Tag Archives: investment strategy

bond funds when interest rates are rising (ii)

September 22, 2015 By in ETFs Vs. Mutual Funds, Portfolio management Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

Yesterday I referenced an article in the Wall Street Journal that talked about possible liquidity problems with junk bond funds as rates begin to rise. Based on information provided by Barclays, a huge provider of ETFs, the reporter, Jason Zweig, concluded that junk bond ETFs are a safer alternative to traditional mutual funds.

My comment from yesterday, boiled down perhaps to the length it should have been, was that since the first junk bond crisis in the late 1980s, junk bond funds have adopted very rigorous pricing mechanisms, so the chances a junk bond fund is badly mispriced are very small.  On top of that, mutual fund companies have lots of tools available to deal with high levels of redemptions.

 

As to ETFs, while as a practical matter it may be that these vehicles themselves may not be subject to the same selling pressures as traditional mutual funds, the way that ETFs insulate themselves can be an issue for you and me.

In the case of traditional mutual funds, we buy and sell directly with the fund, once daily, after the close, at NAV.

ETFs are considerably more complicated.   We deal with broker intermediaries who make a continuous market throughout normal trading hours, though with no guarantee about how closely the bid-asked spread they set will match up to net asset value.  (Authorized participants, who typically deal in minimum blocks of 50,000 shares are the only ones who transact directly with ETFs.)

The tendency of ETF market makers in times of market stress is to widen the bid-asked spread.  This does two good things for the broker.  He gets a higher return for transacting at a risky time.  And the wider spread discourages people from trading.  Translation:  liquidity for you and me dries up.

How bad can it get?  I don’t know.  Several years ago I tried to collect data on the performance of stock ETFs at the market bottom in early 2009.  The only information available then was a comparison of the last trade on  given day with the NAV calculated after the NY close.  In one case, for a foreign stock ETF, the last trade was at a 12% discount to NAV.  The discount may have been considerably wider during the day.  At that time, ETF companies told me they just didn’t know.

I haven’t checked since. I haven’t done this for bond funds.  And one might argue that the 12% discount is an outlier. But the horrible problems ETFs had during the last week of August suggest to me that the situation hasn’t changed for the better.

My experience is that trying to trade during highly emotionally charged times is usually not a good idea.  But it also seems to me that the potential risks inherent in trading in mutual funds at times like this to you and me, not to the fund company, pale in comparison to those involved with ETFs.

 

This has gotten much longer than I intended.  More tomorrow.

 

 

 

what would $20 a barrel oil mean for stocks?

September 17, 2015 By in Energy, oil and natural gas, Portfolio management, stock market, Strategy Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

Yesterday I wrote about the recent Goldman report speculating that oil might fall to $20 a barrel.

What would this mean for stocks?

a $40 ceiling…

To my mind, the most important observation is the simplest–the potential price fall would be caused by more oil being supplied than the world wants or needs or is able to store profitably for future use.  The price would decline to force marginal production off the market.

In other words, there’s significant oversupply at $40 a barrel.  Therefore, $40 becomes the new ceiling for oil, which would presumably bounce between it and the floor of $20.  The $60-$70 a barrel level, which markets now believe to be the near-term price ceiling, becomes a pipe dream.

…that would be hard to break through

Yes, demand for oil has been showing a trend rise of about 1% per year, and a lower price will encourage higher use but since the extent of oversupply is hard to know for sure, the safest assumption, I think, is that it would take a looong time to break through the $40 ceiling.

substitutes are hurt

A lower oil price makes substitute forms of energy–from coal and natural gas to nuclear to wind and solar–relatively less attractive.  In the US, we’ve already seen demand for automobiles is shifting away from fuel efficiency to gas guzzling because of $40 a barrel oil.  This trend to would likely accelerate if oil falls more.  Of course, by spurring more profligate use of oil, this trend should sow the seeds for future oil price increases.  Still, my guess is that upward price pressure takes a long time to develop.

producers vs. consumers

countries

Lower prices would be a boon for oil-consuming nations.  For developing countries dependent on oil production for economic growth, however, lower prices would force significant–and possibly very politically messy–structural change.  We’re already seeing this in Saudi Arabia, for instance.

industries (in the US)

Financially strapped oil producers would be in worse trouble than they are now.  Bad, too, for oil-related junk bonds.  The same for regional lenders specializing in oil and gas loans.

Seen from 30,000 feet, the US is a complex economic case.  Shale oil has allowed the country to displace Saudi Arabia as the #1 oil producer in the world.  On the other hand, the US is nevertheless a huge importer of foreign oil (per capita, we use twice as much oil as anyone else on earth).  While oil-producing regions–Alaska, Texas, Oklahoma, North Dakota…–would suffer from lower oil prices, the rest of the country would have its already low oil bills cut in half.

stocks

the minus column

oil producers

producers of other forms of energy

companies located in oil-producing regions

the plus side

US auto firms

oil refiners

transport companies, like airlines and truckers

consumer companies, helped by the boost to disposable income from less spent on petroleum products

??strip malls, Wal-Mart, resort destinations, other firms consumers typically drive to

businesses serving less affluent customers, who would have the greatest percentage boost to disposable income

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jim Paulsen on the US stock market

September 11, 2015 By in Constructing a Portfolio, Current Market Thoughts, inflation vs deflation, Inventory Cycle, margins, Portfolio management, Recent Market Action, stock market, Strategy Tags: , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Yesterday’s Financial Times contains a guest column by Jim Paulsen, strategist for Wells Capital, a part of Wells Fargo.  I find Mr. Paulsen’s work to be orignal, thoughtful and, for me, thought-provoking.  On the other hand–a warning–he and I share the same generally optimistic view on markets and have tended to agree on most basics.

Here’s what he has to say:

–the current market swoon may have been triggered by worries about the Chinese economy, but its real cause is to be found in the dynamics of the US economy/stock market

–US stocks were, and still are, trading at an unsustainably high price-earnings multiple.  The final bottom for stocks in this correction will be around 1800 on the S&P 500, or about 3% below the low of a few days ago.  That’s where stocks will be on a more reasonable 15x PE

–full employment in the US, i.e., where we are now, creates a series of problems for the economy and stock market.  Employers wishing to expand are forced to find new workers by bidding them away from other firms.  Since inflation in advanced economies is all about wage increases, poaching creates inflation.  In the short term at least, a higher wage bill means lower margins–and therefore lower profit growth.  The Fed responds to the inflation threat by raising interest rates, which exerts downward pressure on PEs

–investors don’t get this yet.  They’re “more calm and confident than at any other time in this recovery.”

–the combination of high PE, higher interest rates and slowing growth mean that equity investor focus will shift from the US to more fertile fields abroad.  These areas are more prospective because, unlike the US, they don’t face the need, caused by achieving full employment, to rein in the pace of domestic economic growth. I presume, although Mr. Paulson isn’t more specific, that this means the EU (it may also mean US stocks with high exposure to non-US economies).

my thoughts

Mr. Paulsen is in touch with institutional equity investors every day.  So he has a much better sense of the current thought processes of US professionals than I do.  He seems to feel his customers are only beginning to believe that the set of issues that come with full employment are at our doorstep–and are only now starting to discount them into stock prices.  Hence the correction.  While it’s risky to think you know more than the other guy–in this case, that the other guy slept through his elementary economics classes–I’m willing to go along and say it’s true.

Mr. Paulsen has previously made the point that interest rates are going to rise in an economy that doesn’t have much business cycle oomph left in it.  Therefore, he argues, past instances of cyclically rising rates, during which stocks generally were flat to up, may not be good guides to what will happen today.  I look at the situation in a different way.  If we ask where long Treasuries will be at the end of Fed tightening, the answer is that they’ll likely be yielding less than 4%.  If we think that the yield on Treasuries and the earnings yield (1/PE) on stocks should be roughly equivalent, then the implied PE on the S&P is 25x.

One might argue that the idea of the equivalence of earnings yield and interest yield arises from a long period in which Baby Boomers preferred stocks to bonds.  As Boomers have aged, that preference has reversed itself, meaning that yield equivalence between stocks and bonds may be too rosy a view for stocks.  If we assume that stocks trade at a 20% discount to this yield parity, however, the implied PE at the end of rate hikes is still 20.

Both results are a long way from the 15x that Mr. Paulsen proposes for the S&P.

It’s often the case that a significant drop in stocks often signals a leadership change.  I think it makes a lot of sense to reverse portfolio polarity away from an emphasis on earnings coming from the US to profits generated abroad.  How exactly to carry this idea out is the key, though.

 

 

correction or bear market: where are we now?

September 4, 2015 By in correction vs. bear market, stock market, yearly distributions Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

correction vs. bear market

The financial media, in a deceptively over-precise way, has come to define a correction as a 10% fall in price of a given index during an ongoing bull market.  The same source defines a bear market as a fall of 20% or more.  There is some sense to making the distinction in this way, at least in that it’s unlikely that a market can fall by 20% and still be said to be retaining its fundamentally upward direction.  Other than that, I don’t find the 10%/20% distinction useful.

two worries:  price and earnings

To my mind, the key difference between the two–correction and bear market–is whether the favorable environment of expanding economies and resulting rising earnings per share which supports a bull market remains intact.

In a correction, stock prices have run ahead of the fundamentals and become too pricey.  We can no longer envision, say, achieving a 10% return from holding stocks for the coming 12 months.  Therefore, stocks have to fall to a level where buyers will anticipate a suitable return and reenter the market.  Buyers are concerned about price, not about earnings.

A bear market has very little to do with the 20% number.  What creates a bear market, simply put, is anticipation of recession, and the decline in corporate earnings that goes along with it.  Buyers don’t reenter the market after an initial fall, because they no longer believe that earnings will be rising.  They either continually withdraw funds from the  market or simply hold on to what they have and wait.  They look for some sign that the economic downturn the stock market has been forecasting has emerged—and reached its low point.  Historically, the turning point has been when the monetary authority begins to adopt a more accommodative stance.  Occasionally, it’s the legislature that acts.  Sometimes, it’s less action than investor perception that the assets of publicly traded companies are at bargain basement prices regardless of the near-term economic situation.

timeline

A correction runs its course in a matter of weeks;  a garden-variety bear market lasts nine to twelve months.

Where are we now?

For the mining industry–metals and oil–the picture has deteriorated dramatically over the past year.  This isn’t because the overall macro environment has weakened.  It’s because of overcapacity that the industry, in its typical shoot-yourself-in-the-foot fashion, has itself created.  This unfavorable situation will take a turn for the better only when substantial capacity is taken off the market.  Last time this happened for metals, in the early 1980s, the downturn lasted a decade.

Mining, and mining-dependent economies, apart, I don’t see any signs of actual GDP decline.  Yes, China may be growing at 5% instead of 7%.  Maybe it’s even 2%.  But it’s still growing.

So my vote is for correction.

One caveat:  as I’ve mentioned before, early September is the time when mutual funds in the US begin to sell to adjust the level of the yearend profit distribution they are required by law to make to shareholders.  Some of this selling may have been preempted by August’s market decline.  But until we see what the mutual fund situation is this year, I don’t think there’ll be much market desire to push prices higher.

acting in repsonse to last week’s market gyrations

August 31, 2015 By in Constructing a Portfolio, Current Market Thoughts, Fixing mistakes, Keeping Score, Portfolio management, stock market, Strategy Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Everybody’s first reaction to a period of falling markets is to pretend that nothing unusual is happening and not look at his/her portfolio.   My experience is that “everybody” includes the majority of professional investors.  There are, however, two measures we can take to strengthen our portfolios if we have the courage to analyse what has happened to our holdings during a volatile period like the past six trading days.

We can:

–gather information, and

–act to modify our portfolio structure.

gathering information

Professionals have performance attribution software, which will calculate performance vs. an index plus a holding’s contribution to overall outperformers/underperformance for any/all of their stocks/funds over any period.  I do the stock by stock performance calculation by hand and then rank the outperformers/underperformers by their impact on the portfolio,  rather than trying to figure out exact performance contribution.  I find that’s good enough.

What I look for:

Aggressive stocks will typically outperform on up days and underperform on down days.  Defensive stocks should do the opposite.  Performing in line with their character is no news.  But stocks that outperform on both up and down days are.  So, too, are dogs that underperform no matter what the daily market direction. I think there’s inevitably a message that the market is sending through such stocks.  It’s well worth trying to figure out what that must be.

Time permitting, we should also look at representative stocks not in our portfolios to figure out the same thing.  (Professionals also have this comparative information, for all the stocks in the index they’re competing against, available at the push of a button.)

Note:  results for ETFs may be problematic, since a computer failure at BNY Mellon, which prices many ETFs for others, made NAV quotes for many unavailable last week.

The S&P 500 was down by 2.3% over the past six days.  Although this is a short time, arguably a defensive portfolio should have done better than this, an aggressive one worse.  If I think I’ve built a defensive structure and my portfolio is down by 6%, I should probably rethink what I’m doing.  If my “aggressive” portfolio is down by 1%, I should be thanking my lucky stars–but also trying to figure out whether this is due to excellent stock picking or to poor construction.  If I’ve accidentally assembled a collection of stocks that acts contrary to what I intended, I’ve probably got to at least ponder how to change it.

Early last week I tossed one long-term clunker in my portfolio overboard and replaced it with what I consider a better stock.  For trades like this, I also ask myself how that’s turned out so far.  Admittedly, a week is a very short period of time.  But this will give me an idea whether I have a good feel for current market action or not.

acting

I’ve often begun the process of analysis and reconstruction thinking that I should make my overall holdings either more aggressive or more defensive.  Almost always, I end up making changes–but they’re virtually never the global ones I’ve intended.  Instead of altering the direction of the ship, I find myself patching holes in the bottom of the boat instead.  This usually improves the portfolio, and it prevents me from dong something crazy wrong during a period of stress.

My alterations tend to be one of two types:

–I trade out of stocks that are underperforming on both up and down days and into ones in the same general industry or thematic area that are performing in a healthier way, and

–I find that chronic clunkers become more visible to my eye in volatile times.  (In my view, everyone’s portfolio has at least a few of these.)  Because they’ve never gone up, they tend to have less downside than stars, whose owners have much more profit to take when they’re nervous.  I find a time like this ideal to switch from the former to the latter.  This ends up being most of what I do.

caveat

For me, the most difficult market transition to read in advance is the shift from a generally upward trend to a bear market, the garden variety of which can last for the better part of a year, and entail losses of, say, 20% in the S&P 500.

Typically, what induces a bear market is recession.  I don’t think we’re in that market/economy situation today.  If it were, patching leaks in the hull wouldn’t be enough.  A change to a more defensive direction would be warranted.