Category Archives: Basic Concepts

thinking about 2013

May 31, 2012 By in Strategy, Current Market Thoughts, Constructing a Portfolio, Portfolio management, securities markets, stock market Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

looking ahead

Today is the last day of May.  In a normal stock market year (let’s define “normal” as a time when investors are neither euphoric nor ready to jump out windows on high floors in tall buildings), this is the time when equity investors begin to ponder what the following calendar year will bring.

Why so early?  No extremely compelling reason.  It’s just the way it typically works.  Equity markets are futures markets, after all.  And by this time participants will have already discounted much of what the current year is likely to bring and are asking “What’s next?”.

not normal everywhere, but definitely normal in the US

Conditions are by no means normal all around the world.  Europeans are scared out of their wits by the politics/economics of the EU.  Pacific Basin markets are keeping a close eye on China, while hoping the battering they’re taking from European selling will soon end.  In the US, in contrast, the economy is entering its fourth year of recovery.  Employment is stable-plus, compensation for regular employees (as opposed to CEOs, who always pay themselves well) is beginning to rise, and the housing market–a key source of wealth–is showing its first signs of life since 2007.  While daily price volatility may be high and the shrill noises from talking heads may be particularly bearish, I think 2012 is a normal year.

therefore, time for pondering 2013 to begin

(You may argue that pondering season has already started, and point to the 8% decline in the S&P since its intraday high on April 2nd as evidence.  I don’t interpret the data that way, but you may be right.  If so, you should be more bullish than I am, since you think Wall Street has been factoring bad news into prices for longer than I do.)

a few numbers

Let’s begin with a back-of-the-envelope (which is the best you’ll get from me) calculation.  According to Factset, Wall Street is estimating earnings of around $105 for 2012, up from $97 in 2011.

Let’s say S&P 500 eps will reach $110-$115 in 2013, which is roughly the consensus.

based on 2012 eps

If the market could trade at 14x earnings, a target for the S&P based on estimated earnings would be 1470.

The 1422 high of two months ago was about 3% below that, giving new money absolutely no motivation to buy stocks.  That also meant short-term traders had a reason to bet against a further rise.

Yesterday’s close was about 12% below 1470, suggesting the US stock market may be on more stable ground.

…and based on 2013 eps

The same calculation gives a target range of 1540-1610 for the S&P based on my guess about next year’s eps.  Potential appreciation from yesterday’s close would be +17% to +23%.

If you want to say that the US stock market continues to trade at the current multiple of 13x eps instead of 14x, then potential appreciation would be +9% to +14%.

In a world of 1.6%-yielding ten-year Treasuries, and 2.7% thirty-years, either case looks pretty good.

clouds on the horizon

I can see three, all of them the obvious ones:

1.  slowdown in China   For what it’s worth, as macroeconomics I think this is old news.  Policy is already beginning to move in a stimulative direction.  However, it will take some time for the new policy direction to take effect.  This probably means weaker prices for industrial commodities–and for commodity-dependent stocks–as well as for negative earnings surprises for firms whose profits are strongly linked to Chinese customers.  So China does have stock market implications.  But they’re stock selection ones rather than market-moving ones.

2.  ”fiscal cliff” in the US    On January 1, 2013, the temporary federal payroll tax cut is set to expire.  So, too, is the extension of Bush-era income tax reductions.  Large mandatory cuts in federal government spending, triggered by Washington’s failure to come up with an overall plan for deficit reduction, are supposed to happen as well.

This combination is enough to send the domestic economy beck into recession.

The consensus view is that after the election, the lame-duck Congress will do something to soften the blow.  My guess is the consensus will prove correct, although an accident is always possible.

3.  implosion in the EU    This is the main concern of global stock markets.

To recap:

–The crisis has been going on for almost three years.

–Worries have been discounted in waves of selling over that time, the worst of which (I think) have been the one currently in progress and the previous one last summer.

–The general parameters of a solution have been well-understood for a long time.

–I think Greece being in the EU or out is a big deal for that country but for no one else.

–The end game is unlikely to be a Japan-like fading of the EU into irrelevance, which would be bad for Europeans but ok for world equity markets.  Unaddressed, an outcome more like the 1996-98 crisis in smaller Asian markets is more probable.

timing?

Evidence to date to the contrary, I tend to think that the worst won’t happen.  I’d feel better about markets if I thought I were in the minority.  But if I were, I think global equity prices would easily be 10% lower than they are now.

If I’m correct, the main imponderable is the timing of a solution.  What little I know (or think I know) about politics says that when resolving a difficult issue involves sacrifice, the problem must be seen as so bad that solving it–no matter what the cost–can be presented to voters as a victory.

Are we at that point yet with the EU?  I don’t know.  Martin Wolf, chief economist with the Financial Times, has a good summary of the state of play.

Were the EU to show it finally has the resolve needed to adequately address its financial woes, however, I’m confident that the higher S&P targets for 2013 mentioned above would quickly become Wall Street’s game plan.  And a mini-version of last year’s autumn rally would likely occur.

In the meantime, markets will likely drift.

Warren Buffett has been selling INTC–should we? //the INTC dividend

May 16, 2012 By in Dividends, Stock ideas Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Buffett’s INTC buy

Institutional money managers are required to disclose their equity portfolio holdings to the SEC each quarter in a filing called a 13F. (The 13F is not to be confused with the 13D, a filing the SEC requires ten days after anyone not an institutional investor acquires a 5% of any class of securities (equity or debt) of a public company).

In its 13F filing for the December 1011 quarter, Berkshire Hathaway indicated that it had bought 11.5 million shares of INTC, worth over a quarter billion dollars, during the period.

In its just-released March 2012 13F, the company says it held only 7.7 million INTC shares at the end of the quarter–meaning it sold a third of its holding in the interim.  As thestreet.com points out, Buffett added roughly the same dollar amount to his holding in IBM.

What’s going on?  Should we follow the Buffett lead?

my thoughts on the recent selling

1.  Mr. Buffett makes no secret of the fact he feels he doesn’t have a deep understanding of technology nor is he comfortable with large tech holdings.  He likes financials like GEICO, instead.  IBM, a steady grower that sells a branded set of services on a recurring subscription basis through a large sales force, is much more his style.

2.  My guess is that, at least implicitly, Buffett has put a dollar size limit on the INTC position because it’s in an industry he’s not an expert in.  He’s trimming to keep the position from getting too big.

3.  Coming at INTC from a slightly different angle, the company is a turnaround story.  To me, at $20 a share, the stock was so cheap that it didn’t matter too much whether the company’s efforts to reinvent the PC ( or at least clone the Macbook Air) and crack the mobile market will be successful.  At $30 a share, in contrast, it seems to me that a buyer/holder is betting that ultrabooks are a hit and that designing bespoke cellphones for carriers will work, as well.

I feel no strong urge to buy at today’s level, but I’m content to wait and see what happens.  Mr. Buffett seems to me to be acting in line with my general analysis.  He wants to continue to make the positive bet–or else he would have sold everything–just not a big one.

4.  Stock picking is like baseball, in that it’s the season’s average that counts, not a given at bat.  Even the most successful professional equity managers are wrong at least 40% of the time (the industry cliché is that 55% right/45% wrong = genius, the reverse proportions = unemployed).  So riding on anyone’s coattails on a single decision is a risky position. Think:  Albert Pujols.

the INTC dividend increase

On May 7th, INTC announced its board of directors had upped the quarterly dividend to $.225 from $.21.

I’m pleasantly surprised.  This is the fourth boost to the payout in less than three years.  My picture has been that 2012 would be a flattish year, before a reacceleration earnings during  2013.  I thought the company might wait until November or December to decide on a dividend increase.  That’s because dividend decisions are never made in anticipation of future profits.  They’re always backward-looking.  They’re made based on what earnings already booked will support.

I take the board action as an indication INTC’s current business is going better than I’d anticipated.

 

Bond Environment, 2Q12 (ii)

April 27, 2012 By in Bond Environment, currency effects, Current Market Thoughts, Portfolio management, Recent Market Action, Strategy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
This is the second installment of the current bond market outlook of Denis Jamison of Strategy Managers, LLC.  The first installment appeared yesterday.
Free money…
…at least until 2014 according to the Federal Reserve. They just about guaranteed they will maintain the current zero to 0.25% Federal Funds rate until early 2014.
When the financial crisis began to unfold in 2008, the Federal Reserve responded by flooding the monetary system with credit. Now, they have a new gambit in their efforts to push consumers and businesses toward more spending – a low interest rate guarantee. The Fed seems to be taking the role of the real estate salesperson getting you to buy a house you can’t afford by offering a temporarily low mortgage rate or the car dealer looking to reduce inventories by providing zero percent financing. As Yogi Berra said after seeing back-to-back homers by Maris and Mantle, “it’s déjà vu, all over again.” Wasn’t it the mispricing and misallocation of capital that got us here in the first place?
Excess liquidity creates bubbles either in the real economy or the financial markets. Right now, the benefits of low interest rates and surplus central bank credit have flowed to the financial markets and the big commercial banks. Market participants know the Fed is behind the curve on its interest rate policy. Based on a formula derived by Stanford University economist John Taylor, the current short-term interest rate should be 0.65%. That, however, is based on trailing core CPI of just 1.9% and the current unemployment level of 8.2%. It’s reasonable to assume that core CPI will trend higher -CPI including food and energy prices is already 2.7% – and the unemployment rate will gradually respond to 2%-plus GDP growth. If you plug 2.25% inflation and 7.5% unemployment into the professor’s formula, you come up with a Federal Funds target of 1.8%. How we get there from here is anyone’s guess. But it’s very hard to get the air out of bubbles – financial or otherwise – without a pop.
Go Straight Ahead
When you reach $5 trillion, make a sharp left. That appears to have been the roadmap for the federal government’s debt expansion. From 1970 until 2008, the outstanding debt grew about 3.5% yearly and reached about $5 trillion. (In the Fifties and early Sixties, the annual increase was less than 1 %.) Direct federal government debt is now $10.4 trillion or about 68% of nominal GDP. (This only includes public debt outstanding. It doesn’t include the $4.7 trillion of inter-government holdings – otherwise known as the Social Security Trust Fund – theoretically owed by the federal government .) With the government’s debt burden growing at 11% a year and nominal GDP expanding 4% to 5%, debt could top GDP within six years.
That’s the point of no return – the debt trap. From that point forward, the cost of funding the national debt will grow faster than the economy.
There are only two ways to escape the debt trap: budget austerity or currency devaluation. So far, our elected officials appear to be unwilling to address the first alternative – and for good reason. Most of the money is spent on folks who vote. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid account for 44% of total outlays. The defense budget grabs another 24% and social welfare spending – mostly going to state and local governments – claims another 12%. That’s 80% of the total. (Meanwhile, the small 6% slice going to pay the interest on the national debt will likely balloon over the next few years.) Devaluation is tricky – but much more doable. If inflation can be pushed higher, the nominal value of everything real goes up and the actual value of debt goes down. It’s worth remembering from 1974 through 1981, nominal GDP grew at a 10% annual rate despite two recessions. Little of this growth was real – inflation adjusted GDP averaged just above 2% a year –but it sure lowered everyone’s debt burden.  In that regard, it’s worth citing a quote from Adam Smith, “All money is a matter of belief.”
Keeping a Low Profile
We continue to keep the effective maturity of our clients portfolio’s below that of their benchmarks. This served us well during the March quarter and the accounts tended to outperform their benchmarks. It is worth noting, however, that a bearish stance in a bear market does not necessarily mean you make money. Good relative performance does not mean good absolute performance. During 2011, long-term U.S. Treasury bonds returned nearly 30% and the mortgage market recorded an 8% gain. We expect most of those outsized increases to be reversed this year. Given the low absolute level of coupon income for most bonds, even a small increase in interest rates will translate into a negative total return. The current year promises to be quite difficult for most bond investors.

chit funds, crowdfunding and p2p banking (II)

April 19, 2012 By in Accounting, Asian economic development, Banks, chit funds, chit funds, Current Market Thoughts, emerging markets, Industry Analysis, P2P lending Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

two lessons from history

Thailand

I was just getting acquainted with Thailand when the Ms. Chamoy Thipyaso chit fund scandal broke.  “Mae” (=Mother) Chamoy, the wife of a Thai Air Force officer, appeared to be running a very large chit fund investment operation that was stringing together a sequence of startlingly high investment returns.  She had agents throughout Thailand collecting new money for her.  Money was pouring in.

The fund turned out to be a gigantic Ponzi scheme, however.

The scheme sustained itself for an unusually long time.  It continued to operate even after it had become so large (US$100 million+) it was implausible to think Mae could find enough lucrative “secret” microfinancing opportunities in Thailand.  Several reasons for this:

–people wanted to believe.

–the fund appeared to have the backing of the military, the ultimate source of political and business leadership in Thailand.  This gave an implied assurance that the investment results were real.  Prominent high-ranking Air Force officers invested with Mae, and forcefully urged their subordinates to do so as well.

–investors who thought about withdrawing some of their “profits” were pressured not to do so, with the threat that if they took money out they would be blacklisted and not allowed to invest in the fund thereafter.

Interestingly, large investors in the Chamoy fund continued to urge their friends and work subordinates to plow money into the fund even after they realized it was a Ponzi scheme.  Their rationale?   …it bought them more time.  That extra time allowed them to continue to enjoy a lifestyle they knew was going to end when the fraud was discovered.  And it allowed them to arrange their financial affairs in a way that would minimize the negative impact on them personally.  To followers of the Bernie Madoff case in the US, this must certainly sound familiar.

my thoughts

In my reading about microfinance, it seems that Ponzi schemes have been a constant problem wherever third-party chit funds–not the ones where friends and neighbors lend to one another–operate.  That means virtually everyplace in South Asia and Africa.  There seems to be an especially large amount of study done of the industry in India, which I have no practical experience with (because the stock market isn’t easily open to foreigners–and I think the political environment is particularly unfriendly toward equity investors.)

Personally, I’d worry more about Ponzi schemes in the US springing up among the firms that the JOBS Act will allow to raise equity.  These are the entities that won’t have adequate financial controls or accounting statements for shareholders.

My chief p2p banking concern is a more prosaic one–that the present very low loan loss rates will prove to be more a function of the industry’s newness rather than of the creditworthiness of borrowers.  Time will tell.  And, unlike fraud, this is a risk we can take precautions for.

Taiwan

There was a unique twist to the Taiwanese chit fund industry that I encountered in the mid-1980s.   Chit fund loans were secured by post-dated checks issued to the borrowers by the lenders.  In Taiwan at that time, “bouncing” a check–having insufficient funds in the account to cover payment–was a felony, punishable by the check writer serving time in prison.

The threat of jail time was thought to be sufficient incentive to ensure repayment.  So no one worried too much about the creditworthiness of the borrowers, which–as it turned out–included large publicly-traded companies.  American accountants I met, who’d been sent to Taiwan to break into the auditing business there, told me that they could see the fact of unaccounted-for money sloshing around in potential client companies.  They just couldn’t see how much.  Because of this, they were reluctant to take any engagements.  And they were continually undercut by local accounting firms who charged virtually nothing for “audits.”   American bank lending officers told me the same thing.

The chit fund business received a major shock, during a mild economic downturn, some large companies had made hundreds of millions of dollars in chit fund loans–all unrecorded in the financial accounts–that they couldn’t repay.  Bankruptcies resulted.

my thoughts

This is another potential problem for equity holders in firms crowdfunded under the JOBS Act.  Without audited financials, it’s impossible for an outside investor to determine what the capital structure of a company is.

I also think, à la Taiwan, a legitimate auditor will simply walk away from a suspect company rather than make a public outcry.  Non-disclosure agreements may force it to do no more.  A less fastidious auditor, one nobody ever heard of, might take the business and issue a clean opinion.  After all, Bernie Madoff got one for years, didn’t he?

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