benefit for the rest of your life. I think of 67 as the earliest age I'd like to retire and for me that's 16 years from now. But then, sometimes I come across items in the news that make me wonder if I should reconsider. That happened last week when it was announced that David Swensen had passed away at the age of 67. Swensen was the manager of Yale's Endowment and really the most influential endowment manager of our times. Over his 35 years of running Yale's Investment Office, he produced returns that outperformed the average endowment by 3.4% annually. Many of his former employees went on to manage other portfolios or just consider that of the top 15 endowments based on performance over the past 10 years six are managed by people who once worked for Swensen. Just two days before he passed away from cancer, he taught the semester's last session of a class at Yale that he had been co-teaching for more than 20 years. 

Then, when I heard of Swensen's passing I thought of Clay Christensen, who was the Harvard Business School professor and author of the classic book, The Innovator's Dilemma, who died in January of 2020 at the age of 67. It was that same month that the world lost Neil Peart, the drummer and lyricist for Rush, my favorite band and I know Rick the producer is also a big fan. Peart, who is widely considered one of the greatest drummers of all-time, also died of cancer at the age of 67. That makes me think maybe I shouldn't wait until I'm 67 to do some of the things I often think about doing in retirement and apparently I'm not alone. That's the message of a recent article in Bloomberg, entitled Affluent Americans Rush To Retire in New Life is Short Mindset. Here are some of the stats from the article. A November study from Pew Research Center found a surge in the number of baby boomers who have reported being retired compared to previous years 1.2 million more than the historical annual average. The number of people expecting to work beyond age 67 fell to a record low of 32.9% last month according to a New York Federal Reserve survey, and about 2.7 million workers age 55 and older plan to apply early for social security benefits, almost twice as many as the 1.4 million people in the same age group who anticipate working longer according to a recent U.S. Census Bureau of survey. 

What are the consequences of all this? Well, first of all, you've probably heard that many businesses are struggling to find workers, and that could get worse if the most experienced workers stop working. Back last week Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell cited a significant number of people saying they've retired as one reason companies are reporting labor shortages. Get this stuff from the Bloomberg article. Almost one third of physicians are over the age of 60. Then Nonprofit Physicians Foundation said in a November paper that burnout threatens to exacerbate an existing shortage especially among scarce specialists. Yikes. The other concern I have when I hear about people retiring early is that study shows that many people retire with insufficient resources. They didn't retire because they did a thorough analysis and figured out they had enough money, they just felt like, "Oh hey I feel like retiring." The problem is that later on they eventually start running out of money and they either have to cut back on their lifestyle, sometimes forgoing medical care, or they have to go back to work after being out of the workforce for several years. But there's no question that after several years of exceptional stock market returns and rising home prices, many Americans do have enough to retire sooner than expected. If they've done that thorough analysis of their situation, including how to pay for medical care, especially if they're not yet 65 and eligible for Medicare then more power to them. If things keep going over the next decade the way they've been over the past decade, maybe I'll join them. And that, Alison, is what's up. 

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Southwick: David Gardner is back, you lucky Answers listeners.

David Gardner: What? Thank you for the reinvite.

Southwick: I'm glad you didn't make a liar out of me because I did tell our listeners that you would be here again this week. Well, last week, David, you joined us to talk about your traits of a Rule Breaker stock, but this week you're here to talk about six habits of a Rule Breaker investor. We're going to talk more mindset, once you've identified a Rule Breakers stock, how can you then control yourself, control your temperament, developed some habit to then see that really grow and do awesome things in your portfolio, that sound about right?

Gardner: It sounds great. It's one thing to identify great stocks, and I truly do believe that those six traits, which I've been using for more than 20 years right out in front of the public, everybody looking over my homework each time I pick any of the stocks. The transparency that we have at The Motley Fool is one of our great strengths. But it's one thing to know a great stock but if you're not going to play with it well, if you're not going to do it right then it's not such a great idea for you. Some years later I started thinking we needed to have a second list. Six habits, these aren't about the stocks anymore, this is about you and doing it right.

Southwick: Well, you did talk about our transparency, which is actually a great segue, because I don't know you probably would feel a little awkward bragging about your investing track record but I don't. I feel like I'm here to brag for you. Because it ain't bragging and if you're telling the truth, am I right? Yes, The Motley Fool has been very upfront and transparent about our track record and how we've done. You've also been very humble about picking some losers on occasion in the past. But for those of you who are listening we believe in scoring ourselves, tracking the good and the bad. When you look at David, your track record, I believe in Stock Advisor we are talking here, you have had over roughly the last 20 years, you've delivered 20% annualized returns and that's versus the S&P's about 9%-ish. For new listeners, it's probably hard for them to understand just how remarkable that is. It's hard to beat the market by that much over 20 years, it is insane. Yeah, that's not just cherry-picking, that is over the last almost two decades, which is pretty remarkable.

Gardner: Well, I think that it's really important to point out all of the losers that I've picked over the course of that time and part of winning is losing to win. I [...] to podcast on Rule Breaker Investing with that very title. It's so important for me to convey that if you're going to break the rules as an investor, you have to be more like a venture capitalist, you have to treat the public markets like it's OK to lose. After all classic venture capitalists they lose all the time. They're finding early stage companies; it turns out, most things fail. That's not true for most of our investments but many of my picks have failed and we've delivered over 20% annualized returns. 

I also like to mention that it's done so simply. It's done by picking one stock a month on just the same Thursday each month over years and years. That should be so simple for people to follow and that's always been so important to me. There were lots of restrictions. I can't say no, nothing on that Thursday. I don't like the market right now. I can't find anything. No, we were never trying to time the market. It was time in the market and then it was just a regular repeatable habit through good markets and bad with winners and losers that has led to that, I will say spectacular outperformance, it's probably maybe the great achievement of my life beyond things that relate to my family. It means a lot to me and especially it means a lot to me because it's replicable by anybody who's listening to us right now. We're not using supercomputers or special trading advantages that we have, we're just doing what anybody else is as an armchair investor.

Southwick: Yeah, I should say also that you have a team with you on Rule Breakers and Stock Advisor who follows your philosophy for investing and together as a team you have accomplished this really remarkable feat and anyone can do it.

Gardner: Absolutely, and it is a reminder that you should have a team around you in life. I hope if you have a spouse or partner, Bro and Alison, you've talked about this some on Motley Fool Answers, the importance of having some alignment between you and your spouse or partner in terms of what's happening with your money. That transparency and awareness is a strength, it is a feature not a bug for most couples. Certainly investment clubs and the online medium, and Motley Fool discussion boards are a great example of this, it's great to have second and third inputs for your own sometimes siloed thinking. Yes, what's the old line? If you want to walk fast, go by yourself. If you want to go far, walk with others. I think teams are so important and that's how we're organized at The Motley Fool.

Southwick: Well, then let's get into it without further ado, the six habits of a Rule Breaker Investor. Let's kick us off here.

Gardner: Sure. Habit No. 1, I call rule No. 1, let your winners run high. If you're writing this out in text with punctuation, it's let your winners run period, capital H, High period. That's because most people don't do this. How many of us look back and say, "I did have Apple, but it was 2006 and I held it for like a year and it did really well and I sold it." That is a sad, sad story when you picture what happened for Apple over the subsequent 15 years. For most of the great Rule Breaker stocks, those are a lot of the stories I hear. People had them for a little while, they believed, but they ended up selling. Rule No. 1 is to let your winners run high. I love my winners. One of my favorite phrases from sports, I've co-opted this on my podcast, is winners win. Bro, what do winners do?

Gardner: Well, they win.

Brokamp: They win, exactly. So, let your winners win. Let them run high. This goes against, again, what most people do. Most people just sell something after it goes up a little bit, or if it goes down, they're hoping to just get back to even when they can sell. They're so focused on the short term, they're not seeing the ball here. The ball, this is a really lame baseball analogy, the pitch coming in, you can hit, and the beauty of investing is when you hit a home run, in baseball, you score one run. If there are runners on base, they score two. When you hit a home run in investing, you can keep circling the basis over and over and you're making dollars. You're not just watching some professional athlete put a number up on a scorecard, you're making money, and it keeps going around the bases over and over again. Sometimes we've done this both in Rule Breakers and Stock Advisor, sometimes more than 100 times around the bases, with a ka-ching for you for every base that you touched. Rule No. 1, let your winners run high.

Southwick: Let's move onto your next habit of a rule breaker investor.

Brokamp: Sure. Habit No. 2 is add up, don't double down. One of my favorite phrases, this one is of my own conjuring, is dips wait to buy on dips. It's amazing how many people think, "I won't buy that now, but I will buy the dip," or "Do you think that stock will dip soon?" I say, don't do that, dip. Don't be a person waiting for dips. Some of the great companies, again, not every company is a rule breaker, so we're talking about the subset of the market that I look at, that I'm invested in, we're looking at the stocked pond where I fish, these companies sometimes never dip, or if they do, they still look overvalued so people don't even buy them on the dip. But I really think in a world of dip hunters, I think you should just be an actor. When you add money to your portfolio or to your investments, you should find the things that are winning and you should add up. Don't double down. 

Again, so many people think, "Well, that stock's down, so I'll buy some more of that one, and then if we get back to even, I will actually be showing a profit at that point." That's their mentality, and that can work. Some people do OK with that investing. But since you had me on this time and we're talking about Rule Breaker habits for Rule Breaker investors, for these kinds of companies, you want to add to the winners, not the losers. You want in the classic parlance to be watering the flowers and cutting the weeds, not what most people do in my experience, which is they cut the flowers and they water the weeds as they constantly rebalance away from what's winning. I do want to mention for each of these six habits, which we're going to cover a little bit more quickly this week, I have a mnemonic. The number is laced into each of these. For this one, add up, don't double down. That word double reminds me of two. This is the second habit of the Rule Breaker investor. To backtrack briefly, rule No. 1, let your winners run high. I make it real No. 1 to make it trait No. 1. You're going to see those numbers if you watch carefully in each of the ones we continue to cover.

Southwick: Look for them. Look for those little Easter eggs. The mnemonic Easter egg here. This one strikes me as one that really gets to that trait that we all feel of trying to time the market, where it's like, I'm just waiting for that buy opportunity. I can somehow play this and be smarter than the market on this. This one really gets to me of that feeling that as investors, we all have to fight off trying to time the market.

Brokamp: Well, and I think a lot of people also just think that if they have more money that they would add, they would add it to things that are down, not the things that are up. That can make sense in some context. This list of principles, what we're going over today, is not going to be universally true every time. Context matters. But again, we're talking about rule breaker investing, we're talking about principles. The principle should always be that you are looking at what's working and adding money to that, not the things that are not working.

Southwick: Let's move onto our next habit.

Brokamp: Ready for a mnemonic? Listen carefully. Habit No. 3 for the Rule Breaker investor is to invest for at least three years. I would say three decades if possible, but for most people, have this idea that at a bare minimum, you are going to be invested in whatever you're buying right now or about to buy tomorrow for at least three years. We talked about last week, where the word invest comes from. It comes from the Latin root "investire," which means to put on the close of. Again, a reminder that as a sports fan, whether your team does well at today's game that you're attending with your jersey on or whether it has a good season or two or not, I hope it's still going to be your favorite team three years and more from now. Well, that is exactly the mental picture that you should have as an investor with your cash. I care a lot more about my portfolio than my favorite sports teams. I love sports, but boy do I care more about financial freedom and independence that I'm working for not just for my family, but for all of our members. I care a lot more about that. So I'm playing the long game, investing for at least three years.

Southwick: Let's move on to the fourth habit of a Rule Breaker investor. I can't wait to find out where the four comes in.

Brokamp: Listen very carefully.

Southwick: I will.

Brokamp: Habit No. 4 of the Rule Breaker investors is to remember the four tenets of conscious capitalism. Now, for some of us, we already know what conscious capitalism is, and we know those four tenets, but for much of the world, it doesn't quite know what is meant by that phrase. Well, I'm on the board of the national institute called the Conscious Capitalism Institute. I think you are both included in this movement. It is a movement. I think it's going global and I think it's unstoppable. But it's a movement that believes that business is actually when done well, a great force to elevate humanity. The four tenants that drive conscious capitalism and business done well are these: No. 1, companies that serve a higher purpose. Usually, you know what their purpose is, maybe you know their tag line and/or their mission, and they're driven by that. While profits are important, these companies know that their purpose in serving that is ultimately what probably drives the most profits. Just like people who search for happiness in their life and they never find it, whereas if they just served others, they would've been far happier. It's the same thing with profits. For businesses that are just after profit, they may not really find it very well. If you're after a purpose, you may find profit in abundance. Remember the four tenets of conscious capitalism. No. 1, higher purpose. 

No. 2, stakeholder orientation. We're talking about the companies that aren't just winning for one group, let's say their employees or their management. No, they're trying to win for all their stakeholders, their customers, certainly, otherwise, why do we exist? Sure, their employees, these are the great companies to work for, but also, how about partners and suppliers? The allies that make your business possible, create a win for them too. By the way, maybe the environment is relevant for a given stock that we're looking at. I hope it's trying to create a win for the environment or maybe the community, maybe local communities. Every business is different, but the ones that manage for the win, win, win across all of their stakeholder groups, those are the sustainable winners. They're not just trying to maximize shareholder value. The beauty for this is if you're taking care of all of your stakeholders and you're ignoring your shareholders, they're probably going to be really happy too, because they're probably doing really well. 

The last two traits in this quick, short course on conscious capitalism are conscious leadership and conscious culture. We've talked a lot, especially last week, about the importance of the humans who are running all of these enterprises that we're thinking of buying shares in, thinking of investing for at least three years as part owners of these companies. It turns out, the leadership really matters. When it's bad, the fish can rot from the head. When it's good, you've got the lead husky and the view is changing, and you've got optionality in a beautiful world that you're driving your business into. As all of a sudden, Intuitive Surgical, for example, starts with one type of surgery that's a better minimally invasive form of surgery than was ever done before for the male prostate gland. But all of a sudden, Intuitive Surgical starts saying, "Well, we can do hysterectomies better than most of those doctors do, and a whole bunch of other forms of surgery." You see the optionality show up. Well, that's driven, again, by the leader. I'm always looking for great people. If I could've taken a 10% ownership of anybody in my high school class that I thought was awesome, I would've, because it's usually those winners who keep on winning and that's why conscious leadership is so important. 

Then finally, conscious culture, it's just about where are the places that people really love to work, where they feel deeply rewarded? We're spending so much time in our lives in the workplace these days, whether it's virtual or at home. I think we're spending even more time if it's virtual than when we can go to an office. It really becomes our lives even more intimately in some ways. But darn it, you should feel energized by the work that you're doing. You have one life to live. I hope you are making the best of it. The conscious cultures that attract the love of their employees, those are so important. That was a short course in conscious capitalism. Those four tenets: higher purpose; No. 2, a win for all stakeholders, No. 3, conscious leadership, so needed in this world, for profit and not for profit; and finally, No. 4, conscious culture, looking at the workplaces that people love to be. 

Remember those four tenets and make that habitual for you as an investor. Make that a lens that you're perching on the end of your nose, let's go old-school here, as a pince-nez. That's what you're looking at the world through as you walk around saying, "Who am I going to invest in and how am I going to become financially free?" The answer is, it's often by remembering the four tenets of conscious capitalism.

Southwick: When you put on your pince-nez , I'm not going to say it wrong, pince-nez, there we go. [laughs] What is the company that you see? What's a good example of a conscious capitalism company?

Gardner: There are many. Most of my best stocks, I would say, are very conscious and hit all four of those boxes. But let's just go with Starbucks. Now, Starbucks has its haters. There are always going to be people who think their coffee isn't that good, or it's like [...] coffee, it's too many places, it's not cool anymore. You know what's pretty cool? Putting your baristas just through college. Nobody had to make Howard Schultz or the management team at Starbucks over the years to treat their employees that well. Think about that brand and how they had an understanding of a purpose. Starbucks was always trying, still is, trying to be that third place. Your first place traditionally is your home, your second place is your work, even if right now they're the same, those really are going to be different places in future I promise for a lot of us, if you want that. First place is home, second place is office, but where is the third place? Where do you meet that old friend from high school who's coming through or have a quick meeting for your church group? The answer is, hey, Starbucks, for a lot of people. That's not the only choice, but that will be a great example of a company that exhibits conscious capitalism and a pretty good stock over the years too.

Southwick: What is our fifth habit? Oh, I shouldn't spoil it, because they're going to be looking for that mnemonic. What's our next habit of a Rule Breaker investor?

Gardner: By the way, the mnemonics are for all of us, and I think it can be really helpful. I self designed it for myself so that I can remember with my failing memory here in my mid-50s. I love me some good mnemonics. Habit No. 5 of the Rule Breaker investor is max 5% allocation. What I mean by that is, I don't believe you as an investor should ever take a new position in a stock or investment of any kind: crypto, real estate, what have you, and ever make it more than one twentieth of what you have in this world, that would be 5%. My school boy math reminds me, 5% means it's one twentieth. I don't think anybody should all of a sudden load up on a new investment that's their only investment, or they're putting 30% into this thing because it seems amazing. I much prefer broad diversification, so max 5% allocation. That means as an investor, you should be in the habit of having at least 20 different investments even as you start. Now, I realize for a lot of us starting to listen to Motley Fool Answers, loving this podcast every week, so many people do. I'm so proud of the work that you both do. They might be thinking, "How do I even get to 20? I'm just trying to make my first investment." Good news, these days you can buy fractional shares of things, commission costs have come down to almost nothing, there are lots of ways to understand how to get started investing, both through this podcast and our website, fool.com. 

You really should be thinking about what are the 20 things, the 20 companies, that I'd like to get started with. Max 5% in each. I don't think that you should all of a sudden load up on one, thinking that one is worth a lot, that's going to do a lot better than the others. You might be right, but I think you'd be lucky if you were right, that's not sustainable. I'm trying with habit No. 5 to get all of us thinking about being broadly diversified.

Southwick: Now, of course, that initial 5% max investment in any given company, if it's going to perform like a lot of Rule Breaker stocks have, is going to balloon to be a much more massive part of your portfolio. That's OK if you can sleep at night, right?

Gardner: It's a wonderful problem to have. It's the problem we're trying to create every day for our members by finding the best stocks of our time, and I'm really happy to say the traits I gave you last week, the habits that we're talking about this week, I really do think this has led and will continue to lead so many people to the best stocks and the best investments of their lives. I think it's so important to remember that it's not about one stock, but sure enough, one stock can be amazing if it's Amazon and can start to become a much larger than 5% of your portfolio. Again, a good problem to have, and for each of us there is no one-size-fits-all answer in terms of how large you should let that grow. We're starting to talk about portfolio management, which is not the sixth habit of the Rule Breaker investor. That's a separate consideration. 

But I do want to underline what you said there, Alison, it is about sleeping at night. So if something is doing so well, it's doing too well, and you're worried about where it's going to open tomorrow morning, or what that earnings is going to be like in two months because if it's not good, that's really going to hurt you, then you're probably over allocated, and you should be probably rebalancing. I know, I can see it through Zoom Video, because that's how we're doing this podcast together, even though our listeners can't see it, and I'm seeing Robert Brokamp vigorously nodding his head. Yes, it is important to sleep at night. I agree with that as well, and so rebalancing sometimes away from these mega winners is the great calling that a lot of us have when we find these companies and obey these habits.

Southwick: Let's bring us home with the final habit of a Rule Breaker investor.

Gardner: Habit No. 6, aim for 60% accuracy. Now, a lot of people, if they've studied investing, they might have even had a course in college, or maybe they had their social sciences teacher in 7th grade teach them investing, they haven't come across this term accuracy. As I like to do, I've borrowed a word from one context and pulled it into this one to make it understandable for people. Let me define my term real quick. You're accurate, in my mind, when the stock that you bought and held over at least three years is beating the market averages. That was worth doing. To go back to baseball briefly, you got on base. You didn't strike out, ground out, or flyout. You beat the market one for one. If you didn't beat the market, you would be 0 for one, that would be inaccurate. 

When I say aim for 60% accuracy, what I'm saying is, when you buy and add great companies to your portfolio, aim to try to be beating the market 60% of the time. Now, I say aim because that's not that easy to do. But I believe that getting our kids to aim high when they're kids, and as adults, aiming high for our own actions is going to lead to better performance, and so I'm a big fan of aiming high. Otherwise, it's unlikely you're going to hit amazing targets. In my own career, I'm probably somewhere between 50% and 60% accuracy. That means I'm probably beating the market a little bit more than half the time, but not a lot more. The beauty of this, especially with rule breaker investing, is the ones that do win, do so well that on their own they wipe out all of your losers combined. I can give a quick example from the Rule Breaker scorecard. I did these numbers recently, so they are a little out of date, but anybody can transparently check them because all of our numbers are right there in our services. But I looked and saw that over the course of picking two stocks a month for Motley Fool Rule Breakers every month, since October 2004, taking my team's selections, my selections, as a team, two stocks, every two weeks, another stock, for years and years we've picked around 360 stocks. Here's some horrible news. About one in six of them has not just lost to the market, not just been inaccurate, has lost 50% or more, period. 

Now, Motley Fool Rule Breakers is taking additional risk. Anybody who joins the Rule Breaker service understands like venture capitalists, we need to be ready to lose and lose we have, but here's the beautiful number that I want to immediately make sure people hear as well. The 64th best stock, if we've had 64 -50%-ers, or worse, the 64th best stock at last check was Exact Sciences, ticker symbol EXAS, it was up 475%. Now, some of us are more mathematically inclined than others, but even if math isn't your strong suit, think about that, our 64th best pick +475%, versus on-average stocks that lose -50%. You will take a +475% with a -50% every day of the week. By the way, our fourth best pick in Motley Fool Rule Breakers is Intuitive Surgical. It is up 5,192%, that stock on its own wipes out all 64 of those minus +50%-ers, and leaves money on the table, and that's just our fourth best pick. It's so important to recognize that loss. When I say aim for 60% accuracy, that means about half the time you're not beating the market and sometimes you're getting whacked, and especially if you're going to take on additional risk as a Rule Breaker investor, which many people don't need to and probably won't. But again, you had me on these two weeks, so I'm giving you my chapter and verse. Yes, habit No. 6, aim for 60% accuracy, and even if you don't hit it as a Rule Breaker investor, you might be astonished by how successful you are.

Southwick: Well, that covers it, all six habits of a Rule Breaker investor. David Gardner, thank you so much for joining us these past couple of episodes.

Gardner: Thank you for suffering a Fool gladly.

Southwick: Anytime. Hey, let's have a little disclaimer. As always, The Motley Fool may have recommendations for or against the stocks we talked about, don't buy and sell stocks based solely on what you heard here. Oh, that's the show. It's edited, fully vaccinating-ly, by Rick Engdahl. I'm the only one who's left out. Soon I'll be joining you. Our email is [email protected]. For Robert Brokamp, I'm Alison Southwick. Stay Foolish, everybody!