May 26, 2008 - Pimco’s Bill Gross makes a most humorous analyses, drawing parallels that the hordes are marching on the new Rome (America), and that its time to act. Make sure you read this must read, the June 2008 Investment Outlook, by Bill Gross. At the end, Gross puts forth his recommendations.
What this country needs is either a good 5 cent cigar or the reincarnation of an Illinois “rail-splitter” willing to tell the American people “what up” -”what really up.” We have for so long now been willing to be entertained rather than informed, that we more or less accept majority opinion, perpetually shaped by ratings obsessed media, at face value. After 12 months of an endless primary campaign barrage, for instance, most of us believe that a candidate’s preacher - Democrat or Republican - should be a significant factor in how we vote. We care more about who’s going to be eliminated from this week’s American Idol than the deteriorating quality of our healthcare system. Alternative energy discussion takes a bleacher’s seat to the latest foibles of Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears and then we wonder why gas is four bucks a gallon. We care as much as we always have - we just care about the wrong things: entertainment, as opposed to informed choices; trivia vs. hardcore ideological debate.)
It’s Sunday afternoon at the Coliseum folks, and all good fun, but the hordes are crossing the Alps and headed for modern day Rome - better educated, harder working, and willing to sacrifice today for a better tomorrow. Can it be any wonder that an estimated 1% of America’s wealth migrates into foreign hands hands every year? We, as a people, are overweight, poorly educated, overindulged, and imbued with such a sense or self importance on a geopolitical scale, that our allies are dropping like flies. “Yes we can?” Well, if so, then the “we” is the critical element, not the leader that will be chosen in November. Let’s get off the couch and shape up-physically, intellectually, and institutionally-and begin to make some informed choices about our future. Lincoln didn’t say it, but might have agreed, that the worst part about being fooled is fooling yourself, and as a nation, we’ve been doing a pretty good job of that for a long time now.
Mar. 23, 2008 - For a certain strata of Wall Street denizens, the writings of Oaktree’s Howard Marks’ are equally anticipated to those of Warren Buffett’s.
Marks is the chairman of Oaktree, the low-profile but powerful L.A-based firm that manages more than $50 billion in alternative investments, mostly in fixed-income strategies. He’s been writing memos to clients since 1990, but a cult following developed after a missive he penned on Jan. 1, 2000 titled “bubble.com.” A few months before tech stocks imploded, Marks sounded a warning. “To say technology, Internet and telecommunications stocks are too high and about to decline is comparable today to standing in front of a freight train,” he wrote. “To say they have benefited from a boom of colossal proportions and should be examined skeptically is something I feel I owe you.”
This is a fascinating read from one of the most important people in the market, and we feel that it is a must read. It is broken out into several well defined subsections, and we are sure that you will find it eloquent and enlightening. Here are some excerpts from March 18, 2008, The Tide Goes Out.
In the simpler but still not totally stable financial world I entered forty years ago, stability was desired in financial institutions. So, for example, banks and insurance companies were allowed to carry a loan or a bond at cost on their balance sheets as long as it was (a) fundamentally unimpaired and (b) intended to be held to maturity. Even if its market value fell temporarily, it was assumed that a creditworthy claim would be repaid in full at maturity. Thus, price fluctuations were ignored as long as fundamentals were sound.
More recently, “transparency,” “accountability” and “market signals” became more highly prized. A lot of this had to do with skullduggery unearthed at companies like Enron. As a result, accounting increasingly came to require that assets be valued at actual or estimated market prices. I’d had a preview of this in 1990 when, as part of efforts to “get” the high yield bond industry (and Drexel and Milken), S&Ls were required to market price their holdings of high yield bonds – dooming many of them in a time of price weakness. . . .
In 1990, when high yield bonds had the brush with difficulty described above (meaning spreads widened to 1,100 basis points, and a law was passed that required S&Ls to reflect price declines on their balance sheets), I was asked to brief the board of TCW on the risks. I presented a parable about a regulated financial institution that went bankrupt under the weight of mark-to-market accounting. I joked with Bill Spencer, who was president of Citibank when I worked there, that in the 1980s, that could have been Citibank if it was required to recognize mark-to-market losses on real estate loans. Guess what: today that’s the rule.
Mar. 14, 2008 - There are few who can rival Donald Coxe, BMO Financial’s Chief Investment Strategist, when it comes to providing what has historically been an accurate macro outlook on financial markets. Below, are Mr. Coxe’s paragraphed recommendations from February’s edition of Basic Points (courtesy of J’s Global Analysis). In a time of great uncertainty, this kind of clarity and direction is invaluable.
1. Long-term investors should remain heavily overweight commodity stocks, including the base-metal stocks. As the bear market grinds on, use days of stock market weakness to add to commodity stock exposure. They not only remain the asset class with the best earnings outlook, but also the asset class that is least understood by conventional asset allocators, who still see them as cyclicals dependent on OECD growth.
2. In the near term, the golds will continue to outperform stock markets and to act as a form of hedge against two kinds of shocks – financial panics and inflation shocks.
3. Remain heavily underweight bank stocks, and financials tied to “Jurassic Park Avenue” excesses. Within the financial group, overweight high-quality fire and casualty companies, life insurers, and asset management organizations.
4 Retain above-average cash positions, preferably in strong currencies.
5. Where possible, borrow in dollars and invest in assets denominated in strong currencies.
6. The Canadian dollar remains the Western currency with the best fundamentals. Canada’s problems arise because the Great Lakes are an insufficient barrier to the flow of bad economic and financial trends from the South.
7. Within the commodity groups, continue to emphasize investment in companies with long-duration unhedged reserves in the ground in politically secure regions.
8. The growth of sovereign control of energy assets means that the supply-side response to record-high oil prices will probably be inadequate to meet relentlessly growing global demand. Too many Third World governments with rich oil reserves have too many other demands for cash to reinvest heavily for the long term in new production. Retain exposure to the shares of producing Alberta Oil Sands companies with reserves that could outlast this century.
9. Long-term-oriented investors should use any temporary pullback in base metal producers to build their portfolios for the Final Movement of the Sonata – which will be the longest and loveliest performance of metal music in history.
10. The Treasury yield curve is now in recession mode – low yielding and upward sloping. It is of investment merit only for those who expect a long, deep recession. The Ten-Year note, with a negative real yield of 50 basis points, should appeal only to those who believe the recession will be accompanied by deep deflation. Oddly enough, credit spreads, though they have widened from their record-low levels, do not discount any recession at all.
We think bond investors should go for short- and medium-term high-quality non-Treasury paper – preferably in currencies other than greenbacks.
11. Defence stocks remain attractive, even if Democrats win it all in November. The next president may well choose to speak more softly than the incumbent, but if he or she doesn’t carry a big stick, the jihadists won’t listen.
Also, click here for Donald’s most recent webcast, dealing with the case for commodities and resources stocks.
Mar. 7, 2008 - Warren Buffett’s annual shareholder’s letter is the fountainhead from which legions of investment professionals glean insight from the world’s richest man ($62-billion net worth - according to Forbes 2008) and the single most successful investor in history.
Whether you’re a novice or a pro, this letter is full of the mindset and humour that are pre-requisite for long term investing success.
February 22, 2008 - George Soros, the infamous hedge fund manager who broke the British Pound, penned an article for FT.com, in which he posits that this crisis, unlike many of its peers, which occur every 4-10 years, is actually the end of a 60 year period of credit expansion led by the once dominant greenback. Here are a few excerpts from The Worst Market Crisis in 60 Years, by George Soros:
…the current crisis marks the end of an era of credit expansion based on the dollar as the international reserve currency. The periodic crises were part of a larger boom-bust process. The current crisis is the culmination of a super-boom that has lasted for more than 60 years.
…Everything that could go wrong did. What started with subprime mortgages spread to all collateralised debt obligations, endangered municipal and mortgage insurance and reinsurance companies and threatened to unravel the multi-trillion-dollar credit default swap market. Investment banks’ commitments to leveraged buyouts became liabilities. Market-neutral hedge funds turned out not to be market-neutral and had to be unwound. The asset-backed commercial paper market came to a standstill and the special investment vehicles set up by banks to get mortgages off their balance sheets could no longer get outside financing. The final blow came when interbank lending, which is at the heart of the financial system, was disrupted because banks had to husband their resources and could not trust their counterparties. The central banks had to inject an unprecedented amount of money and extend credit on an unprecedented range of securities to a broader range of institutions than ever before. That made the crisis more severe than any since the second world war.
Credit expansion must now be followed by a period of contraction, because some of the new credit instruments and practices are unsound and unsustainable. The ability of the financial authorities to stimulate the economy is constrained by the unwillingness of the rest of the world to accumulate additional dollar reserves. Until recently, investors were hoping that the US Federal Reserve would do whatever it takes to avoid a recession, because that is what it did on previous occasions. Now they will have to realise that the Fed may no longer be in a position to do so. With oil, food and other commodities firm, and the renminbi appreciating somewhat faster, the Fed also has to worry about inflation. If federal funds were lowered beyond a certain point, the dollar would come under renewed pressure and long-term bonds would actually go up in yield. Where that point is, is impossible to determine. When it is reached, the ability of the Fed to stimulate the economy comes to an end.
And finally,
Although a recession in the developed world is now more or less inevitable, China, India and some of the oil-producing countries are in a very strong countertrend. So, the current financial crisis is less likely to cause a global recession than a radical realignment of the global economy, with a relative decline of the US and the rise of China and other countries in the developing world.
Soros concludes that there is a danger that US protectionism could disrupt the global economy and plunge the world into a recession or worse.
Feb. 15, 2008 - Joe Friesen and Marcus Gee of the Globe and Mail published an excellent article Eastern Promises on how demand for all things agricultural commodities are being driven by growth from Emerging Markets. The piece features commentary by Don Coxe, Chief Investment Strategist, BMO Capital Markets, on food and the agricultural boom. This piece features lots of anecdotal and empirical information.
Here are some excerpts:
India’s consumption of pulses — yellow peas, lentils, chick peas, green peas — has doubled in a year. In a country where millions are strict vegetarians, pulses are an essential protein source that go into the preparation of dal, which is cooked every day in millions of homes. India’s struggling, still backward farm industry can’t keep up with the demand.
“It’s not our part of the world that changed things, it’s the millions of people over there that are no longer content to get along with a bowl of rice and a few loaves of bread. They’re adding meat and dairy to their diet and we aren’t producing enough feed grains, enough vegetable proteins, to supply their need,” said Donald Coxe, global portfolio strategist for Bank of Montreal.
“Milk is the new oil. Milk demand worldwide is rising faster than oil demand. That’s because of the new Asian middle class.”
“Western Canadian farmers, unless they have an all-out crop failure, are going to have the biggest year in their history,” Mr. Coxe said.
Mr. Coxe said the rise in living standards in India, China and other parts of the developing world, as well as the sudden explosion in demand for corn to make ethanol for gasoline in the U.S., have put a squeeze on markets that’s making all cereal crops and vegetable proteins more expensive.
“So the way I sum it up,” Mr. Coxe said, “is the world is roughly in the position of a family that gave their son who was going to Las Vegas all the money they had and told him to put it on the dice table. He has rolled four consecutive sevens. He has left all the money on the table and now he’s rolling the dice again.”
“We are facing the real possibility of the worst global food crisis for which we have records.
“When people ask me what’s the biggest threat facing China — it’s food price inflation. The consumer price index in China (6.5 per cent) is now the highest rate in many, many years. If you take the food inflation out of it, their inflation rate is closer to 1 per cent.”
Jan. 29, 2008 - This is irresistible. During periods where there seems to be such confusion in the market, we could certainly all use a dose of clarity.
Byron Wien, Chief Global Strategist, Pequot Capital, and one of a few prolific market forecasters, shares his 5 ‘Sure Things’ for this turbulent market:
I’m getting older now, so I only invest in sure things. I don’t invest in things that only “might” work out. So let me give you five sure things.
Gold is going to $1,000 an ounce probably this year. I forecast that it would go to $800 an ounce last year.
Oil is going to probably $125 a barrel. I forecast that it would go to $80 last year. The dollar is going down for the reasons that I said because large holders of dollars are going to diversify into other assets and other currencies.
Cotton is going to be the commodity of choice because the world’s standard of living is increasing and the places where it’s increasing fastest are warm and they don’t wear wool, they wear cotton. Cotton is something nobody wants to grow. They want to grow corn instead. So, while the demand for cotton is increasing, the acreage devoted to it is decreasing and that’s all you have to know.
Finally, I think the Chinese are going to revalue the renminbi (yuan) even more than the seven percent that they did last year.
As far as stocks are concerned, I think that my investment ideas follow some of my thesis. Our portfolio is very heavily overseas, but we’re in the agricultural area with Potash Corp (POT) and a lot of energy stocks.
Large caps such as Schlumberger (SLB). Smaller caps such as National Oilwell Varco (NOV) and Ultra Petroleum (UPL). In technology, Qualcomm (QCOM). Finally, in adult education we think that a lot of people will be laid off and they’ll be trying to improve their skills so we would buy the Apollo Group (APOL).
Prior to his current position as Chief Investment Strategist at Pequot Capital, Byron Wien was Chief Global Strategist at Morgan Stanley.
Jan. 25, 2008 - In his latest Basic Points (January 2008), Don Coxe, BMO Financial Chief Investment Strategist, whose track record remains among the most unequalled, makes his recommendations, given the prevailing conditions in the market.
These appear on page 34-35:
1. The financial crisis is not centered in stock markets. Its primary locus is in financial derivatives, and in their impact on the stock prices of leading banks. Until the downward drift of bank stocks and the upward drift of derivative debt yields are reversed, the stock market will continue to slide. Keep overall equity exposure to minimums, and emphasize quality.
2. Bond investors face two risks: inflation and credit. Nominal Treasury bond yields are far too low, and quality corporates are too rare – with 71% of corporate debt junk-rated. Buy inflation-hedged sovereign bonds – preferably in major foreign currencies. Simplicity is good: avoid complex products that are subject to drastic rating writedowns.
3. Commodity stocks are at risk to the extent that the financial frauds and foolishness are able to abort the global economic recovery. A US recession would be good news only for gold stocks. It would be bad news for base metal and steel stocks, and negative news for oil stocks. Agricultural stocks should not be hurt, except that major bear raids will likely spew blood broadly across stock markets.
4. Any panic-driven selloffs in commodity stocks are unlikely to take them off the top-performers lists for more than a few weeks. They are not just fair-weather friends. Not only are most of the majors very cheap on a forward-earnings basis, but mining and oil companies that ordinarily search for resources in remote regions will take advantage of selloffs to acquire reserves in politically safe regions at bargain cost. Coming out the other side of this slowdown, these stocks will experience big increases in their absolute and relative PEs. Someday a big Sovereign Wealth Fund is going to decide that bailing out banks isn’t as profitable as owning matchless reserves of minerals.
5. Food price inflation should strengthen through the year. It could be offset by broad price declines across the US economy as it struggles with recession, but it is becoming embedded in the global economy and will be a challenge for many years. It will produce a full-blown crisis when a major crop failure occurs.
6. The Canadian dollar trades right around parity. It might not climb sharply higher if a US recession is confirmed, because of the impact on the industrial sector and tourism. It remains a fundamentally strong currency, and the greenback remains a fundamentally weak currency. Canadian borrowers should borrow in greenbacks.
7. Gold’s move has been dramatic, but retail investors in North America and Europe have not yet shown signs of true gold fever. That means there is still substantial upside. Soaring silver and platinum prices confirm that this gold move is no mere spastic twitch. The expression “as good as gold” in reference to Treasuries and other US debt instruments should be restricted to use as a warm-up joke at investment policy meetings.
8. Defence stocks have solidly outperformed the S&P for most of the Bush presidency. Iraq and Afghanistan have run down a wide range of Pentagon inventories and a new generation of fighter jets cannot be postponed much longer. No matter who wins the presidency, these companies should continue to prosper.
9. Sovereign Wealth Funds have been buying US banks. Wall Street cites these purchases as evidence of great value in bank stocks. For nations that are overweight Treasuries in their holdings and underweight influence in American politics, swapping Treasuries for bank equities and convertibles makes sense. That does not necessarily mean that the stocks are great value for investors who cannot get other – unspecified – returns on their investments.
10. Use panic days to strengthen your equity portfolio, buying the agricultural, gold and oil stocks you will want to own after the bear retreats to his cave – and selling stocks that are too dependent on US consumers. Retain your quality base-metal stocks: they may well be taken out by other mining companies, or a Sovereign Wealth Fund.
11. The US small-cap bear market may be overshooting because investors haven’t analyzed the likely improved competitive positions of companies whose principal competitors were bought by Private Equity or are Canadian or European companies hurt by the weakening dollar.
12. Be like all wise cottage owners: Protect your possessions from Rats.
Jan. 25, 2008 - Courtesy of the fine folks at BeSpoke. They really do great work at charting for perspective.
We’ve decided to revisit two of our Bespoke Reference posts from this Summer since they are even more relevant now.
Expansions and Recessions
Below we have graphically summarized US economic expansions and recessions since 1900 (red=recession, green=expansion).
One of the most interesting aspects of the above chart is that over the last one hundred years, recessions have become shorter in nature. For example, three of the first four recessions during the 20th Century lasted longer than 600 days. During the last four recessions, however, only one has been longer than 250 days (the longest was 487).
During expansions, we have seen the opposite occur. Over the last 100+ years, expansions have become longer in duration. Prior to WWII, there were ten economic expansions. Of those, only four (40%) lasted longer than 1,000 days. Since WWII, however, there have been eleven expansions, of which nine (81%) crossed the 1,000 day threshold.
Bull and Bear Markets
The S&P 500 is now down nearly 20% from its highs. With the markets very close to bear territory, it’s important to note what the typical bear looks like. Below we highlight historical bull and bear markets of the S&P 500 since 1945. A bull market is defined as a closing price rise of 20% that was preceded by a decline of 20%. A bear market is defined as a closing price decline of 20% that was preceded by a rise of 20%. Since 1945, the average bull market has been 1,625 days with an average rise of 149.53%. The average bear market has been 393 days with an average decline of 30.57%. So the typical bull is long and strong, while the typical bear is short and nasty. Bespoke Premium members have access to PDFs and downloadable Excel files of all Bespoke Reference reports.
Market meltdowns that scorch investors, 100-year floods that occur every 10 years and terrorist attacks such as 9/11. Nassim Taleb, an author, lecturer and big thinker, calls such unforeseen events “black swans,” borrowing from a tale about 17th Century European seafarers who landed on Australia and, much to their surprise, learned that not all swans were white.
Such shocks occur, Taleb says, because even experts fail to consider the likelihood of extreme scenarios. That’s why his theory, outlined in his book, “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable,” is so intriguing to Chicago’s trading community, which seeks to lessen risk by exchanging futures and options. His ideas have earned him cachet with investment bankers as well as rock ‘n’ rollers. (Copyright 2008 - Chicago Tribune)
Dennis Gartman’s “Rules of Trading” are the product of many, many years of on the ground experience and we can learn from them. Here is the complete list that John Mauldin shared in his newsletter some time back:
DENNIS GARTMAN’S NOT-SO-SIMPLE RULES OF TRADING
1. Never, Ever, Ever, Under Any Circumstance, Add to a Losing Position… not ever, not never! Adding to losing positions is trading’s carcinogen; it is trading’s driving while intoxicated. It will lead to ruin. Count on it!
2. Trade Like a Wizened Mercenary Soldier: We must fight on the winning side, not on the side we may believe to be correct economically.
3. Mental Capital Trumps Real Capital: Capital comes in two types, mental and real, and the former is far more valuable than the latter. Holding losing positions costs measurable real capital, but it costs immeasurable mental capital.
4. This Is Not a Business of Buying Low and Selling High; it is, however, a business of buying high and selling higher. Strength tends to beget strength, and weakness, weakness.
5. In Bull Markets One Can Only Be Long or Neutral, and in bear markets, one can only be short or neutral. This may seem self-evident; few understand it however, and fewer still embrace it.
6. “Markets Can Remain Illogical Far Longer Than You or I Can Remain Solvent.” These are Keynes’ words, and illogic does often reign, despite what the academics would have us believe.
7. Buy Markets That Show the Greatest Strength; Sell Markets That Show the Greatest Weakness: Metaphorically, when bearish we need to throw rocks into the wettest paper sacks, for they break most easily. When bullish we need to sail the strongest winds, for they carry the farthest.
8. Think Like a Fundamentalist; Trade Like a Simple Technician: The fundamentals may drive a market and we need to understand them, but if the chart is not bullish, why be bullish? Be bullish when the technicals and fundamentals, as you understand them, run in tandem.
9. Trading Runs in Cycles, Some Good, Most Bad: Trade large and aggressively when trading well; trade small and ever smaller when trading poorly. In “good times,” even errors turn to profits; in “bad times,” the most well-researched trade will go awry. This is the nature of trading; accept it and move on.
10. Keep Your Technical Systems Simple: Complicated systems breed confusion; simplicity breeds elegance. The great traders we’ve known have the simplest methods of trading. There is a correlation here!
11. In Trading/Investing, An Understanding of Mass Psychology Is Often More Important Than an Understanding of Economics: Simply put, “When they are cryin’, you should be buyin’! And when they are yellin’, you should be sellin’!”
12. Bear Market Corrections Are More Violent and Far Swifter Than Bull Market Corrections: Why they are is still a mystery to us, but they are; we accept it as fact and we move on.
13. There Is Never Just One Cockroach: The lesson of bad news on most stocks is that more shall follow… usually hard upon and always with detrimental effect upon price, until such time as panic prevails and the weakest hands finally exit their positions.
14. Be Patient with Winning Trades; Be Enormously Impatient with Losing Trades: The older we get, the more small losses we take each year… and our profits grow accordingly.
15. Do More of That Which Is Working and Less of That Which Is Not: This works in life as well as trading. Do the things that have been proven of merit. Add to winning trades; cut back or eliminate losing ones. If there is a “secret” to trading (and of life), this is it.
16. All Rules Are Meant To Be Broken…. but only very, very infrequently. Genius comes in knowing how truly infrequently one can do so and still prosper.
Donald Coxe: Capitalism Faces its Greatest Challenge
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Donald Coxe, Chief Investment Strategist, BMO Capital Markets has just released his latest instalment of Basic Points, 'Capitalism Faces its Greatest Challenge' for Nove
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