Tag Archives: shrinking bond yields

shrinking bond yields ii

July 11, 2019 By in Bond Environment, bond market, stocks vs. bonds, Treasury bonds, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , 1 Comment

why look at bonds? 

If we’re stock market investors, why are we interested in bonds anyway?  It’s because at bottom we’re not really interested in stocks per se.  We’re interested in liquid publicly-traded securities–i.e., stocks, bonds and cash.  We’re interested in publicly-traded securities because we can almost always sell them in an instant, and because there’s usually enough information available about them that we can make an educated decision.

 

comparing bonds with stocks

bond yields, at yesterday’s close

One-month Treasury bills = 2.18%

Ten-year Treasury notes = 2.07%

30-year Treasury bonds = 2.57%.

S&P 500

Current dividend yield on the index = 1.7%.

 

According to Yardeni Research (a reputable firm, but one I chose because it was the first name up in my Google search), index earnings for calendar year 2019 are estimated to be about $166, earning for the coming 12 months, about $176.

Based on this, the S&P at 3000 means a PE ratio of 18.0 for calendar year 2019, and 17.0 for the 12 months ending June 2020.

Inverting those figures, we obtain an “earnings yield,” a number we can use to compare with bond yields–the main difference being that we get bond interest payments in our pockets while our notional share of company managers remains with them.

The 2019 figure earnings yield for the S&P is 5.6%; for the forward 12 months, it’s 5.8%.

the result

During my time in the stock market, there has typically been a relatively stable relationship between the earnings yield and 10-/30-year Treasury yields.  (The notable exception was the period just before the 2008-09 recession, when, as I see it, reported financials massively misstated the profitability of banks around the world.  So although there was a big mismatch between bond and stock yields, faulty SEC filings made this invisible.)

At present, the earnings yield is more than double the government bond yield.  This is very unusual.  Perhaps more significant, the yield on the 10-year Treasury is barely above the dividend yield on stocks, a level that, in my experience, is breached only at market bottoms.

Despite the apparently large overvaluation of bonds vs. stocks, there continues to be a steady outflow from US stock mutual funds and into bond funds.

the valuation gap

Using earnings yield vs coupon rationale outlined above, stocks are way cheaper than bonds.  How can this be?

–for years, part of world central banks’ efforts to repair the damage done by the financial crisis has been to inject money into circulation by buying government bonds.  This has pushed up bond prices/pushed down yields.  Private investors have also been acting as arbitrageurs, selling the lowest-yielding bonds and buying the highest (in this case meaning Treasuries).  This process compresses yields and lowers them overall.

–large numbers of retiring Baby Boomers are reallocating portfolios away from           stocks

–I presume, but don’t know enough about the inner workings of the bond market to be sure, that a significant number of bond professionals are shorting Treasuries and buying riskier, less liquid corporate bonds with the proceeds.  This will one day end in tears (think:  Long Term Capital), but likely not in the near future.

currency

To the extent that 1 and 3 involve foreigners, who have to buy dollars to get into the game, their activity puts at least some upward pressure on the US currency.  The dollar has risen by about 2.4% over the past year on a trade-weighted basis, and by about 3% against the yen and the euro.  That’s not much.  In fact, I was surprised when calculating these figures how little the dollar has appreciated, given the outcry from the administration and its pressure on the Fed to weaken the dollar by lowering the overnight money rate. (My guess is that our withdrawing from the TPP, tariff wars, and the tarnishing of our image as a democracy have, especially in the Pacific, done much more to damage demand for US goods than the currency.)

high-yielding stocks as a substitute for bonds?

I haven’t done any work, so I really don’t know.  I do know a number of fellow investors who have been following this idea for more than five years.  So my guess is that there aren’t many undiscovered bargains in this area.

 

my bottom line

I’m less concerned now about the message low bond yields are sending than I was before I started to write these posts.  I still think the valuation mismatch between stocks and bonds will eventually be a problem for both markets.  But my guess is that normalization, if that’s the right word, won’t start until the EU begins to repair the serious fissures in its structure.  Maybe this is a worry for 2020, maybe not even then.

It seems to me that the US stock market’s main economic concern remains the damage from Mr. Trump’s misguided effort to resuscitate WWII-era industries in the US.  The best defense will likely be cloud-oriented cash-generating software-based US multinationals.  (see the comments by a former colleague attached to yesterday’s post).

 

 

 

 

 

shrinking global bond yields

July 10, 2019 By in bond market, economics, macroeconomics, Treasury bonds, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , 5 Comments

valuing bonds   …and stocks

Conventional US financial markets wisdom–maybe glorified common sense–says that the yearly return on financial instruments should consist of protection against inflation plus some additional reward that varies according to the risk taken.  For stocks, the belief is that they should earn the inflation rate + six percentage points for risk annually; ten-year government bonds should return inflation + three percent.

If inflation is 2%+, this means the 10-year Treasury should have an annual yield of 5%+.

Stocks should have a total return (price change + dividend received) on average of 8%+ yearly.

last Friday

the 10-year

Last Friday, the 10-year Treasury yield broke below 2%, to an intra-day low of 1.95%!

Austria

Even weirder, across the Atlantic, the Austrian government is warming up to issue 100-year bonds yielding 1.2%.  Demand appears to be strong, possibly because its issue of century bonds in 2017 at a 2.1% yield is up in price by about 60% since.  Of course, it’s also true that many EU sovereign instruments are trading at negative interest rates–a result of central bank efforts to stimulate economic growth there.

Trumponomics

Odder still, but probably not that surprisingly, Mr. Trump is actively browbeating the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates further, despite the fact that virtually no domestic evidence is calling for further distortion to rates.  I say “virtually,” because there is one contrary–the administration’s policy on trade and immigration.  If there is a master plan behind that, I guess it’s what Mr. Trump believes is needed to assure his reelection.  One issue for him is that the price increases he has put on imported goods have offset almost all of the Federal income tax reduction the average American family got last year.  In addition, the seemingly arbitrariness and changing nature of Trump tariffs–plus the radio silence of Congress tacitly approving of the circus–appear to have slowed domestic capital investment significantly.  More forethought is likely out of the question for the administration   …hence Mr. Trump’s Rube Goldberg-esque call for counterbalancing monetary stimulus.

???

I’ll happily confess that I’m not a bond expert.  For what it’s worth, I don’t like bonds, either.  But the present state of affairs in the bond market–the absence of any return above protection from inflation– seems to me to say that money policy in the US and EU is still enormously stimulative, no longer effective and need of careful handling in extracting us from this situation.  The last thing we need is higher taxation through tariffs and even more distortion of yields.

 

What would make someone want to buy the proposed Austrian century bonds anyway?

…the greater fool theory, i.e., the idea I can sell it at a higher price to someone else (which certainly worked with the 2017 issue)?

…the fact that lots of EU government instruments sport negative yields, so this may be a comparatively good deal?

…I’m a bond fund manager and need coupon payments so my portfolio can pay expenses and management fees to myself?

…I’m shorting negative yield bonds against this long position?

 

global/demographic/government influences on yields

aging populations…

Another general principle:  as people get older and as they get wealthier they become more risk averse.  Put another way, in either situation people shift their investment portfolios away from stocks and toward bonds.

The traditional rule of thumb is that a person’s bond holdings should make up the same percentage of the total portfolio as his age in years.  The remainder goes into stocks.  For example, for a 65-year old, 65% of the portfolio should be in fixed income.  (I don’t think this is a particularly good rule, but it’s simple and it is used.)

What’s important is that the aging of the populations in the US and the EU (which is older than us) is a powerful asset allocation force.  In the US in 2000, for example, (according to the Investment Company Institute) investors held $276 billion in funds, of which 82% was in equity funds.  At the end of last year, the total was $681 billion, of which 40% was in equities.  Over that time, the amount of money in stock funds rose by 20%; bond funds went up by 10x, however; asset allocation funds, which hold both, had 6.5x their 2000 assets.

national economic policy

For as long as I’ve been around, the preferred tool of government economic management has been monetary I can be applied faster than fiscal policy   …and it leaves no fingers pointing at politicians if implement is painful or executed maladroitly.

The chief characteristic of expansive monetary policy is the suppression of interest rates.  The burden of adjustment falls squarely on the shoulders of savers, i.e. older citizens, and the poor, who have no ability to borrow to take advantage of the lower cost of money.

 

More tomorrow.