Tag Archives: EU

a new government in Italy

May 25, 2018 By in Italy, Strategy, Uncategorized Tags: , , , 1 Comment

Italy has long been the weakest link among the three major continental European economies in the euro.  Its economy has deep structural flaws.  Pre-euro it had long been papering them over through heavy government borrowing.  That allowed it to live beyond its means, protecting industries of the past and giving short shrift to future possibilities.  Periodic devaluations of the lira let it continue this strategy by paying lenders back in debased coin.

Despite this checkered history, Italy became a founding member of the euro in 1999.  It got in by the skin of its teeth–and that only after enacting a violence-wracked series of important reforms just in advance of the deadline.  The hope back then was that once in the common currency Italy would continue down the reform path. Instead, however, it has used the privilege of issuing euro-denominated debt to resume a less aggressive version of its bad old ways.  The result has been a domestic economy laden with debt, that has shown almost no real economic growth over the past decade.

 

The leaders of a nativist political coalition formed after recent elections have been speaking about their economic plans.  Their idea is apparently to “solve” Italy’s problems by repudiating a portion of the national debt and withdrawing from the euro, presumably in order to substantially devalue a new currency.

…sounds a little like Greece, only ten times the size.

This development is, I think, the main reason the euro has been falling against the US$ since early April.

 

my thoughts

–although the new government hasn’t announced official policy, I think that what it ultimately says will be at best a watered-down version of what leaders have already been saying unofficially to their supporters.  If so, we’re in early days of a looming crisis

–to the degree that professional investors hold Italian stocks, I think their reaction will be to seek safety elsewhere

–it wouldn’t be surprising to see official policy end up being something resembling Abenomics in Japan in its broad outlines.  This implies the folliwing end result:  a substantial loss of national wealth, a higher cost of living for ordinary citizens and protection of traditional industry/established elites from negative effects.  There’s no reason to think Italy would end up any different

–it’s probably also worth noting that “protect sunset industries/stunt the future/lower living standards” summarizes the Trump economic playbook for the US, to the extent there is one.  This means we can already see in Japan/Italy the trailer of a future disaster movie for the US

–What to do in the stock market?  I think Italy has restored the safe haven character of the dollar for the moment.  Given the distinct policy negatives in the US, EU and Japan, China is looking a lot better.  Secular growth (i.e., IT) anywhere is probably safer than economic sensitivity

 

paying for brokerage research

August 14, 2017 By in investment advice, Investment firms, paying for investment advice, soft dollars, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

As part of an EU overhaul of the financial industry, the UK has recently concluded an inquiry into pricing practices for mutual fund and other products offered to individual investors.  Press commentary is that the good luck for an industry with a bewildering array of prices (much higher than in the US) and little link between cost and value is not having been referred to the law enforcement authorities for criminal prosecution.

One big issue has been “soft dollars,” that is, paying brokers higher than usual commissions in return for their research, or for trading machines, or even newspapers–items that customers generally believe (and rightly suppose, in my view) they are paying for through management fees.   …but no!

Asset managers have been proclaiming that this is a weighty and complex issue, that the don’t know how to proceed.  They’ve generally been gnashing their teeth.

To me, this is all somewhat comical.  For decades, firms that do business in the US have been following an SEC mandate to keep meticulous records of the amount of their soft dollar expenses and what is being paid for.   The general rule was that if you stayed in line with industry practice, meaning doing whatever Fidelity did, you’d be ok legally.  They know exactly what they’ve been doing.  Also, the EU inquiry (see the link above) has been going on for three years.

There are two real issues:

–there’s a lot of money at stake, and

–handling the potential outcry from customers when they realize they’ve been paying twice (management fee + soft dollars) for research expenses.

An example:

A mutual fund has $50 billion in assets.  It turns those assets over at the industry average of 50% per year.  That means $50 billion in buys and $50 billion in sells.

Let’s say: the average stock trades for $40; the soft-dollar markup is $.02 per share; and the markup is taken on 20% of all shares traded (maybe slightly high, but the math is easier).

So, the fund “service” includes giving up $10 million a year of customer money on brokerage commissions in order to get the management company free goods and services.  That’s even though they’re collecting something like $250 million in management fees from the same customers.

disclosure vs. restructuring

Internally, I think disclosure is the lesser of the two issues.  The more difficult one is that industry revenues are stagnant or falling and by far the largest expense of any investment manager is salaries.  So, whose pocket does the lost soft dollar revenue come out of?

Vanguard, this decade’s Fidelity

Just prior to the 2007 financial crisis, Fidelity decided to turn up the competitive heat on fund management rivals by declaring it was unilaterally going to stop using soft dollars.  This time around, it’s silent so far.

Last week, Vanguard made a similar announcement.

 

the French election, round 1: market reaction

April 24, 2017 By in EU financial crisis, French presidential election, Shaping a portfolio for 2017: Europe, Uncategorized Tags: , , , Leave a comment

As I’m writing this just after 8am est, the French stock market is up by about 5%, large-cap European issues are up 4%, the euro is up by 1%+ against the US$, and stock index futures show US stocks opening up about 1%.

This is all because yesterday’s first round of the French presidential election ended up pretty much as the polls had predicted.  Candidates with 5%+ of the vote, in their order of finish, are:

Macron          23.9%

Le Pen          21.4%

Fillon          19.9%

Mélenchon          19.6%

Hamon          6.3%.

Fillon, an experienced politician and candidate of the center-left, had been the early favorite, but was undone by a scandal involving no-show government jobs for family members that paid, in total, more than €1 million.   Fillon’s subsequent refusal to withdraw directly undermined the prospects for Macron, the centrist candidate, and gave life as well to Mélenchon, of the far left.

The market fear had been that, with the center/left vote split three ways, Marine Le Pen, the far right choice, might end up doing surprisingly well.  That worry was intensified by the Brexit vote, the Trump victory and a terrorist incident in France last week.

The stakes in this election are very high.  Le Pen’s key economic platform: leave the euro and repudiate French euro-denominated debt.  The euro would be replaced by a new franc, which would be rapidly devalued–à la Abenomics in Japan–in order to give the economy a short-term boost.  Repaying euro-denominated French government debt with francs would “solve” the problem of French national debt, but at the cost of destroying the country’s ability to borrow internationally in the future (think: Argentina).  Were the Le Pen agenda to be implemented, it’s not clear to me how the EU could survive.

The consensus view now is that the Fillon and Mélenchon votes will gravitate to Macron, giving him a large victory in the second round of the election, between Macron and Le Pen, on May 7th (and earlier version of this post had the incorrect date).  Let’s hope so.

We now have whole week until the potential US government shutdown over funding for the Trump-envisioned border wall with Mexico.

 

 

 

 

 

 

tallying up the cost of Brexit

April 20, 2017 By in Brexit, Shaping a portfolio for 2017: Europe, the UK, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

How good is the UK, the part of the EU most American investors know best, as a way to participate in potential economic strength in Europe over the coming 12 months?

Probably not good at all.  Here’s why:

–since the Brexit vote last June, sterling has depreciated by 13+% against the US dollar and 8+% against the euro.  While the loss of national wealth in Japan through depreciation dwarfs what has happened in the UK, the blow to holders of sterling-based assets is still immense.

Depreciation lowers the UK standard of living and reduces the purchasing power of residents by raising the cost of imported goods.  While one might argue that the fall in sterling is in the past–and while the consumer will be in trouble benefits to export-oriented firms through lower costs are still to come–this may not be the case here.  More in point #3.

–there’s some evidence that UK residents, realizing last June that prices would soon begin to rise, did a lot of extra consuming before/while firms were marking up their wares.  If so, the UK economy could be in for a significant slowdown over the coming months, both because consumers are now poorer and because they’ve already used up a chunk of their budgets through anticipatory buying.

–much of the appeal of the UK as a destination for export-oriented manufacturing comes from its position as the large foreigner-friendly country in the EU, from which multinationals could reach into the rest of the union.  That’s no longer the case.  An article from yesterday’s Financial Times is titled ” Brussels starts to freeze Britain out of EU contracts.”  Its basis is an EU government memo, which, as the FT reads it, advises staff to:

–avoid considering the UK for any new business dealings where contracts may extend beyond the two year deadline for Brexit

–cancel existing contracts with UK parties that extend beyond the Brexit deadline

–urge UK-based companies to relocate to continental Europe, presumably if they want favorable consideration for new business.

It seems to me that the EU leaked this memo to the FT to get the widest possible dissemination of its new not-so-friendly-to-the-UK policies.  It implies that the post-Brexit business slowdown in the UK will start immediately, not in two years.

One set of potential winners:  UK-based multinationals that do little or no business with the EU.  These, like ARM Holdings, are also potential takeover targets–although it’s questionable if the UK will permit further acquisitions by foreigners.

 

Chinese economic growth

April 17, 2017 By in Asian economic development, Chinese GDP, economics, government economic policy, Uncategorized Tags: , , , Leave a comment

China, the largest economy in the world (by Purchasing Power Parity measurement), reported 1Q17 economic growth of 6.9% earlier today.  The best analysis of what’s going on that I’ve read appears in the New York Times.

The bottom line, though, is that this is a slight uptick from previous quarters–and good news for the rest of the world, since one of the big factors that is driving growth is exports.

Traditionally, the first question with Chinese statistics has been whether they attempt to represent what is happening in the economy or whether they’re the rose-colored view that central planning bosses insist must be shown, whatever the underlying reality may be.

I think this is a much less worrisome issue now than, say, ten years ago.  But in addition to greater faith in statisticians, we also have other useful indicators about the state of China’s health.  They’re all positive:

–As I wrote about a short while ago, demand for oil in China is rising.

–Last week, port operators reported an activity pickup, led by exports.

–And Macau casino patronage, which bottomed last summer, is showing surprising increases–with middle class customers, not wealthy VIPs, in the vanguard.

While I think that consumer spending in the US is probably better than recent flattish indicators would suggest (on the view that statistics are catching all of the pain of establishment losers but much less of the joy of new retail entrants), my guess is that increasing export demand for Chinese goods is coming from Continental Europe.

More tomorrow.