Tag Archives: Portfolio management

a strange story involving the business cycle and being wrong

August 14, 2015 By in confirmation bias, Constructing a Portfolio, fast death vs. slow death, Fixing mistakes, Portfolio management, securities markets, selling a stock, stock market, taking out a clean sheet of paper Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

I once had a young colleague with lots of potential, whom I liked very much and who was an excellent securities analyst  …but who had only limited stock market success despite loads of potential.

Ass an apprentice portfolio manager, this person came to me with the idea of building a significant position in a company that made carpets.  The firm was well run, apparently had sustainable earnings growth momentum and was trading at a low price earnings multiple.   In this instance, I didn’t do my job as a supervisor well, more or less rubber-stamped the idea and okayed the purchase.

Soon after that (this was 1993), the Fed began to raise interest rates.  This is something I had been anticipating but–maybe because this wasn’t crucial to the structure of my own portfolio–was information I failed to bring to bear on the carpet company idea.  Higher interest rates slow down both residential and commercial construction, something which is bad for, among other things, sales of carpets.  Replacement demand slows down, too.

I went to my colleague, explained the situation–including the source of my mistake, and urged selling the stock.  We did, with a modest loss.  The issue ended up losing almost two-thirds of its value in subsequent months.

Now the weird part.

Eight years or so later, my colleague came into my office to rehash this trade–which I had long since forgotten.  The point was not to suggest that we buy the stock again–which would have been a fabulous idea, since business cycle conditions were finally very favorable.  Instead, it was to say that my colleague had in fact been 100% correct in recommending the stock all those years ago (apparently the stock has finally reached the point where its cumulative performance matched that of the S&P 500.

I didn’t know what to say.  This was somewhat akin to my aunt Agnes explaining that she was switching from natural gas to oil because the gas burner in the basement was really a malevolent space alien.

Why am I recalling this strange story–much less writing about it–now?

Two reasons:

–we’re coming very close to another period of Fed-induced interest rate hikes.  This is bad of early business cycle companies, including housing, commercial construction and related industries in the US, and

–it’s a life lesson about investing.  My former colleague had extreme difficulty in recognizing an analysis was wrong or that a stock, for whatever reason, wasn’t working.  But portfolio investors in the stock market are always acting on very imperfect information.  And economic conditions, both overall and in inter-firm competition, are changing all the time.  So having what one thinks is a better analysis than the other guy simply isn’t enough to ensure success.   Recognizing when things aren’t going well, stepping back to regroup and seeking out possible sources of mistakes are all crucial, too.  Denial may salve the ego, but it makes us poorer, not richer.

 

the Chinese currency and the Chinese stock market

August 12, 2015 By in Asian economic development, Balance of Payments, China, currency markets, Current Market Thoughts, economic problems in emerging countries, economics Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Throughout my financial career I’ve found that in sizing up currency markets traders from the big banks have always been ten steps ahead of me.

I’ve hopefully learned to live with this–meaning that because I’m never going to outthink them I believe my best currency strategy should have two parts:

–to avoid making future currency movements a major element in constructing my portfolio, and

–to be a “fast follower” if I can–that is, to figure out from a trend change what the banks must be thinking and to consider getting on board if I think the trend is going to have legs.

 

China has moved the price at which it will buy and sell renminbi down by 1.9% yesterday and by another 1.6% today.  Informed market speculation seems to be that another couple of downward moves of the same magnitude are in the offing.

From a domestic policy perspective, China would prefer a strong currency to a weaker one.  As I mentioned yesterday, the country has run out of cheap labor and must, therefore, transition away from the highly polluting, cheap labor employing, export-oriented basic manufacturing that is the initial staple of any developing country.  This kind of business has been the bread and butter of many Chinese companies, some of them state-owned, for decades.  Many are resisting Beijing’s call to change.  The strong currency is a club Beijing can use to beat them into submission.  In this sense, the fact that the renminbi has appreciated by 10%+ against other developing countries’ currencies over the past year, and by around the same amount against the euro, China’s largest trading partner, is a good thing.

On the other hand, the developed world has made it clear to China that if it wants to be included in the club that sets world financial policy, and in particular if it wants the renminbi to be a world reserve currency, the renminbi cannot be rigidly controlled by Beijing.  It must float, meaning trade more or less freely against other world currencies.  So China has a long-term interest in doing what it has started to do yesterday–to allow the currency to move as market forces drive it.

Why now, though?

World stock markets seem to be thinking that a severe erosion of China’s GDP growth is behind the move toward a currency float–that it’s backsliding from a committment to structural reform.

I’m not so sure.

I think what currency traders have concluded is that Beijing has enough money to prop up its stock market and enough to keep its currency at the present overvalued level–but not both.  So they’re borrowing renminbi  and selling it in the government-controlled market in the hope of pushing down the currency and buying back at a lower price.  Understanding what’s going on, and realizing the risks in defending a too-high currency level, Beijing is bending in the wind.  Doing so limits the amount of money that can be made this way, effectively short-circuiting the strategy.

Offshore renminbi, which can’t be repatriated into China, trade about 5% cheaper that domestic renminbi.  That’s where we should get the next indication of how far renminbi selling will go.

As far as my personal stock investing goes, my strong inclination is to bet that renminbi-related fears are way overblown.  I’ like to see markets calm down a bit before I stick a toe in the water, though.

 

 

 

 

 

the Chinese renminbi “devaluation”

August 11, 2015 By in Asian economic development, Balance of Payments, China, economic problems in emerging countries, economics, Purchasing power parity (PPP) Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

devaluation?

Every day the Chinese government sets a mid-point for trading of its currency prior to opening.  The renminbi is then allowed to trade within a 2% band on either side of the setting.  At this morning’s setting, Beijing put the mid-point 1.9% lower than it was yesterday.  This is an unusually large amount and can be (is being) read as an effective devaluation of the currency.

What does this really mean?

background

In the late 1970s, when China made its turn away from Mao and toward western economics, it chose the tried-and-true road toward prosperity trod by every other successful post-WWII nation.  It tied its currency to the dollar and offered access to cheap local labor in return for technology transfer.

Late in the last decade, the country ran out of cheap labor.  So it was forced to begin to transform its economy from export-oriented, labor-intensive manufacturing to higher value-added more capital-intensive output and toward domestic rather than foreign demand.  The orthodox, and almost always not so successful, method of kicking off this transition is to encourage a large appreciation of the currency.  That causes low-end production to leave for cheaper labor countries like Vietnam or Afghanistan.

China, armed with a cadre of young, creative economists with PhDs from the best universities in the West, decided to do things slightly  differently–to hold the currency relatively stable and to boost domestic wages by a lot to achieve the same end of making export-oriented manufacturing uneconomic.  The idea is that this doesn’t bring the economy to screeching halt in the way currency appreciation does.  So far this approach seems to be working–although the shift does involve slower growth and a lot of domestic disruption.

At the same time, forewarned by the immense damage done to Asian economies by speculative activity by the currency desks of the major international banks during the 1997-98 Asian economic crisis, China elected not to let its currency trade freely.

what’s changed?

For some years, China has been upset about the fact that despite being the biggest global manufacturing power, and by Purchasing Power Parity measure the largest economy on earth, it has virtually no say in world financial or trade regulatory bodies.  Those are dominated by the US and EU.  The main reason for China’s limited influence is that its financial system isn’t open.  (The other, of course, is that fearing China organizations like the new US-led Pacific trade alliance pointed excludes the Middle Kingdom.)

So China has been gradually lessening state control over the banks, the financial markets and the currency, in hopes of being admitted into the inner sanctums of bodies like the IMF.

In one sense, this is why China is becoming less rigid in its control of renminbi trading.

why now?

There’s no “good” time to let a currency float.  China doesn’t want to cede control over currency movements at a time when the renminbi might appreciate a lot, since that would be a severe contractionary force.  On the other hand, it doesn’t want the currency to fall through the floor either, since that would result in new export plants sprouting up all over the place.

China is growing more slowly than normal and is experiencing currency outflows as a result of that.  Letting the currency slide a bit relieves some of the pressure–although it may simultaneously attract speculators to try to push the renminbi lower.  So, yes, it is a sign of economic weakness.  At the same time, the loosening comes shortly before the IMF will decide on admitting the renminbi as one of its reserve currencies.  And it follows by a few months Beijing allowing banks to issue certificates of deposit at market rates, rather than at yields set by central planners.  So it’s also a step toward a healthier, more economically advanced, future.

my take

I think worries about the stability of the Chinese economy are overblown.  I also think that traders are using the Beijing move as an excuse for selling that they’ve been wanting to do anyway.  Beijing may have been the trigger for this, but it isn’t the cause.

 

 

 

 

selling: different styles

August 10, 2015 By in bond market, Current Market Thoughts, from growth to value: the life cycle, growth vs value, securities markets, stock market Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

I’ve been thinking some more about what I wrote last week about selling in Disney(DIS) stock.  The thrust of my reaction to the sharp decline was, and still is, mild bemusement that selling only emerged as the company reported weak results from ESPN.  It’s not that disappointing earnings should not generate selling.  It’s that the handwriting had been on the wall about ESPN–and in vividly hued bold print–for some time before DIS’s 2Q15 earnings report.

Why no stock weakness earlier?  This would have been my strong expectation. I’m not talking about the results somehow being leaked to outsiders by the company.  Rather, I’d have thought that the market would have put two and two together and acted weeks or months ago on publicly available information about the cable industry–like Nielson reporting of subscriber losses at ESPN.

My conclusion was that the sharp fall in DIS shares on its earnings report might be evidence that Wall Street just didn’t know there were problems at ESPN, despite what I consider clear signals of trouble being visible for a considerable time.

I still think it is generally true that the stock market is becoming less efficient–and more like I perceive the bond market to have been throughout my time as an investor.

I’m no longer sure that DIS is evidence for my thesis, though.  Here’s why:

The key to successful investing in growth stocks is being able to sell them at the right time, meaning exiting as the firm is going ex-growth and before the rest of the world realizes this.

To me, the key signal is the breakdown of the conceptual “elevator speech” explanation of what gives the company in question its extraordinary growth potential.  In my experience, if we’re waiting for the first disappointing earnings report, we’re almost always hanging on too long.

The presupposition here is that the potential upside from my exit point is (far) less than the downside from being a holder of the stock when the disappointing earnings are released.  This assumes, of course, that I can recognize the point at which all the possible future good news–and maybe more than that–is already factored into the stock price.

My approach didn’t work so well for me in the case of DIS, where I failed to anticipate the fabulous success the company has had in its non-Marvel, non-Pixar movie business.

There is a second approach to growth stocks.  It argues that a well-managed company normally has more earnings growth tricks up its sleeve than any outsider is able to understand.  Therefore, it’s always too risky to sell when the conceptual story begins to unravel.  Better to wait for actual proof to come in through bad earnings.  Yes, one might lose 10% by selling after the bad report.  But that’s better than exiting at 40% below the stock’s peak.

In fact, I took this second approach myself, early in my investing career.

The difference in my thinking from last week and now:  my first thought was that information is not circulating on Wall Street as fast as it used to; my second thought is that investors may have the same information as always but they’re just using it differently.

Practical implications?  …they may be substantial.  My conclusion is still to look for more evidence.  My tendency is going to be to hang onto growth stocks for a bit longer than I might otherwise, though, figuring that others are going to do the same thing.   So the cost of waiting to find out if there’s another growth spurt left in a maturing company may be lower than it has been in the past. And I may no longer be committing the cardinal investment sin of underestimating the information the other guy has.

bracing for higher interest rates

August 5, 2015 By in bond market, Constructing a Portfolio, Current Market Thoughts, Portfolio management, securities markets, stock market, Strategy Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Long-time readers may remember that in an embarrassingly premature fashion, I began writing about the upward path away from non-crisis interest rates toward normal several years ago.  It looks like liftoff day has finally come, however.

The consensus expectation, informed by judicious leaks by the Fed, is now that the Fed Funds rate will rise by .25% next month, and by another .25% before yearend–meaning short rates will exit 2015 at .50%.  A highly stylized view of the Fed’s intentions is that it will continue to raise rates at the same 1/4% clip at every second Fed meeting next year–meaning another 1.0% increase during 2016.  The goal of rate normalization is an endpoint for Fed Funds of around 3% (but probably lower).

This is a potentially important change of direction for two reasons:  rates have been at emergency lows for an extraordinarily long time, and the thirty-five year war against inflation has been long since won.  The secular trend of ever lower nominal interest rates–for many financial market participants, the only trend they have ever seen in their working lives–is over.  Barring another world financial disaster, nominal rates may be higher in the future, but there’s no chance they’ll ever be lower.  So the thought habits of a lifetime are about to be shaken up.

What does this mean for stocks?

Past tightening cycles have been bad for bonds, but stocks have been flat to up.  The generally accepted explanation for the latter phenomenon is that the negative effect of higher rates is offset by robust profit growth.  Said another way, positive earnings surprises (more than) offset the negative effect of price earnings multiple contraction.

Personally, I think this explanation is the right one.

Critics of the applicability of the idea to the present situation point out that this time rates will be rising long after the business cycle has turned.  Therefore, they argue, the chances of a surprisingly large corporate profit surge are slim.  In consequence, the “normal” protection for stocks against Fed tightening is absent.

Four thoughts:

–the reason rates are still at 0% is that the “normal” cyclical profit surge hasn’t happened yet.  Maybe surge isn’t the right word for today’s situation, but world economies certainly aren’t firing on all cylinders yet.

–profit rises and Fed tightening aren’t independent events.  The Fed has made it clear that it intends to tighten only to the extent that economic strength allows.  The agency has often referred to the repeated disastrous mistakes Japan has made over the past quarter-century by tightening too soon.  If profit growth doesn’t permit, tightening will go more slowly than many expect.

–for the S&P 500, half the index’s profits come from abroad.  The EU (25% of profits) will likely be stronger next year than this; China may be, too.

–where else will money go?  Certainly not into bonds.  Cash is the only safe haven.  It’s possible there will be a large outflow of money from stocks into cash.  I don’t think so.  That’s partly (mostly?) because I like stocks.  More substantively, institutional investors may shade their portfolios a bit toward cash, but their large size means they can’t maneuver quickly, so the risk to them of betting against stocks in a major way and being wrong is enormous.  In addition, my sense is that a defining feature of the bull market that began in 2009 is the lack of retail participation.  If so, retail has already bet heavily–and incorrectly–against stocks.

A final point:

–yielding 0%, cash isn’t an attractive alternative to me at.  However, given that the period of zero interest rates is coming to an end, I’ve got to ask myself at what level would it be?

If we assume that inflation will be steady at 2%, I would find 3% cash and a 4%+ long bond very attractive.  That may be evidence that we’ll never get there.

Still, what I’m trying to get at is that there will come a point in the tightening cycle where even an equity fan like me will have to reallocate toward fixed income.  We’re nowhere near that now, in my opinion.  But I think this, not the start of tightening, will be the real showstopper for stocks.  This is not an idea to act on, but it is one I think we should keep in the back of our minds.