More Cautionary Signals for Investors

Introduction

The mission of a good investment analyst is to think about the impossible thoughts or at least the ones that seem improbable to most. The job of a prudent portfolio manager is to anticipate problems in the face of increasing momentum.

In last week’s post I raised concerns about a forthcoming peak or top of the global stock markets. This week I see more signs beyond the increase in margin debt I highlighted last week. I doubt that I (or anyone for that matter) can call the top with any precision. Nevertheless, I am concerned that we are much closer to a peak than a five year-old bottom and increased caution is warranted.

My concerns are outlined below. I would be happy to discuss these items with members of this blog community.

Black Friday: Traditional research could be failing

Long-term readers of these posts are used to my shoe-leather research of going to the near-by “The Mall at Short Hills” on Black Friday. This year my wife Ruth, my niece Alisa and I went to the glitzy, largely high-end mall Friday afternoon. Parking was less difficult than on other Black Fridays. With exceptions, both the shoppers and the stores were tight with their money. Relatively few people were carrying four shopping bags at once. As a matter of fact, this year there were many mall “walkers” and some in lounge seats without any bags at all.

I only noticed one shop advertising for additional help. The only two stores that seemed to have any frenzy around them were the Apple and Verizon outlets, both sellers of Apple products. (One should be careful, even analysts and portfolio managers see what they want to see. I am a long-term owner of Apple^* stock and we buy these products through the Verizon store.) In past years these perambulations gave me a good clue as to how overall Christmas sales were going. I now question this approach as there is some chance that on an overall basis there will be more sales over the Internet than in the physical stores in 2013; if not now then surely next year. We should have an easier time finding a parking place next year.

Mutual fund signals

One should expect because of my history and portfolio that I would pay attention to what is happening in the mutual fund business. In October investors added a net $21 billion to Equity funds as compared with a net redemption of $16 billion in October of 2012. For the ten months the net flow was $134 billion compared to a net redemption of $99 billion in the same period last year. This money probably came from a $221 billion smaller net contribution into Taxable Bond funds and a net swing into redemption from net sales in Municipal Bond funds of $91 billion. What has me concerned is that the biggest increase both percentage-wise and dollar impact was the $115 billion increase in World Equity funds followed by $104 billion increase in total sales by the Capital Appreciation funds. Both of these groups typically assume that the fund owner will be able to redeem quickly from these more volatile type funds. Only $67 billion was added this year into the less volatile and more likely retirement money of Total Return funds. Adding to these concerns was that most fund channels showed increases in October over September, except the institutional channel and the proprietary bank channel. I am concerned that the lower sales in October in these two channels could have to do with the restructuring of the marketplace in anticipation of the so-called Volcker rule restricting proprietary activities of banks.

In addition, Variable Annuities are seeing net redemptions across the board except for the Hybrid and High-Yield investment objectives, which suggest that even in this supposedly long-term arena for retirement, investors are looking for performance in some risky places. (All of the numbers quoted are sourced from the Investment Company Institute.)

My concern about market restructuring can be gleaned from information re-published by John Mauldin on the number of pages of major financial laws. The list is arrayed chronologically and also inversely as to their lasting importance: Remember the more pages, the less effective the legislation becomes.

• Federal Reserve Act (1913) 31 pages
• Glass Steagall Act (1933) 37 pages
• Graham-Leach-Bliley Act (1999) 143 pages
• Dodd-Frank (2010) 2319 pages

All of these bills created hurdles in the end and at great expense defeated the fundamental purpose of each legislation, but made a lot of money for lawyers, including those who had service on Capitol Hill.

Portfolio managers cherish their investment records as well as having concerns for the long-term benefits to their shareholders. The obvious fear on their part after a number of years of good to great performance is concern about a less good if not an outright nasty future. In some cases of over 40% gains this year, certain Small Company funds are closing their doors to new money or new accounts. The latest one to announce this softly is T Rowe Price^* New Horizons fund who has executed this move a number of times in its long and distinguished history. Other Small Company funds have built up their cash holdings to over 40% and in one case, it is reported, to 65%. We are increasingly finding it difficult to find growth-oriented funds, particularly Small Company funds that meet my standards of research and prudence for our fiduciary accounts. As the market rises on more enthusiasm, it will be more difficult to pick long term winners.

Two-handed economists and portfolio managers needed

While a former US President once sought a one-handed economist, an economist that shows the proper degree of balance is actually more worthwhile. The control of the leading Central Banks of the world is now in the hands of those who believe that no mess is quite so bad that official intervention won’t make it worse, asserted the UK's Daily Telegraph. In this era of multiple quantitative easing (QE), some academically driven measures can work. Over the weekend Moody’s^* upgraded the Greek Government Bond rating from “C” to “Caa3” with a published view that after six years of the economy contracting that in 2014 there will be some growth and by 2015 the Greek economy will be rushing ahead at a 1% growth rate.

Two missing important caveats should be added. First there is no measure of the long-term impact of exporting brains and labor to be employed elsewhere with little probability that they will return. The second point:  to a market observer the Moody’s announcement is not a surprise as both the markets for Greek bonds and shares have been rising for some time.

The lead/lag effect between the markets and the economy needs some explanation to many who are not deeply involved with the market. I will share with you a synopsis of two conversations about this dichotomy I had in a 24 hour period. The first was with a confused cousin who is a graduate of a well-known university who also has a locally obtained master’s degree. She was confused as to how the US market (where she has some investments) could go up, and the economy be so bad that her sales of a professional product were not up to expectations. I asked her whether she had two left hands. She said she had a right and a left. I asked if there are there times each hand is doing something different. My comment was that the market and the economy were like her two hands each performing different tasks. This apparently made some sense to her. 

Saturday night at a reception for donors to the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra (an organization lucky enough to have my wife as its Co-Chairman), I was talking with a senior staff member who had a similar question. I suggested that we would not want our Concertmaster who is a world renowned violinist switching places with an equally professional timpanist for an important piece of music. He got it that in terms of harmony one needs both, but they play different roles. That seemed to satisfy him.

Buy, Sell or Hold 

Howard Marks, the CEO of Oaktree Capital, a very successful investment management firm, and a friend for 30-plus years believes that markets are forever cyclical and those who do not expect future cyclicality are at risk. At the moment, while cautious, he is not calling a top. I am also cautious, particularly because my private financial services fund last week had a gross year to date gain of 34% which is high for a quality-biased conservative portfolio.

Nevertheless for clients I am responsible for making decisions or at least suggestions. Thus, I have to make Buy, Sell, and Hold decisions. As mentioned in previous posts I array my decisions along the different time horizons. I am, for the most part, reserving my buying to stocks that appear to have substantially more long-term upside than shorter term downside.

My Selling is largely driven by cash funding needs, rebalancing within agreed-to guidelines and in anticipation of some current holdings enjoying upward momentum, but which have a history of significant drops when the markets turn nasty as they always do. For long-term oriented endowments and my own family I favor Holding, as I believe the underfunding of global retirement capital will lead long-term capital flows into the markets that will produce good results for long-term, prudent investors.

*Disclosure: Either owned personally or in my private financial services fund.

Please share your thoughts with me on these topics.

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Winning Life with Your Retirement Capital

The greatest American horse race for three-year olds was run this past weekend, the Belmont Stakes.  As many of you may already know, I count my “misspent” youth learning to handicap (analyze) races; Belmont Park in suburban New York was one of my centers of learning. Shortly after the famed Secretariat won the race by 31 lengths and the Triple Crown in 1973, I started my firm, Lipper Analytical Services to apply some of the analytical lessons to the study of mutual funds. I was addicted to analyzing criteria to find winners.

A winning life

Some 39 years later, I realize that the process of developing a person’s retirement capital in part defines for an individual and his/her beneficiaries, whether or not one had a winning life. The accumulated retirement income in the senior portion of life will determine whether one is independent, a burden to family, a ward of the state or some combination of the three. Thus, I believe the production of retirement capital from which retirement income will flow is of critical importance to all individuals and to the society in which we live.

The defined benefit dilemma

Pension plans benefits are  obligations of the pension sponsor or employer. Obligations are treated as liabilities that are part of what the various credit rating agencies evaluate in making their credit ratings judgments. Lenders often use credit ratings to confirm their risk judgments. The level of risk is an important component in assigning an interest rate on current and future loans to the employer. Often the smaller the pension liability the lower the interest rate. Currently, employers with debt on their balance sheets may want to reduce the risks in their pension plans by favoring high quality fixed income with relatively short maturities as likely to decline the least of other investments in a down market. This judgment is based on the past and could very well be in complete opposition to a plan’s investment advisor who may believe this is the exact time to increase the plan's exposure to the risk of market forces. The dilemma for the employer is whether to rely on past history to reduce risk or to look at what appears to be an historic opportunity to buy stocks at what in the future would be recognized as great prices. My instinct is to go with the opportunity. This is not just because of my US Marine Corps training that the best defense is to attack, but also because I am familiar with another mathematically accurate analysis, utilizing "least  squares” procedures. 

"Least squares” analysis

Least squares analysis is a procedure that various analysts use to determine the best fit of a line that will be equidistant from a field of many different observation points. My concern today is that we are in a period of an unprecedented volume of inputs. I am aware that single or multiple extreme observations could for example, radically change the slope of the least squares line and produce a radically different expected growth rate. When we experience the unexpected, we are likely to experience even more unexpected results. For instance, older employees can, perhaps, take comfort from a conservative pension plan as the chances of getting the "promised" benefit is relatively good. Younger employees however might feel the opposite. Their pension provider may not have bought cheap growth assets when they were available. Thus in later years the employer may have to contribute more than normal amounts of money to offset their lower earlier returns. The question for these now aging employees becomes whether the employer can meet its pension obligations without starving the company’s future growth.

A rough rule of thumb for younger potential employees rating their future employer

I am going to suggest one analytical tool that might be used as a point of departure, though many may disagree with this approach. One of the ratios that is available on most defined benefit pension plans is the funded ratio of plan assets compared with the actuarial calculations as to what is owed over time. Many plan sponsors want to keep this ratio at or slightly below 80%. Above that level they lose some flexibility in meeting payments. A ratio below 70%, could cause credit ratings to drop. In a very simplified calculation, pension funds can show the amount of money invested in equities or other large risk featured investments. Particularly at this point of time when the stock market has been generally flat for more than ten years, sponsors who have an equity ratio approximately the same as their funding ratio are positively future oriented. They believe that they will experience growth. A risk ratio below their funding ratio suggests, perhaps for good reason, they are being cautious. Perhaps the real value of this rule of thumb is that in a second level discussion, it would show a serious interest in the long-term financial health of the prospective employer.

What choices should be included in defined contribution plans?

The various options offered in 401k, 403b, and 457 plans is something of a balancing act between paternalistic fiduciary views and the desire to let the individual saver choose from all available options permitted by various regulations. Most of the options offered come in a mutual fund format with two notable exceptions, directed brokerage accounts and various types of annuities.

The US Department of Labor has indicated the minimum of options to be offered to include a high quality, short-term fixed income fund that is often translated to be a money market mutual fund or a stable value fund. The minimum number of funds is four with at least one equity fund. At the other extreme, for awhile a number of plans offered over 200 funds from a number of providers. Studies have shown that too many choices confuse participants. Further, the history of plans is that most of the money is in relatively few funds. (I suggest that any fund that does not garner 5% of the money should be a candidate for being dropped.) Each of my plan clients is different due to the beliefs of the sponsor and the perceived needs and general investment sophistication of the workforce. In a generic sense my approach is to start with the oldest type of fund, a balanced fund, with stocks as the majority asset class and fixed income for the remainder. This fund should be used as the default alternative. Some may suggest to use target date funds for this need. My problem with these vehicles is not with their portfolios, but based on studies too many of target date fund investors don't fully understand them. If there is an effective individual advisory function at work, target date funds could be added to a moderately large list. I would like to have at least two fixed income funds, both high quality and preferably US Treasury-oriented, one short-term and one intermediate.  In addition I would add a TIPS fund. In terms of equity funds I would include a Large cap and a Small cap fund with at least one of them focused on growth. A stocking-picking fund without constraints would be a nice addition. Notice I did not label the choices as domestic or international or manager-selected global funds. These are becoming less distinctive as choices today.

Investors should have their own individual investment accounts

There are two reasons for this belief. First and foremost, the individual account can select when to accept tax consequence transactions and, at least for now, gains will be taxed at the tax advantaged capital gains rate rather than the ordinary rate that will be due when the withdrawal period begins from these savings plans. Second some of the product line extensions that I do not feel are appropriate for these fiduciary savings plans, could well be useful in an individual's own account.

Using leading equity funds

Many individuals avoid funds with large unrealized capital gains for their taxable investment accounts. In my new Reuters column,  I recently asked whether there is a penalty box for funds that have had great long-term investment performance.  The answer may have some relevance for investors and beneficiaries of retirement income.

        

  

What are your reactions?

How are you planning to overcome your retirement capital concerns?

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