Monthly Archives: December 2019

end of the year

December 30, 2019 By in Strategy, Uncategorized Tags: 1 Comment

Virtually all professional investors have long since taken their hands off the money and left their offices–either in triumph or despair.  The anecdotal evidence I’m gathering suggests there’s more of the latter than usual.  Since I have a growth temperament, this strikes me as weird.  But apparently the consensus view was that the sharp decline of stocks in December 2018 was a harbinger of further bad times to come.  Again, this strikes me as odd, but then professional money managers tend to live in gated communities with other well-off people rather than in the real world, so the information they get is highly filtered (another oddity–the gated community part, I mean).

In any event, it’s only the accountants rushing to close the books who remain in front of their computers during the last two weeks of December.

Who’s left to trade?

–retail investors doing tax planning by selling their losers

–the odd manager planning to “window dress” his portfolio by giving his large holding a(n illegal) nudge up on the final day of trading (this happens mostly in smaller foreign markets)

–people like me who are looking for interesting names being beaten down by the combination of few buyers + the need to realize tax losses.

three closing thoughts:

–4Q19 was a lot better than I thought it would be, given that there was no September-mid-October swoon driven by mutual fund/ETF yearend selling

–pundits who crow about stock strength in 2019 typically forget to mention how deep the decline in December 2018 was

–the most notable stars of recent trading have been the banks.  This is a group that’s hurt by falling rates and coins money when rates are rising.  This phenomenon plus the end to the bond buying panic of the summer suggest to me that securities markets have begun to believe that rates have passed their cyclical lows.  What remains to be figured out is when and how fast rates will rise from here.  But for equity investors stocks whose main characteristic is the dream of future profits will have a hard time in 2020.

 

Happy New Year!!!

 

Hong Kong riots

December 11, 2019 By in China, Hong Kong, macroeconomics, Strategy, Uncategorized Tags: , , , 1 Comment

a brief-ish history

During the first part of the 19th century the UK’s stores of gold and silver were being depleted (in effect contracting the country’s money supply) to pay for tea imported from China.  London suggested to Beijing that they barter opium from the British colony India instead.  Beijing sensibly refused.  So in 1841 the British army invaded China to force the change.  The UK seized Hong Kong to use as a staging area and kept it once China submitted to its demands.  During a second Opium War (1856-60), launched when China again balked at the mass shipment of narcotics into its territory, the UK seized more land.

In 1898, China granted the UK a 99-year lease over the area it occupied.  This legalized the status of Hong Kong, which remained under the practical control of the “hongs,” a newer form of the old British opium companies, for much of the 20th century.

In the late 1970s Deng Xiaoping made it clear that the lease would not be renewed but that Hong Kong would remain a Special Administrative Region, with substantial autonomy, for fifty years after its return to China on June 30, 1997.  (For its part, the UK parliament decided Hong Kongers would find the climate of the British Isles inhospitable.  So these soon-to-be-former British subjects would be issued identity cards but no other legal protections–citizenship, for example–within the Commonwealth on the handover.  This is a whole other story.)

Hong Kong’s importance today…

The conventional wisdom at that time was that while Hong Kong China’s main goal in triggering the return was to set the stage for the eventual reintegration of (much larger) Taiwan, where the armies of Chiang Kaishek fled after their defeat by Mao.

Today Hong Kong is much more important, in my view, than it was in the 1980s.  Due, ironically, to the sound, and well-understood worldwide, legal framework imposed by the UK, Hong Kong has become the main jumping-off point for multinationals investing in China.  It’s also an international banking center, a transportation hub and a major tourist destination.  Most important for investors, however, is that its equity market not only has greater integrity than Wall Street but is also the easiest venue to buy and sell Chinese stocks (Fidelity’s international brokerage service is the best in the US for online access, I think, even though the prices in my account are invariably a day–sometimes three–old).

…and tomorrow

Mr. Trump has begun to weaponize US-based finance by denying Chinese companies access to US capital markets, US portfolio investors and, ultimately, the dollar-based financial system.  China’s obvious response is accelerate its build up of Hong Kong as a viable alternative in all three areas.  As with the tariff wars, Trump’s ill thought out strategy will most likely galvanize these efforts.

the riots…

Hong Kong has 27 years left to go as an SAR.  For some reason, however, Xi seems to have decided earlier in 2019 to begin to exert mainland control today rather than adhering to the return agreement.  His trial balloon was legislation under which political protesters in Hong Kong whose statements/actions are legal there, but crimes elsewhere in China, could be arrested and extradited to the mainland for prosecution.  This sparked the rioting.  These protests do have deeper underlying causes which are similar to those affecting many areas in the US.

…continue to be an issue

The recent change in Hong Kong’s stock listing rules (to allow companies whose owners have special, super voting power shares) and the subsequent fund raising by Alibaba seem to me to show that Beijing wants Hong Kong to become the center for international capital-raising by Chinese companies.  From this perspective, Xi’s failure to minimize disruptive protests by withdrawing the extradition legislation quickly is hard to understand.

One might argue that Xi, like Trump, is trying to reestablish an older order, purely for the political advantage it gives.  In China’s case it entails reviving the Communist Party’s traditional power base, the dysfunctional state-owned enterprises that Deng began to marginalize in the late 1970s with his move toward a market-based economy (i.e., “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics”).   I find it hard to believe that Beijing is as impractical and dysfunctional as Washington, but who knows.

My bottom line:  I think the Hong Kong situation is worth monitoring carefully as a gauge of how aggressively China is going to exploit the opening Trump policies have haplessly given it to replace the US as the center of world commerce–sooner than anyone might have dreamed in 2016.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the Huawei issue

December 6, 2019 By in Uncategorized 1 Comment

Huawei is an integrated Chinese telecom company whose products range from handsets to large-scale transmission equipment.  It’s the leading provider of next generation, G-5, cellular infrastructure, a market where the US has no viable entry.  Washington has successfully put enormous pressure on the big US telecom companies not to buy Huawei products, arguing that its devices may contain hidden back doors that could allow Chinese intelligence operatives to spy on conversations and intercept data.

Despite this, Huawei has established a substantial foothold in small US communities because its offerings are much cheaper and better than competitors’.  American worries/threats appear to be met with shoulder shrugs in the EU as well, on the idea that conversations are already being intercepted by the US, so how much worse than Mr. Trump can China be.

In addition, the administration has:

–placed Huawei on the “Entity List,” thereby designating Hauwei a threat to national security and giving the government the ability to cut off the company’s access to American-made computer chips and other components

–floated the idea that Huawei–other Chinese companies as well–could be denied access to US financial markets–bond, stock and bank lending–as venues for raising capital.  Government-related investment pools may also be barred from owning Chinese securities, including Huawei

–had the Huawei CFO (the daughter of the Huawei chairman) arrested on charges of money-laundering and violating the embargo on Iran–effectively telling the company not to use the US banking system at all.  Ms. Meng is still under house arrest in Vancouver, 14 months after being detained at US request in Canada, fighting extradition.

 

practical implications, as I see them

–although chipmaking has been a Beijing priority for as long as I can remember, the industry has never really developed in China.  I don’t know why.  Washington’s action certainly underlines for Beijing the urgent need to do so.

–my strong impression is that US-based chip companies have continued to supply Huawei from fabs abroad during the on-again, off-again embargo.  Since high-end fabs can be located practically anywhere, the Trump ban on sales to Huawei has likely knocked the US way down the list of locations for new investment

–over the past few years China has slowly been opening its securities markets to foreigners.  The pace of creating an alternative to the US as a source of capital will doubtless pick up after the Trump threats.  Hong Kong, for example, has recently changed its rules to allow companies with multiple classes of shares to list.  And Alibaba has chosen Hong Kong over its prior home, New York, for its latest equity raising.  I think this is just the beginning of China’s move to decrease its reliance on the US

–by weaponizing the dollar-based payment system against national champion Huawei (Mr. Trump has suggested that the charges against Ms. Meng would disappear as part of a trade deal), practical support for the renminbi as a substitute for the dollar must be rising strongly in Beijing.  Implementation is a looong way off, but the seeds have been planted.

on a more conceptual level…

It seems to me that the recent rash of shoot-yourself-in-the-foot economic policy making in Washington makes the US much less desirable as a place for capital investment to anyone, foreign or domestic.  Yes, Mr. Trump is the catalyst, but Washington appears to meekly acquiesce to his economically damaging edicts.

Two saving graces:

–Xi Jinping’s embrace of backward-facing state-owned enterprises as a way of strengthening the grip of the Communist Party over that economy parallels Mr. Trump’s odd desire to relegate the US to the third world.  So China may not be able to exploit fully the huge opportunity Washington is presenting it.

–the obvious move for Beijing would be to ally with the EU against the US.  The easiest connecting link would have been the UK, which, however, is in the process of destroying itself through Brexit.  Is Germany an acceptable substitute?

 

 

 

Keeping Score, November 2019

December 5, 2019 By in administration economic strategy, Analyzing performance, Current Market Thoughts, Keeping Score, performance attribution, performance measurement, Recent Market Action, Strategy, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , 1 Comment

I’ve just updated my Keeping Score page for November.  Given the absence of mutual fund selling in October, not a bad result.

Trumponomics—good for the economy?

December 3, 2019 By in administration economic strategy, economics, foreign trade, government economic policy, macroeconomics, Strategy, Trump's economics, Trump, taxes and trade, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , 1 Comment

Supporters of Donald Trump tend to excuse his white nationalism, his erratic policymaking, the paucity of his factual knowledge, the whiff of sadism in his treatment of immigrants, the apparent promotion of family business interests…by saying that at least he’s good for the economy.  They typically cite low unemployment, GDP growth and the stock market as proof.

Is that correct?

Yes, unemployment is low.  Yes, the economy is growing at trend–after receiving a boost from fiscal stimulation (the corporate tax cut) last year.  And the stock market did rally on the announcement of Trump’s election victory.  (We can quibble about stock market performance:  though significantly higher today, the US was pretty much the worst market in the world in 2017, when virtually everybody was up–and more than us; since the 20% boost in US corporate after-tax income it’s up another 10%–much better performance than markets where the tax rate has remained unchanged).

But I think this rationalization, offered typically by wealthy beneficiaries of income tax changes, simply deflects attention away from administration policies that can potentially do severe long-term damage to US prospects.  Here are a few:

–tariff wars.  Tariffs can be an important way to give industries of the future breathing room to develop, by insulating them from more sophisticated foreign competition.  The administration, however, is protecting low value-added manual labor jobs against competition from more efficient firms in China.  These tariffs have the perverse effect of retarding manufacturing development here while forcing China to turn to higher value-added work.  The latter is a perennial stumbling block for developing countries, so the excuse of Trump tariffs to force the move to higher value-added industry is a rare gift to Beijing.

In addition, the US has been a prime destination for multinationals’ advanced manufacturing because of the large local market and the experienced workforce.  The possibility of tariffs–and their apparently unpredictable implementation–has stopped this flow.

–retaliatory tariffs.  Tariffs don’t go unanswered. China responded to US levies by shifting purchases of soybeans to Brazil and other countries.   As/when tariff wars end, the soybean market will most likely not revert to the status quo ante; once in the door, other, arguably more dependable, suppliers will doubtless retain market share.  By the way, when the administration withdrew from the TPP, it also made US soybeans more expensive in another Pacific market, Japan.

–restrictions on immigration.  The solution for tech companies who are unable to hire foreign scientists to work in the US because they can’t get visas is to move R&D operations to, say, Canada.  Also, the administration’s white supremacism has made foreigners question whether they will be safe in the US as tourists or students, hurting both industries.  Chinese citizens may also feel it’s unpatriotic to travel here.  A bigger worry:  will this force US-based multinationals to begin to regard themselves as no longer American?

–zero/negative interest rates.  This is a weird situation in financial markets, which, to my equity-oriented mind, is bound to end badly. Ultra-low rates are also trouble for risk-averse savers, including traditional pension plans.  In the US, downward pressure on rates comes both from foreign bond arbitrage and administration demands that the Fed offset tariff damage to growth with looser money policy.

 

Meanwhile, what’s not being addressed:  infrastructure, health care including drug prices, education, retraining displaced workers (where we’re worst in the OECD)