Category Archives: Investment firms

regulating money market funds

July 22, 2014 By in Banks, bond market, Industry Analysis, Investment firms, money market funds, securities markets Tags: , , Leave a comment

In the aftermath of the financial crisis, the government has been considering the risks to financial stability posed, not only be banks but also by asset management firms.  As part of this effort, the SEC is about to set new regulations for money market funds this week.

what money market funds are

One of the most important economic (and stock market) trends of the past half-century has been the emergence of focused single-purpose entities to compete with large conglomerates.  In retail, specialty firms selling jewelry, toys, household goods or electronics have offered an alternative to department stores.

In finance, money market and junk bond mutual funds, have offered alternatives–to borrowers and savers alike–to commercial banks.

Money market funds have several important characteristics:

–they provide short-term, working capital-type loans to borrowers

–as mutual funds, they promise to accept daily subscriptions from savers and allow daily withdrawals in unlimited amounts

–they have typically offered higher yields than bank savings accounts–sometimes far higher yields

–they can offer the ability to write checks against deposits

–they promise, at least implicitly, to maintain net asset value at a stable $1 per share.  In other words, they promise that, like a bank deposit, you won’t lose any of the principal or interest you have in the fund

–because a money market fund is not a bank, its deposits are not government insured.  The “no loss” promise relies solely on the good will and financial strength of the investment company offering the product.

the risks

According to the Investment Company Institute, US money market funds currently hold $2.57 trillion in assets.  That’s a lot of money.

In times of stress, the warts in money market funds begin to show.

They come in two related varieties:

–as a practical matter, many funds are so large that they might not be able to meet redemptions if large numbers of shareholders lost faith in either the industry or a particular fund and headed for the exits,

–because money market funds compete with each other primarily on yield, inevitably someone (or more than one) will hold his nose and make a sketchy loan simply because the interest payments are high.  In a crisis, such loans may not be worth what a fund paid for them; in the worst case, the borrower will default.    In past crises, including 2008-09, there have been times when dud loans are big enough to make it questionable whether the real NAV of a given fund should still be $1.00 and not $.99.  These situations have typically been resolved by the management company that offers the fund buying the securities in question from its money market fund at face value.  But there’s no guarantee this will happen in the future.  And a single fund that “breaks the buck” by writing down assets in a crisis could easily spark an industry-wide panic.

new rules

This week the SEC is expected to issue new money market rules to meet these concerns.  They’ll include:

–many money market funds that don[‘t exclusively own Treasury securities will be required to have a floating NAV, and

–funds will have the ability to suspend redemptions in times of financial stress and/or impose withdrawal fees on those wishing to get their money back.

my take

I think new rules will have their greatest impact on the investment practices of money market funds.  They’re now generally regarded as a utility-like service that requires little investment skill or management oversight to run.  That will change.  No firm will want to be the first to impose withdrawal fees or suspend redemptions.  Certainly, no one will want to destroy their reputation for financial integrity by recording an NAV different from $1.00.  As a result, management oversight will increase and investing practices will become more conservative.

For all practical purposes, NAVs will remain stable at $1.00.

For savers, the FDIC insurance offered by bank deposits will become a bit more attractive.  Since, however, 2/3 of money market shares are held by institutions, I don’t think there will be a massive shift away from money market funds when the new rules take effect.

Detroit’s city-owned art and alternative investments

July 11, 2014 By in Current Market Thoughts, hedge funds, Investment firms, Private equity Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

Late last year, Detroit revealed the results of an estimate by auction house Christies of the value of the city’s art held by the Detroit Institute of Art.  The figure was a range of $464 million – $867 million.  Let’s take the mid-point and call it $650 million.

Yesterday, I saw in the Wall Street Journal a new estimate by Artvest Partners and commissioned by the city that comes in with a range of $2.8 billion – $4.6 billion.  The mid-point here is $3.7 billion.

But wait!   …there’s more.  According to Artvest, if Detroit actually wanted to sell the artwork, it’s only worth $850 million – $1.8 billion.  Mid-point:  $1.3 billion.

OK, which is it—$650 million, $1.3 billion or $3.7 billion?

There is one subtlety.

–The $650 million is the (if you’re not selling) value of the art that the city has bought with its own tax money.  It does not include work donated to the DIA, where there may be strings attached that don’t allow the works to be sold.  (An aside:  there may be a further twist here.  The DIA has presumably either provided donors with appraisals of their gifts’ value, or validated appraisals donors have provided.  In either case, donors will have used these figures, which may be–shall we say, “optimistic”–to claim income tax deductions.  a potential mess that I have no desire to comment further on.)

–The Artvest figures, on the other hand, count everything as salable.

What caught my eye in the WSJ article is the gigantic difference between what the appraiser says the art collection is worth–$3.7 billion–and what it would fetch at auction–about a third of that amount.

What struck me is that this is a lot like the way, in my experience, that the market for illiquid “alternative” assets works.  So the Detroit case gives a rare glimpse into the inner workings of alternative asset valuation.

As in the Detroit case, there’s one value that investors hear about in reports from the management company, and based on which the manager charges his fees.  That, of course, is the $3.7 billion.

The other value is what investors would get if the alternative asset pool were to be liquidated today.  It’s what mutual fund investors would call net asset value, or NAV.  That’s the equivalent of the $1.3 billion.

Yes, part of the reason the actual sales value in the Detroit case is so far below the (I don’t know what to call it) “dream” value of the artwork is the possibility of donor litigation that would freeze assets for protracted periods.  On the other hand, any investor in emerging countries can face similar political difficulties.

Several factors do make the alternative investment case different from Detroit’s:

–in at least some alternative investment situations I’ve seen, the assets are so esoteric that there are few experts other than the asset managers themselves.  So the managers end up doing the asset value appraisals.  If so, I think they’ll tend to find it hard to arrive at a figure that’s not in the rarified air of Artvest’s $3.7 billion.

–the contracts between investors and managers often allow the latter to refuse redemption requests for an extended period, so actual NAV may be a moot point.

–if investors insist on liquidation, asset managers may be able to make a distribution in kind–meaning investors get their proportionate share of the actual assets, not cash.

Institutions will do almost anything to avoid this situation, since they’ll be forced to safeguard and value any assets they receive.  (Early in my career, when Guinness was an independent company, some one there had the crazy idea of paying a dividend in bottles of scotch instead of cash.  This would make portfolio managers like me responsible for valuing and storing the stuff, and presumably eventually selling it, on behalf of my clients.  What a disaster!)

–based on NAV, it’s not 2% of the assets per annum that moves from the investors’ pockets into the managers’.  It’s actually 6%!  Ouch.

As I’m confident you’ve worked out already, I’m not a fan of alternatives.  The risks are hard to get your arms around; information is scanty; and in my view most of the returns go to the managers.  Investors mostly get to dazzle their cocktail party friends with their daring; they lick their wounds in private.

My thoughts aside,for anyone wanting to get a peek under the covers of alternatives, watching the Detroit art case should provide an education.

 

 

 

 

 

Wall Street firms are running out of retail brokers

June 27, 2014 By in Getting financial advice, How your broker gets paid, Investment firms, mutual fund holders and financial advisors, Where are the customers' yachts? Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

In the post-recession world, traditional brokerage/investment banking firms have become much more interested in the steady income that can come from providing financial advice to individuals.  This is partly due to the demise of proprietary trading, partly a new respect for recurring income.   But Wall Street is finding it hard to maintain its retail sales forces.

One would think that with the Baby Boom beginning to retire, and having 401ks and IRAs rather than traditional pensions to support them in their “golden” years, there would be a lot of demand from this quarter for professional investment advice.  Yet, brokerage firms are finding it hard to recruit salesmen.  The demographics of the big (or “full service,” as they’re called) brokerage forces themselves are also telling:  lots of over-fifties, few under-thirties.  Why is this?

In general:

1.  The internet has replaced financial services as the destination of choice for ambitious college graduates.

2.  Brokerage firms have traditionally been hostile toward women, thereby eliminating half the possible job candidates.

3.  Being a financial adviser is–something I kind of get, but kind of don’t–a relatively low status position, down there with used car salesman.

Specifically:

4.  People under the age of, say, fifty (maybe it’s sixty, though) would prefer to deal with a discount broker over the internet than face-to-face with a traditional brokerage salesman.  I have no short answer as to why, but they do–even when introduced to an honest, competent broker by their parents.  Of course, maybe that in itself is the kiss of death.

5.  Traditional brokerage firms have decimated their research departments as cost-cutting measures during the recession.  This eliminates the only reason I personally would consider a traditional broker.

6.  A broker typically gets a little less than half of the commission revenue he generates (see my post on how your broker gets paid for more detail).  The rest goes to the firm, which uses part of that to pay for offices, recordkeeping, and marketing…   For many years, however, firms like Fidelity, Charles Schwab or other, more low-profile companies have been willing to provide established brokers with back-office support for a small fraction of that amount.  I’m not current on today’s arrangements, but while I was working a broker could easily increase his “net” commission from 45% to 80% by switching to one of these firms.  Yes, he might have to provide his own office, but the headline is that he could increase his income by 78% with the move.

 

What’s new about this situation isn’t that it’s happening–this has been going on for well over a decade–but that traditional brokers are finally concerned.   Their retail business model is broken, however, and I don’t see it getting fixed any time soon.  My question is how Baby Boomers are going to get the financial advice they need to manager their money during retirement.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

US 401ks may be facing negative cash flows in two years

June 18, 2014 By in Getting financial advice, Investment firms, securities markets, stock market, Strategy Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

That’s the conclusion of a study by consultant Cerulli Associates reported earlier this month in the Financial Times.    

In 2016, Cerulli estimates inflows from plan participants will be $364 billion; withdrawals by retiring workers will amount to $366 billion.  And the negative cash flow gap widens from there.  This doesn’t mean that aggregate 401k assets will decline precipitously, or even decline at all for a while.  Presumably appreciation of assets in the system, now at about $3.5 trillion, will more than offset net withdrawals for a long while. Still, this marks another milestone in the waning of the wealth and influence of the Baby Boom.

Most often, 401k withdrawals find themselves rolled over into IRAs, which now amount in total to about $5.4 trillion, according tothe FT.  Despite the inflow of refugee 401k money, however, the IRA market isn’t a picture of health, either.  It’s possible that the overall defined contribution market (401ks + IRAs) will turn cash flow negative by the end of this decade.

Although some retirees may be permitted to remain in the company 401k plan, most opt for the greater flexibility, arguably more favorable tax treatment and wider universe of choice afforded by IRAs.  When they do so, they apparently go from reasonable asset allocations of 45% -60% stocks, with the rest in fixed income, into a conservative shell, with 65% – 80% in bonds. It’s not clear whether this has always been the case, or whether current behavior is a PTS reaction to the financial collapse of 2008-09.  It may also be that IRA holders need that large an allocation to bonds just to generate a reasonable amount of income.

The net result of all of this is that pension saving is gradually turning from being a mild net positive for stocks into a mild net negative.

My take from this is that it’s one more reason for turning one’s attention away from the Baby Boom and toward Millennials in trying to figure out retail investors’ influence on the stock market.

exit fees for junk bond funds?

June 17, 2014 By in bond market, ETFs Vs. Mutual Funds, Industry Analysis, Investment firms, junk bonds, pik bonds, securities markets Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

contingency planning

The SEC is doing contingency planning for the time when the Fed will declare the current five-year+ economic emergency over and begin to raise interest rates back to normal.  What “normal” is in today’s world is itself a subject of debate .  The official Fed view is that overnight money should carry an annual interest charge of 4% vs. the current zero.  Even if the right number is actually 3%, that’s still a huge jump (more on this topic in a couple of days).

According to the Financial Times, the SEC is worried about what will happen to junk bond funds/ETFs when rates begin to rise.

the problem

The issue is this:

–investors wary of the stock market but searching for yield have put $1 trillion into corporate bond funds since the financial crisis.  Such funds now have about $10 trillion in assets under management.

–the charm of mutual funds is that the holder is entitled to cash in any/all of his shares at any time before the market close on a given day, and cash out at that day’s net asset value.

–junk bonds are relatively sensitive to changes in interest rates and go down when rates go up, and

–many junk bonds trade “by appointment only,” meaning they’re very illiquid and basically don’t trade.

So, the question arises, what happens if/when holders see their net asset value eroding and decide to all withdraw at once?  Arguably buyers will disappear when they see an avalanche of selling coming toward them.  The initial selling itself will tend to put downward pressure on bond prices.  A falling NAV can conceivably generate even more, panicky, selling.

If a big no-load junk bond fund is hit with redemptions equal to, say, 25% of its assets over a period of several months, will it be able to sell enough of its portfolio to meet shareholders demands for their cash back?  Maybe   …maybe not.

operates like a bank…

Put a different way, a junk bond fund is a lot like a bank.  It takes in money from depositors and lends to corporations.  In the pre=-junk bond days, a bank would lend at, say, 10%, pay depositors 2% and keep the rest for itself.  That opened the door to junk bond funds, which reverse the revenue split, keeping a little for themselves and paying the lion’s share of the interest income to shareholders.

…but no FDIC or Fed

If there’s a run on a bank, the government steps in and stands behind deposits.  If there’s a run on a mutual fund, there’s only the fund management company.

a real problem?

How likely is any of this to happen?  I have no idea.  Neither does the SEC   …but it’s apparently thinking it doesn’t want to find out.

Allowing/requiring junk bonds to charge exit fees would do two things:  it would decrease the flow of new money into the funds from the instant the fees were announced–and maybe trigger redemptions in advance of the imposition date; and it would make holders think twice before taking their money out.

footnote-ish stuff

Historically, there’s a sharp difference between the behavior of holder of load and no-load funds.  In experience, load funds that I’ve run have experienced redemptions of maybe 5% of assets in bad times.  Similar no-load funds might lose a third of their assets.

Mutual funds typically have tools they can use to deal with high redemptions.  They can usually buy derivatives that will hedge their portfolio exposure; they have credit lines they can use to get cash for redemptions immediately; in dire circumstances, they can suspend redemptions or meet redemptions in kind (meaning you get a junk bond instead of your money ( ugh!)).

Junk bond ETFs are a tiny portion of the whole.  They’re a special type of mutual fund.   Holders of ETF shares don’t deal directly with the management company.  They buy and sell through designated market makers, who have no obligation to transact at or near NAV.  Therefore, they can staunch selling simply by swinging the market down far enough.  At the bottom of the stock market in March 2009, for example, I can recall specialized stock ETFs trading at over 10% below NAV!

This issue is part of a larger government debate about whether large investment management companies are systematically important to the financial system and, as such, should be more highly regulated.