Tag Archives: EU

watch the currencies!–what they’re saying now

September 13, 2012 By in currency effects, Current Market Thoughts, Dividends, economics, Keeping Score, Portfolio management, Recent Market Action, Strategy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

three key pieces of data for investors

Over the last several weeks, two pieces of information have emerged that have potentially great importance for equity investors.  A third may develop from the US Federal Reserve today.

They are:

1.  the Case-Schiller index, which is very influential in the US, despite being a lagging (also called confirming) indicator of the state of the housing market, has finally signalled that overall residential prices have bottomed and are on the mend.  The five-year slump is over.

Although I think the revival of the housing market gives a second wind to the domestic economic expansion, in the counter-intuitive way Wall Street works, it also has a darker side.  Other than Washington suddenly starting to do its fiscal policy job, which would be a huge positive surprise, it’s hard for me to see what new positive market-moving economic development could happen in the US over the coming months.

2.  The European Central Bank has announced a broad support plan for the bond markets of the weaker members of the Eurozone.  Yesterday, the German high court rejected litigants’ assertions that the German government was barred by that country’s constitution from participating in the plan.  Germany is slated to provide over 25% of the financing of the Eurozone rescue plan, so this decision was crucial.

The implication is that EU economies will be stronger over the coming year or so rather than weaker.

3.  The Fed may announce further unconventional measures today to support the US economy.  The Fed has repeatedly said that fiscal policy would be a much more effective engine to spur growth, but apparently sees about the same chance as I do of that happening.

Two measures are possible.  One is additional bond buying, intended to flatten the yield curve.  The second is a commitment to hold short-term interest rates at today’s emergency low levels for the next three years.  Yikes!  Three more years of nearly no income from CDs and money market funds?

I think the second would  have the more significant effect for Wall Street.  It would give two contrary signals:  it would say that there’s no need to flee the bond market anytime soon; and it would imply that the only liquid investment that will provide significant income for savers any time soon is the stock market.

three places to see their effects 

1.  the performance of general stock markets in their local currencies.

The S&P 500 is up 9% over the past three months.  I think the recovery of house prices, which is the major source of wealth for most Americans, is the main reason.  EU growth should also have a positive rub-off effect on US firms involved in foreign trade, as well as the many S&P firms with substantial operations in Europe.

The Eurostoxx 50 is up 19% over the same span.  Broader indices are up in the mid-teens.  Most of the outperformance of the S&P has come in the past month, when Eurozone rescue plans have been publicized. Dollar-based returns on the EU indices are much larger.

2.  You can also changes in the lists of sectoral winners and losers, as I’ve written about on the Keeping Score page on PSI.   Generally, the US investor has shifted away from defensive sectors toward IT and Consumer Discretionary, two moderately bullish areas, while not to sectors like Materials that would benefit from a strong general economic upsurge.

3.  Most US investors generally ignore the third area–currency movements.  I think it’s certainly true this time.  But from mid-July until now, the € has risen from a value of $1.20 each to $1.29, or 7%.  True, the ¥ has been rising since March, when holder had to pay 84 to get $1.  But it has also recently risen above the 78 level that the Tokyo government had been trying to defend.

To my mind, the Japanese economy still has nothing much going for it.  Seeing that currency rise at all–which normally happens only in a healthy country–really says something.

the message?

If we add a currency gain of 7% to, say, a 14% rise in European stocks, the total return to an American investor in the past month is more than 20%.  If we have indeed made a major turn in the EU, the party is far from over, in my judgment.

Many European stocks still have strikingly high dividend yields–certainly a temptation to income-oriented investors but also a warning of potential risk.

I’ve been advocating having a severe underweight in the EU, with exposure only to companies listed there but with significant operations elsewhere.  I haven’t made any changes yet, but I’ve got to at least reconsider my position.

Conversely, US-listed companies with large businesses in the EU may not be having great local currency sales at the moment, but they’re enjoying a big boost in dollar terms.

The rise in the ¥ tells me that at least a part of what is happening is not foreign currency strength.  It’s dollar weakness.  That may be because of continuing fiscal policy failure here, or just the perception that all the potential good news is already out.

The much greater € strength suggests that real economic improvement is expected in the EU.  I’m still mostly convinced that Greece will be forced out of the Eurozone (and the EU).  But markets may not be willing to wait for this final shoe to drop.

To sum up:  we may be in the early stages of a significant shift in the attitude of global equity portfolio managers about where they want to place their clients’ money.  If so, I think the clearest sign is coming from the currency markets–it’s mildly against the US, strongly for the EU.

European money market funds–charging to hold your money?

September 6, 2012 By in Banks, Industry Analysis, Investment firms, Portfolio management, Recent Market Action, Securities regulation, Strategy Tags: , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

That’s what the Financial Times suggests is about to happen, based on what the largest European money market fund managers have told them.

money market funds

Money market funds are a kind of mutual fund that specializes in holding very short-term government and corporate debt.  They became popular as a much higher-yielding, but safe alternative to bank deposits well over a quarter-century ago.  Although not insured by governments in the way bank deposits are, their investing operations are designed to preserve net asset value at a constant level.  That’s usually $1 or €1.  Interest is paid in new shares.

defending net asset value

Over their entire lifespan, there have been only a small number of incidents, involving a small minority of funds, where investors have received less than their initial purchase price when redeeming shares.  There have been cases–only a few–where funds have made imprudent investments stretching for yield.  But the financial conglomerates sponsoring the wayward managers have invariably made investors whole, typically by buying the dud paper at the initial purchase price.

today’s situation in the EU

Why is today any different in Europe?  Two reasons:

–the European Central Bank has recently reduced the interest rate it pays on overnight deposits from 0.25% to plain old zero.  And it says it might reduce rates further, meaning it will begin to charge banks for holding their money.

–the long-running EU debt crisis has created a two-tier structure of sovereign borrowers, haves and have nots.  Interest rates on short-term French and German notes are already negative (meaning you lend €1 to either country and get €0.995 or so back when the note comes due).  Yes, a money market fund can get a positive yield by lending to Spain or Greece, but only by taking on extra risk.  Also, once your clients learn what you’re doing, they’ll probably move their funds elsewhere.

A manager can, of course, think about buying longer-dated securities that do pay interest.  But he takes on interest rate risk by doing so.  Just as important, the fund’s charter will doubtless bar, or at least limit, such investments.

To sum the situation up, money market funds promise safety + a better yield than bank deposits.  In today’s EU, they can’t deliver both.

plans being considered

According to the FT, some fund sponsors are toying with the idea of keeping the net asset value constant, but charging the negative interest rate to accounts by decreasing the number of shares an investor holds.  Others appear to be considering levying charges in some form, but outside the fund, so that neither the asset value nor the number of fund shares will be affected.

bank accounts must be in the same situation

Given that money market fund managers are usually much more efficient than their bank counterparts, the banks themselves are likely beginning to lose money on savings accounts.  So it’s possible that in the stronger EU nations, banks will begin to charge customers a monthly fee to safeguard their money.

more than an oddity

I think the most important information to take from this discussion is that the money market fund sponsors don’t expect the situation to change any time soon.  If they thought that negative returns on government notes were a three- to six-month aberration, they might quietly suffer through the losses.

But they’re not.  They’re planning on the current situation being around for a long time.

the dividend yield on European stocks? … 5.5%!!!

July 16, 2012 By in Current Market Thoughts, Portfolio management, Stock ideas Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

the MSCI Europe index yields 5.5%

That’s according to the analytic services company Factset, in a news release about a week ago.  Yes, the data are from the end of April, so they’re a bit dated and may be off slightly.  But, still…

Why so high?

1.  investor preferences

Historically, investors in European equities are much more income oriented than those in, say, US or Asian shares.  In fact, “growthier” European companies, which tend to plow back the cash from operations into expanding their businesses–rather than paying it out in dividends–may try to go public in venues like New York or Hong Kong instead of on their home ground.  Doing so gets them a more sympathetic/compatible audience, and therefore a higher price earnings multiple (meaning a lower cost of equity capital).

As a result, the European bourses are top-heavy with bank and telecom shares.  The former yield around 12%, the latter about 8%.

2.  the ongoing financial crisis has beaten down European stock markets…

…which have declined sharply over the past year.

Consider what current dividend yields in the EU are saying today:

–Two-year government bond yields in Germany and the Netherlands are currently slightly negative.  In both cases, you have to pay €1001 today in order to get €1000 back in July 2014.  Buying a telecom stock instead gets an investor an income pickup of over 8%–an extraordinarily high amount.

–Over the past ten years, the yield on the MSCI Europe index has averaged 4%  It has only been higher than today on one occasion–a brief period in early 2009, when panic selling of equities pushed the yield to 6.5%.

–The dividend yield on MSCI Europe is typically higher than that on the S&P 500.  The current 3.5% spread is, however, the widest gap seen in the past decade.

what does this mean?

On the most basic level, the numbers say to me that European equity investor confidence is completely shattered.  At the nadir for world stock markets in early 2009, German two-year bonds were yielding 1.5%.  The MSCI Europe was yielding 6.5%.  So the spread between the two was 5.0% then.

Today, the spread is 5.5%+.

Buying the MSCI Europe index, which would return 11% over two years, assuming no change in either stock prices or dividend payments.  Investors are choosing instead the safety of a German bond that they are assured of losing money on.

Put a little differently, the expectation built into today’s stock prices is that they will lose more than 11% over the next two years, wiping out the entire yield pickup–and more.  This would presumably come through some combination of dividend cuts and price declines.

Shades of Japan in the 1990s!

what to do

This view strikes me as excessively pessimistic.

Nevertheless, this doesn’t mean Europe is a screaming buy. The experience of Japan since 1990 may also be applicable here.

To my mind, there are several lessons that may be appropriate:

–although extremes of fear can’t be sustained, at least mildly negative views about equities can persist for a surprisingly long period, especially when the domestic investor base is relatively old and therefore particularly risk averse

–negative sentiment affects the prices of all stocks in a given market to some degree, not just the basket cases

–companies whose main virtue is their high current yield are probably not going to be the big relative winners.  In my view, and also the way I read developments in the Japanese market over the past twenty years, the real winners are well-managed companies which are growing quickly and whose profits come mainly from non-domestic (meaning, in the case of Europe, non-EU) sources.  Better if they pay a current dividend, but the rate of earnings growth is more important.

Feeling for a bottom in Europe is not a task for the faint of heart.  Nor is it anything one should do with more than a small fraction of his portfolio.  Still, it seems to me that we’re at, or near, a degree of negative sentiment that’s excessive and can’t be sustained for long.

the Eurozone haggling process

June 26, 2012 By in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

fully discounting the EU crisis?

I’m beginning to think that we’re at, or close to, the worst point for global stock markets in their discounting of the Eurozone financial crisis.  This doesn’t mean that the crisis itself is over, or even close to that.  It doesn’t mean, either, that European stocks will be good performers in absolute terms or relative to their peers listed in other countries from now on.

what this means

Instead, it means two things:

–I think global markets have already assessed and discounted most of the bad consequences that the euro crisis will have for the wold outside the EU.  After all, the crisis has been going on for almost three years, a longer time–as I pointed out yesterday–than it took the world to do the same thing for Japan in the early 1990s.  This means we are at, or close to, the point where future uncertainties can be shrugged off by other markets.  It may even be that future deterioration of the situation in the EU will also have little effect on trading outside Europe.  Certainly, that’s what happened with the Japenese stock market, which in 1992 was still first or second in capitalization in the world.  It declined into its current irrelevance.

I’m not sure this dire fate awaits the EU.  In fact, although, again, I’m not willing to bet on this outcome, I think there’s a good chance the EU will ultimately become a much closer political union.  But I think the EU and the rest of the world will soon “decouple” in stock market terms.

–It also means I think there’s a chance to make money in carefully selected UK or continental European stocks.  (Given the reports that US-based “vulture” investors are moving en masse to the EU, the reality may be somewhat better than this.)

For example, London-based Intercontinental Hotels Group, whose IHG ADR I own (I’ve mentioned several times in previous PSI posts), is up 20% in dollars (25% in £) over the past year.  That compares with a 3.6% gain for the S&P 500 over the same span, and a £ loss of around 4% for the FTSE 100.  I don’t see why outperformance for IHG shouldn’t continue.

I’m not willing to bet the farm on this hypothesis, but I do think it deserves considering.

the current situation??    …haggling about terms

If I’m right about this, how should I interpret the apparent current impasse between Germany, which wants structural reform in Italy, Spain et al. before it will consider sharing the burden of those countries’ excessive debt, and the rest of the EU, which wants debt relief before structural reform?

I think it all comes down to a process of haggling about terms.  It’s sometimes being conducted in private, sometimes in the press.  It’s the Greek bailout process writ large.  Both sides have already decided it’s in their best interest to come to an agreement that will contain both a measure of debt relief and some relinquishment of national sovereignty.  But neither side can be seen as simply rolling over and accepting the terms the other is demanding.  Both must be viewed by their electorates as having fought hard for every inch of ground won or lost.

Two other points:

–I think the EU generally, and Germany in particular, learned a lot from negotiations with Greece.  It came to understand that for a wily haggler like Greece, each apparent agreement only creates a new framework for further negotiation.  The EU also saw that the Greek parliament enacted reform legislation on cost decreases and on taxes–but then never enforced the new laws.  Maybe it’s been ok for Greece to conduct itself like this.  I think, however ,that Germany is determined that nothing similar will happen on the wider Eurozone stage.  Supra-national safeguards must be in place.

Therefore, any definitive agreement may take time–a lot of time.  Germany doesn’t care, because the stakes are so high.  Having gone through its own massive decade-long economic restructuring after the merger of East Germany and West, Germany understands what needs to be done.

–The interests of the EU and the rest of the world may not coincide.

Specifically,

-The EU is currently China’s largest trading partner; privately, China may think that the EU won’t be nearly so important to it ten years from now.  So it’s urging an immediate solution, at least in part because that’s what’s best for China at the moment.

-The US economy is  slowing (to a degree I didn’t foresee), partly because of recession in the EU.  Historically, administrations are reelected when the country is either healthy already or making good progress getting there.  On the other hand, administrations tend to be replaced when the economy is sagging and unemployment is high. There’s no time, nor is there any apparent inclination on either political party’s part, to start the legislative process of helping the US economy evolve.  Therefore, Washington has a strong interest in having a quick solution to the EU crisis, on the idea that this will make the domestic situation look a bit better.

comparing Japan 1992 with the Eurozone 2012

June 25, 2012 By in capital flight/brain drain, Current Market Thoughts, economics, Japanese development, Recent Market Action Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

creating an EU timetable

It seems to me that all of the elements of the Eurozone crisis have been out in the open for some time.

The Papandreou government took power in Greece in September 2009 and triggered the crisis by announcing that the national accounts had been falsified for many years by the prior administration.  Greece, as many had already suspected, was in much worse financial shape than the official figures showed.  But that was 33 months ago!

It has been clear from the outset that financial contagion could easily spread from one member of a currency union to the others.  The rolling nature of the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s showed vividly how this could happen, even outside a tight economic linkage of the typce that binds the Eurozone together.

It has also been evident from the beginning that the Eurozone banks were intimately tied to the weaker countries by their large holdings of those countries higher-coupon sovereign debt.  So they were in trouble, no matter what country they were domiciled in.

We’ve also seen the shoes drop, one by one, as market attention has shifted from Greece to Italy to Spain, just like in Asia–and the PIGS countries have revealed the extent of their financial messes.

We’ve recently seen capital flight, as corporate and individual investors have (sensibly) shifted their euros from banks in weaker countries to those in Germany or other stronger ones.

Finally, I think we’ve reached a political tipping point in Germany, where the political cost of not addressing the woes of southern Europe exceeds the cost of taking action.  Hence the recent moves to consider more than austerity as a solution.

for investors, where to from here?   

I’m looking at the situation as a foreign investor, not as a citizen or resident of the EU.  I’m more concerned with the stock market implications of today’s Eurozone situation than the political and economic.

My question, then, is:

when will the EU’s fiscal problems stop being the dominant factor influencing the movements of its stock markets–and the markets of the rest of the world?

looking at Japan in 1989

We do have one example of this kind of situation during my professional lifetime.  It’s the Japan of late 1989.

That’s when the new head of that country’s central bank began to raise interest rates to force the government to bring highly speculative banking and  financial market activity under control.  The subsequent failure of Tokyo to fix its broken economy ushered in the first of Japan’s two (so far, at least) Lost Decades.

To my mind, Japan’s case was at least as bad as the EU’s.  And Japan more or less deliberately–but very clearly–made a bad choice.  It opted to cover up its problems to preserve a traditional way of life and a traditional power structure, rather than to evolve in a way that would gradually fix them.

It’s not a great roadmap, but it’s the best we have.

what happened in the Tokyo stock market?

The main indices peaked in December 1989, as rates began to rise.

They fell until June 1992, 31 months later.

From that point, the Japanese market drifted, with high volatility, for the remainder of the decade.  This ran counter to a rising trend in the equity markets of other industrialized countries.

The most sobering news is that today, twenty years after the initial bottom, the Tokyo market hasn’t recovered an ground.  On the contrary, it’s half its level of June 1992.  Today, it’s an investing backwater, lost in dreams of the 1980s, and with highly restrictive rules against any foreign attempt to change the status quo.

my conclusions

If Japan is any guide, we should be close to the end of the initial downward phase in Europe.  To me, it makes sense to be on the alert for signs of stabilization.

In Japan, the strongest stocks by far after the initial bottom were either multinationals or export-oriented firms.  That is, they were companies headquartered in Japan but with their operations elsewhere.  To the extent the Japanese citizens bought stocks during the first Lost Decade, those are the ones that they–as well as foreigners–favored.  I think the same will be true in the EU.  Companies located in the EU but not in the Eurozone will probably do the best.

The crisis was by no means over in Japan in mid-1992.  In fact, the first inning had barely begun.  But Japan’s problems ceased having a major negative influence on other markets.

Europe is much more entwined in the fabric of world commerce than Japan was in 1992.  The EU may have a tougher time than Japan over the coming years, in the sense that world economic growth will likely not be as strong as it was in the second half of the 1990s.  On the other hand, Japan benefited less from strength elsewhere than the EU is likely to do.  So a general picture for EU stocks–in the absence of a dramatic political evolution of the EU–is probably flattish, with a lot of volatility.

On the crucial question of whether the EU will follow Japan down the same path to economic irrelevance I have no answer.  I didn’t think Japan would be as inflexible as it has been.  But it shows that when a country has deeply ingrained notions of its cultural superiority and the interests of the status quo are very powerful, denial may be the easiest road to follow.

My bottom line:  it’s probably safe to dip a toe in the EU water today, but not much more than that.

A final note:  once Europe leaves center stage, I think market focus returns to economic policy in the US.