Tag Archives: economics

inheritance tax changes as a lever for structural change in Japan

May 18, 2015 By in Asian economic development, family owned companies, Japanese development, mergers and acquisitions Tags: , , , , 1 Comment

value investing and corporate change…

One of the basic tenets of value investing in the US is that when a company is performing badly, one of two favorable events will occur:  either the board of directors will make changes to improve results; or if the board is unwilling or incapable of doing so, a third party will seize control and force improvements to be made.

…hasn’t worked in Japan

Not so in Japan, as many Westerners have learned to their sorrow over the thirty years I have been watching the Japanese economy/market.

Two reasons for this:

—culturally it’s abhorrent for any person of low status (e.g., a younger person, a woman or a foreigner) to interfere in any way with–or even to comment less than 100% favorably on–a person of high status.  So change from within isn’t a real possibility.

–in the early 1990s, as the sun was setting on Japanese industry, the Diet passed laws that make it impossible for a foreign firm to buy a large Japanese company without the latter’s consent–which is rarely, if ever, given.

The resulting enshrinement of the status quo circa 1980 has resulted in a quarter century of economic stagnation.

Abenomics to the rescue?

Abenomics, which intends to raise Japan from its torpor, consists of three “arrows”–massive currency devaluation, substantial deficit government spending and radical reform of business practices.

Now more than two years in, the devaluation and spending arrows have been fired, at great cost to Japan’s national wealth–and great benefit to old-style Japanese export companies.  But there’s been no progress on reform.  The laws preventing change of control remain in place.  And there’s zero sign that corporations–many of whose pockets have been filled to the brim by arrows 1 and 2, are voluntarily modernizing their businesses.  Mr. Abe’s failure to make any more than the most cosmetic changes in corporate governance in Japan is behind my belief that Abenomics will end in tears.

One ray of sunshine, though.

Japan raised its inheritance tax laws at the end of last year, as the Financial Times reported yesterday.  The change affects three million small and medium-sized companies.

The top rate for inheritance tax is 55%, with payment due by the heir ten months after the death of the former holder.   This development is prompting small business owners to consider how to improve their operations to make their firms salable in the event the owner dies.  More important, it’s making them open to overtures from Western private equity firms for the first time.  Increasing competition from small firms may well force their larger brethren to reform as well.

For Japan’s sake, let’s hope this is the thin edge of the wedge.

 

 

cyclical growth vs. secular (ii)

May 15, 2015 By in currency markets, Recent Market Action, securities markets, stock market, Strategy Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Same topic as yesterday, different starting point.

When the monetary authority begins to tighten policy by raising interest rates, it does so for two reasons:

–the domestic economy is giving signs of overheating, that is, of growing at an unsustainably high rate, and needs to be reined back in before runaway inflation results

–too much money is sloshing around in the system, and finding its way into more and more speculative investments.

For stock market investors, the tightening process implies two things:

–the rate of profit growth in business cycle-sensitive industries is peaking and will begin to decline, and

–playing the greater fool theory by holding crazily speculative investments will no longer work as excess money is siphoned out of the economy.

However the Fed proceeds, the second effect will surely happen, I believe.  But the US economy can scarcely be said to be overheating.  Despite this–and the Fed’s promised vigilance to prevent a meaningful slowdown in economic activity, I think all stocks–and cyclical ones in particular–will be affected.

Why?

…because the Fed tapping on the brakes lessens/removes the ability of investors to dream of a possible openended future cyclically driven upsurge in profit growth.  Whether specifically aimed at this or not, Fed action will have the effect of tempering Wall Street’s avaricious dreams.

What about dollar weakness, EU growth, China…?

In every cycle there are special factors.  They don’t change the overall tone of the market, though.

The main effect of a weaker dollar and stronger EU economic performance will be to increase the attractiveness of EU stocks, and of US names–principally in Staples and IT–with large EU exposure.  Look for the stocks with big holes in December and March quarterly income statements.

As for China, who knows?   My guess is that the Chinese economy won’t deteriorate further from here.  But the main China story , as I see it, will be the country’s gradual shift to consumer  demand-drive growth along with the substitution of local products for imports.  To me, both aspects suggest that well-known US, EU and Japanese China plays won’t regain their former glory.

My bottom line:  the shift from cyclical to secular may be more modest than usual this time, but it will still be there.  A more conservative mindset argues against further price earnings multiple expansion for the market.  So future market gains will depend entirely on earnings growth. The larger immediate effect will likely be in the loss of market support for very speculative stocks.

 

cyclical growth vs. secular: which to choose now?

May 14, 2015 By in bond market, currency markets, securities markets, stock market, Strategy Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

cyclical and secular

The rhythmic cyclical economic progression from recession to expansion and back again affects everything the global economy.  Yes, there are sectors like Materials that go through their own long boom and bust cycles that can last decades.  There are also public Utilities that supply water or electricity that are well-insulated from cyclical fluctuations.

Despite these (relatively minor, in my view) complications, it’s useful for stock market investors to distinguish between companies whose profits are linked mostly to the business cycle–say,  a cement plant, or a supermarket or a department store–and those whose success is more a product of their own innovation or of being positioned in the slipstream of structural change–like Apple, or Amazon or Facebook are/have been.

How so?

In the simplest terms, the first group does particularly well as economic recovery springs out of recession. The latter typically begin to come into their own a year or two into an economic/stock market upswing, when demand pent up by recessionary fears is satisfied and economies settle into a slower, more sustainable growth pace.  In the case of the Great Recession, this process has taken a much longer time.

At some point, central banks step in to raise interest rates, reining in growth a bit further, and tipping the scales a bit more toward secular growth.

Yes, but…

By these last few keystrokes, the “yes, but”s have begun screaming loudly enough in my head to interrupt my train of thought.

They see where this post is going–how should we structure our portfolios to deal with the coming rise in interest rates in the US?–and the answer is going to be to go with structural growth over cyclical growth.

It isn’t necessarily that simple…

…what if the current slowdown in the US is all about the cold weather and port congestion, and we’ll get catchup in the summer?

–what about the weakening dollar, which is giving more evidence of having peaked against the euro?

–what about the EU picking itself up off the economic floor for the first time in years?

–what if the anti-corruption drive in China is past its worst and growth will pick up there?

–what about the bounceback in oil prices?

–how much do valuations matter?

…or is it?

What I think:

Rising interest rates always have a sobering effect on investors.  It’s a change to a more conservative mindset, rather than a precise calculation of the effect on profits of higher rates.

Valuations matter more than before, especially for smaller, non-mainstream companies.  Investors will take a harsher look at highly indebted companies that are struggling.  The same for startups with little more than a business plan and a prayer–it will be much harder than it is today for them to go public.  PE multiples generally don’t expand; if anything, they contract.  At the very least, investors will take pruning shears to the highest numbers.

To the degree that the US economy remains in low gear, interest in secular growth names will intensify.  However, I also think investors will lose their taste for “me too” smaller stocks.

More tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whole Foods (WFM) and Millennials

May 11, 2015 By in earnings conference calls, Recent Market Action, Retail, Stock ideas, supermarkets Tags: , , , , , , , 1 Comment

What should we make of the announcement by WFM that it’s launching a new chain of supermarkets–smaller stores, selling less expensive merchandise, targeted to Millennials?

preliminaries

I was an early investor in WFM.  My family shops there on occasion.  But I haven’t followed the company for years.

Over almost any period during the past decade, the traditional supermarket chain Kroger (KR) would have been a better investment.

The stock’s strong performance from the depths of the recession comes in part from its starting point–a loss of over 3/4 of its stock market value and the need for a $425 million cash injection from private equity firm Green Equity Investors.

my thoughts

new brand–As I once heard a hotel marketing executive say, “You don’t start selling chocolate ice cream until the market for vanilla is saturated.”  Put a different way, if there’s still growth in the tried and true, it’s a waste of time to segment the market.  Therefore, the move to a second brand signals, at least in the minds of the managers who are doing this (and who presumably know their company the best), the end to growth in the first.

less expensive food–Pricing and brand image are intertwined.  Paying a high price for goods can confer status both on the product and the buyer.  Lowering prices can do the opposite.  It seems to me that WFM judges it can’t lower prices further in its Whole Foods stores without risking the brand’s premium image.  It may also be that WFM thinks it needs the pricing to pay for the big stores/prime locations it already has.  That would be worse.

smaller stores–This is less obvious.  The straightforward conclusion is that WFM has exhausted all the US locations where the demographics justify a big store.  My impression is that this happened years ago, however, when WFM began to decrease the square footage of its new stores.  On the other hand, it may also be that in their search for “authenticity,” Millennials react badly to big stores.

Millennials–Millennials and Baby Boomers are each about a quarter of the population.  Boomers have about twice the income of Millennials.  But as Boomers fade into retirement, their incomes will drop.  Millennials, in contrast, are just entering their prime working years, when salaries will rise significantly.  So targeting Millennials makes sense.

 

It’s not surprising that WFM shares dropped on the news.   It signals the end of the road for the proven brand and a venture into the unknown for which no details have been provided.  Why announce this now in the first place?

worrying about productivity

May 8, 2015 By in economics, employment, wage gains Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

getting GDP growth

Looking at GDP from a labor perspective, growth comes either from having more workers or from more productivity, that is, from workers creating more stuff per hour on the job.  (Yes, you can get more output by not letting workers go home and forcing them to work 100 hours a week.  But that’s not going to last long, so economists generally ignore this possibility.)

The trend growth rate of the population in the US is, depending on who we ask, somewhere between +.7% and +1.0% per year. For reasons best known to itself,  Congress spends an inordinately large amount of time, in my view, devising ways to keep a lid on this paltry number by prohibiting immigration.  So, as a practical matter, the only way to get GDP to expand in the US by more than 1% is through productivity growth.

 

The weird thing about productivity is that it’s a residual.  We don’t see it directly.  Productivity is a catchall term for the “extra” GDP that a country delivers above what can be explained by growth in the number of people employed.  Economists figure it’s the result of employers providing better machinery for workers to use, technological change, and improved education + on the job training.

Productivity peaked in the US shortly after the turn of the century at around +2% per year, accounting for the lion’s share of national GDP growth.  It has been falling steadily since.  Over the December 2014 and March 2015 quarters, productivity dipped into negative territory.  This is hopefully a statistical quirk and not the sudden onset of mass senior moments throughout the workplace.

why worry?

Over the long term, the disappearance of growth through productivity gains implies economic stagnation in the US.  (My personal view is that the productivity number are the aggregation of a highly productive tech-oriented sector and a low/no-productivity rest of us hobbled by a weak public education system   …but, as a practical matter, who knows?   By the way, productivity figures don’t include government.)

The more pressing issue is that no productivity gains means employers aren’t finding ways to make their employees create more output per hour worked.  That is, they have no way of offsetting  higher wages other than to try to pass costs on by raising prices.

the bottom line for investors

Conventional wisdom is that the Fed will take a long time to shift from extreme economic stimulation through emergency-low interest rates back to normality.  Both stock and bond prices also seem to me to have imbedded in them the idea that “normal” will be lower in nominal terms than it has been in the past.

A bout of inflation induced by rising wages could change that thinking in a heartbeat.

To be clear, dangerously accelerating inflation isn’t my base case for how the economy will play out.  And no one is thinking that the US will only grow at about 1% annually from now on.  All the more reason to keep a close eye on how productivity figures evolve.