2 Presidential Lessons to be Learned/NASDAQ Clue - Weekly Blog # 673

 

Mike Lipper’s Monday Morning Musings

2 Presidential Lessons to be Learned/NASDAQ Clue

Editors: Frank Harrison 1997-2018, Hylton Phillips-Page 2018 –

 

For Want of a Nail

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.

For want of a shoe the horse was lost.

For want of a horse the rider was lost.

For want of a rider the message was lost.

For want of a message the battle was lost.

For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.

And all for want of a horseshoe nail.

A similar proverb has been coming to us for many centuries, in many languages, showing the critical importance of micro elements on macro events. As a bottom-up analyst I have learned to build macro views from the micro, distinct from many top-down thinkers who believe a macro view is appropriate for investment decision making.

Learning from Past Presidential Mistakes 

Before the current administration attempts to dictate its top-down views it would be wise to review the consequences of prior Presidents’ actions, which had the opposite effect of their intensions and led to severe repercussions for the world, country, and investors. In two cases, the party affiliation of the president did not save him from important mistakes.

FDR

The current administration is described as the most “progressive” since FDR, whose effort to redeploy the population and redistribute their wealth, took a bad recession caused by unsound debt policies and turned it into a long Depression lasting to the needed World War II. (Note, depression is a psychological term and is not designed for an economic period.) The lesson coming from this 12-year period was the central government being as much a part of the problem as the solution. In the eyes of potential aggressors, the US was weakened and would be slow to respond due to a lack of demonstrated political will. (Including, shifting government spending from buying to producing, a weak and outdated military, raising taxes on productive portions of society, and making it illegal for Americans to own gold.)

Richard Nixon

Became an advocate for Keynesian contracyclical spending and closed “The Gold Window”, which prevented  the US from buying gold from foreign nations for dollars and ignited the sharpest rise in inflation in modern times. While he did open the door to China, he saw it in military terms and did not contemplate the commercial plusses and minuses. 

Influences on the Stock Market

There are three mega market concerns: 

1. Economic/political concerns
2. Corporate views and earnings
3. Market structure changes

I am delighted most investors view the market impact in the order listed. As a contrarian, I take the reverse order as more important. Looking for “The Nail…”. A basic rule of investigation is to not believe the owners of the “printing presses”, demonstrated by the Federal Reserve’s terrible record on predicting economic turning points. One of the reasons that their record is so bad is that the Fed and the government use tax data for individual income. (I am sure everyone reading this blog attempts to show the maximum amount of possible income on their tax forms.) 

Corporate earnings releases have become very “plastic”. “Adjusted” financials now take prominence over audited statements in letters from the CEO. In the era of ESG and Diversity, commentary is about wishes and intentions, not current conditions. Thus, I put much more credence in securities transaction reports, even though I am conscious of trades occurring “off the market”. In addition, for historical reasons I have a lot of confidence in mutual fund data. It is from these vantage points the following views are offered.

Current Briefs

1. In the current week ended Thursday, mutual funds gaining more than 10% for the week included: 5 Value funds, 4 each in small and mid-cap funds, and 2 each in Core Commodities and Global funds. While smaller and mid-cap value funds were generally favored, individual stock selection was critical.
2. Six of the top 25 for the week invested in Japan and 8 of the bottom-10 were invested in natural resources.
3. Net fund flows for the week focused on portfolio attributes as well as immediate performance.
4. The JOC-ECRI Industrial Price Index year-over-year is +75%

New York Stock Exchange vs. NASDAQ

1. Volume year-to-date through Friday:  NYSE -25.57% vs. NASDAQ +25.14%                                                                                                                           
2. New Highs, New Lows, Number of Securities Traded

                 NYSE     NASDAQ

New Highs    820        784

New Lows      95        231

# Traded    3419       4322

NYSE is more bullish, but NASDAQ is Savvier, as shown on Thursday with the 400 plus point drop.

What Do You Think? Did I find a nail? If not, what would be?

Did you miss my blog last week? Click here to read.

https://mikelipper.blogspot.com/2021/03/mike-lippers-monday-morning-musings.html

https://mikelipper.blogspot.com/2021/03/next-race-winner-weekly-blog-671.html

https://mikelipper.blogspot.com/2021/02/did-something-happen-last-week-weekly.html

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A Good Week for Long-Term Stock Investors - Weekly Blog # 516

Introduction

“Six months ago everything was good you couldn’t find a reason to sell stocks. Now you can’t find a reason to hold them.”  I was delighted to read this quote in The Wall Street Journal. I only hope there are more expressed sentiments of discouragement. As our subscribers have learned, such views and increased volume of transactions are necessary to have a successful test of a bottom. The actual index close can be higher, lower, or equal to the questioned low point, but without a change in sentiment it is just statistics.

Parsing out the quote I found the singular buy and sell driver encapsulated in one word, “a”. Perhaps it is my long training as an analyst and portfolio manager, as well as a racetrack handicapper, or just living through these times. However, I have never not had conflicting reasons to buy or sell or take any other actions. One of the training techniques for salespeople when trying to make a sale is called “The Ben Franklin Close”. Perhaps the wisest of the Founding Fathers, who was essentially a successful businessman, used the approach of listing the plusses and minuses of a proposal in two columns on a single page. As long as the potential buyer accepted the validity of the list and the positives out-numbered the negatives, Ben Franklin closed the deal. To make a final decision, I require the weighting of each listed item not just the number of items. My experience has made me a contrarian. I always have doubts.

Investors make the most money in periods of doubt. These periods of doubt are often ones where the bulk of the “experts” are on one side or the other. For example, the vast group of experts who were against the British leaving the European Union predicted dire results if the foolish people voted for Brexit. They predicted unemployment would rise significantly, the value of the currency would drop, and London would be deserted by the financial community. In a front page article in the weekend WSJ Review section, a British editor indicated that the Brits are doing just fine. Unemployment is the lowest it has been in years and the pound is higher than it has been in some time. Additionally, the number of the financial people being transferred to the Continent appears to be in the hundreds not the thousands predicted.

Recognizing that I can and have been wrong, or at least premature, periods of doubt represent opportunities that “experts” can be wrong. After all, the Western Hemisphere was discovered during a period where many “experts” believed the earth to be flat, because they could not see beyond the horizon. By definition, long term investors must look beyond their current horizons.

An Explanation via Fund Data

Investment Performance

One of the main differences between growth and value fund investors is the time horizon expected to bring gains.

The growth investor is looking to a brighter future for the companies in which they invest. Value investors are betting that there will come a time when the values they perceive become more appreciated. Over time both have produced good results, but at different times. (This is why in many of our fund portfolios there is a sample of each discipline. Due to the long underperformance of value-driven funds, a contrarian might start to nibble. It is quite possible in the next wave of acquisition activity that smart acquirers will recognize the value properties before the market does.)

Currently, while the “popular” media is full of headlines as to problems, successful investors are evidently favoring growth. In the year to March 22nd, most equity funds are down a bit, but there are only eight fund peer group averages that are up 3% or more. Of the US Diversified Equity funds, only the four growth fund categories produced 3% or more. In the Sector fund group, just the Global Science and Technology funds make the grade, and they were higher than the Growth funds. Just two other investment objective categories: Latin American funds and China Region funds made the 3% gainers leaders.

Flows

While exchange traded products are governed by many of the same regulations as conventional mutual funds, the reasons their owners use them are different, therefore they should not all be lumped together in deciding market implications. The vast bulk of the money in ETFs and ETNs is invested in broad Index funds, which are primarily used by trading entities like hedge funds and discretionary advisors. In numerous cases these have replaced more expensive derivatives.

Mutual funds, a much older investment vehicle, were primarily designed for retirement, estate building, and other long-term needs. They are found in individual accounts, defined contribution plans [401k], and individual retirement accounts [IRA]. As the participants fulfill their needs they redeem their existing funds and use the money, or change to more conservative investment options. For many years growth funds were among the most popular funds, performing quite well and above most retirement measures. Because of the lack of growth of new investors, redemptions are not being offset by new sales. To my mind these are “completions” of earlier promises.

To respond to the lack of growth in sales of funds at the retail level, brokers in the US and elsewhere have been reducing the number of funds being offered and reducing the number of fund houses with which they are dealing. Funds are not the most profitable products for brokers and some managers. At some point this may change.

On the Horizon

Committees in the US Congress and the Administration are working on a second tax bill. Some of the possible provisions address the need to create more retirement capital in the US. Other countries are also addressing the lack of sufficient retirement capital in an era of extending life spans, expensive health care, and slower to no worker growth. Seniors vote, while often young people don’t.

Conclusions

Despite perceived and perhaps more importantly unperceived problems, equity risk investing is needed by the world and will happen.

The more people sell the more opportunities exist for the patient buyers and their advisors.

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Reading the Market Surge

Introduction

We all look at the world first through the lens of our experience. Even while I was still on active duty in the US Marine Corps I read Barron’s weekly whenever I could find it in oversea ports or posts within the US. While the articles were of interest, the back part of the magazine had and still has within it the most comprehensive pages of weekly market and economic data. When I started to look at mutual funds as clients for my research analysis pieces some fifty years ago, I tried to create a similar compendium of fund data. Thus, today I look at the global stock and bond markets first through reviewing fund data to get my bearings.

Six weeks into 2015

Dow Jones has combined a good bit of the Barron’s data with its own statistics and includes in its online Market Data Center mutual fund indices and investment objective averages from my old firm. Through Friday the 13^th of February there are four fund types that are up between 3% and 4 %. These are three growth-oriented fund groups that are labeled Growth funds investing in various sized market capitalizations, excluding Small-caps; plus a fourth group investing in Science and Technology companies. The only fund classification to show better results, (surprising to some) are the International funds, up 4.14%. What implications do I draw from the data?

Growth vs. Value

Over very extended periods of time those funds that follow the growth religion produce roughly the same long-term results as those followed by the value investors. To the extent that value does somewhat better, it may be a function that in their portfolios there are stocks that are acquired while growth companies (using their higher valued stock) are the acquirers. The plain truth, on balance, is that acquisitions don’t work out for the acquirers. However, the rotating performance leadership between growth and value investors can inform investors as to where we are in the sinusoidal, or if you prefer, cyclical market unfolding pattern. The single most important touch point for a value investor is current price relative to the estimated intrinsic value of the company. The growth investor's first focus is what the future is likely to bring to the investment under consideration. In markets that are fearful of a return to periodic declines, the pragmatic skills of the value investor are rewarded. They are very much “now” people. The growth investor lives in a world of expectations. These two polar opposites lend themselves to the currently popular designations of “risk on” or “risk off.”

"Risk On" phase

Have we entered a risk on phase? The Growth fund leadership suggests we have. The NASDAQ market index has rallied more than the more senior exchange indicators. (Part of that is due to the preponderance of Science & Tech plus Biotech issues listed there which may suggest that in time Small-cap Growth funds will be part of the leadership group.) The broadest gauge of the US market, the Wilshire 5000, went to a new high last Thursday. Other “Risk On” indications may be in weeks of rising US dollar values, when mutual funds are regularly seeing redemptions of domestic-oriented funds and money pouring into International funds. One doesn’t do that if one believes that globe’s leading equity market will be collapsing. Even Bond funds are participating in the move to take on more risk with flows into High Current Yield portfolios and withdrawals in some other types of Bond funds.

Is this bullish or bearish?

The plain answer is both. Markets rise on the basis of renewed hope and accelerating expectations of very positive future results. As regular readers of this blog may remember, I have felt that the lack of great enthusiasm has protected us from more than a normal 25% or so drop which regularly happens in most decades. For a bigger decline, of a once in a generation type, we will need to draw many more people into participating into the enthusiasm. Some will quit their day jobs to trade the market. Families will rearrange their long-term safety nets to participate in new wealth and advanced spending. This is not happening yet.

Future clues

The fund flow data mentioned above has within it some useful clues. The aggregate data mentioned includes both the traditional mutual fund data and their newer and more institutionally-oriented Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and similar products. While the combined data is showing “Risk On” characteristics, it is  being driven by the materially smaller ETF community and by much more active, trading-oriented hedge funds and similar managers. In many cases these traders are relatively short-term holders of these vehicles as they are using them as substitutes for more expensive futures with less liquidity. A much better clue will be the morning coffee klatch and cocktail parties and social receptions where the loudest talkers will be bragging about their “brilliant” purchases of individual securities or hedge or mutual funds.

Individuals: What to do?

To your own self be true. Individually most of us have gone through a number of downturns and thus tend to be more value-oriented than growth buyers. Stay with what you know and be prepared to pick up deep bargains if they appear. Others that are schooled and comfortable with science and technology can have a reasonable portion of their wealth in growth and have the wisdom to understand and take advantage of periodic disappointments.

Institutions: What to do?

As investment committees are made up of individuals with different backgrounds and investment proclivities, some combination of the two approaches is often the best. The approach that we recommend has to do with our series of time span portfolio constructs. In both the Operational and Replenishment Portfolios it is reasonable to assume a market decline is coming followed by a recovery. In view that we have not had a shakeout since 2009, one should be expected. These two portfolios should be as small as possible to meet current and replenishment needs. More of the sound, long-term institution's needs should be in the Endowment Portfolio with a time horizon of fifteen years and the Legacy Portfolio for the next generations' needs. These portfolios should not be utilizing market timing approaches and should invest for the long run.  By definition there are too many sold out bulls in a recovery.

Question of the Week: Will your current portfolio wisely handle the next bull and bear market?

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Strategic vs. Tactical: Follow the Lines and Spots

Tactical value investing...Was last week a tipping point?...Possible oncoming worries...Mutual funds holders: is your asset allocation correct?...Correction to last week’s post.

Introduction

Even to this day the academic world presents concepts on a black or white board or perhaps on a flat computer screen. Therefore in our minds’ eyes we tend to translate investment strategies in terms of continuous lines. We know that the objective is to end with more money than we started. Our experience quickly teaches us that there are many lines that can produce the desired result. In an oversimplification we contrast a perfect growth model that starts low and finishes at a peak. The line can be a perfect 45 degree slant or look like a hockey stick, flat to slightly down before an explosive burst that takes the line to its zenith. There are many variations of this plot, but we can label the group as growth oriented.

Tactical value investing

A second set of graphs are designed to produce the same result, but want to avoid the risks of falling off, at least temporarily, the growth curve. In this exercise there is a second discipline beyond finding securities that go up in price and that is the need to buy at a price spot that will rarely lead to a loss. This second approach achieves this goal by buying value at least in current terms and is called value investing. One might call it also tactical in the sense that timing is critical to successful entry points.

One of the advantages I have compared to most managers is that I can invest in what I think are currently the best Growth mutual funds and the best Value focused mutual funds. The key to this decision process for the client/investor is to get the appropriate time horizon correct in mixing the strategic Growth funds with the tactical Value funds. Read further and you will detect the questions that we deal with in attempting not only in getting our fund selection right, but also the right mix of Growth and Value. 

Was last week a possible tipping point?

Short-term performance is normally the equivalent of static on a poor radio device. However, every key turning point starts with a given day or week. Also individual funds can have a somewhat dramatically different short-term performance than their peers which would indicate that the outlier is doing something different. Thus, I am starting to question as to whether we have experienced a turning point. During the week, Value funds were off slightly less than 1%. Most Growth funds were down about 2.5% but Small Company Growth funds were down almost 4%. A couple of our very successful specific Growth fund holdings that were up 40-50% in 2013, declined in the range of 4-5% for the week. There could be individual corporate elements that caused these above-average declines or could it be for some reason certain investors were cashing in pieces of their Growth fund winnings, but leaving their Value focused holdings untouched?

Broadening the question to all equity funds, according to the Investment Company Institute (ICI) the net new cash inflow on a year-to-date basis through February was only $43 billion vs. $52 billion last year. Perhaps, more instructive is the weekly estimate from my old firm which estimates that the weekly net flow into equity mutual funds was $1.7 billion and the weekly outflow from Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) was $2.1 billion. In an oversimplification one might say the mutual fund buyers are long-term oriented riding up the curve of past incredibly good performance and the ETF sellers (often driven by brokers) were reacting to various news items. This dichotomy is also reflected in Friday’s flow of money into rising stock prices on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) of $2.2 billion compared to $0.9 billion in declining stock prices; whereas the more dealer oriented NASDAQ market was much more in balance with each side moving $1.3 billion.

If prices become negative this week we may have either seen a tipping point or we have just received some meaningless statistical static.

Oncoming worries

The job of a good analyst is to look beyond the headlines. The market will assess the current headlines, but analysts should look beyond. In brief, I am currently focused on three elements of the food picture. The first is that the preferred inflation statistic the government and the Fed look at strips the price of food and energy out of the consumer price indicator. While these can always be volatile, they usually stay within some bounds. Currently the price of food is skyrocketing, partly due to weather conditions, but I would suggest a continuing conversion of agricultural assets to other purposes. 

The rapidly increasing price of food is putting pressure on all families, but particularly on those with little or no income. Even with the big increase in the numbers of people utilizing food stamps, people are being squeezed. As bad as they are now, they could get worse. Most of us don’t realize where our food comes from and even if it comes from local sources, food prices move on global scales. 

One of the stories not being told about the situation in Ukraine is the plight of the farmers. Even before the hostilities many farmers there were heavily in debt to their suppliers of feed and other materials. Compounding the current problem is that under current conditions they have lost five different ports for their exports. Ukraine is one of the largest exporters of wheat and the odds are that they won’t be able to make deliveries to the normal customers. English translation: the price of wheat on our tables is likely to rise.

The third food related worry is predictions that there is a 50% chance of a series of repeated storms, some of these are known as “El Nino.” If these were to hit this would disrupt food production in India, China, and Latin America all of whom produce food for American and European tables.

Mutual fund holders: Is your asset allocation correct?

I have an allergic reaction to following the crowd. However, in general the way long-term mutual fund assets are allocated makes sense in terms of balancing growth opportunities and tactical value holdings. They have allocated approximately 69% of their long-term assets to equity funds and 27% of that total in consciously labeled Internationally oriented funds. The 69% is down from greater enthusiasm earlier and the international component is growing. I use the term ‘consciously labeled International’ as many so called domestic funds have up to 30% in non-US domiciled companies and some of the remainder are invested in multinational companies that through their foreign based operations and/or exports are serving non-American markets. I believe on a long-term basis this is wise as the relative future of our standard of living is likely to decline more due to greater education, work productivity, and savings than here. Our UK friends have recognized this for years and there are hardly any significant UK domiciled companies that are not globally focused. We are seeing the same characteristics in many European companies as well.

The 31% of mutual funds invested in fixed-income is a bit of a problem for me. There are two reasons to own fixed-income securities. The first is to generate necessary income that is not available from other investments. The second is as a strategic reserve if the equity portion falls dramatically. My problem is one of timing. At some point in the future the interest rate repression of the major global central banks will ease up and perhaps terminate. Interest rates will then rise to a level that recognizes both the deterioration of purchasing power of current money and appropriate payment from undertaking credit risk. At this point, if not before, bond prices will decline, damaging the strategic reserve value of fixed-income. Some fixed-income holders would be better off converting most if not all of their long-term fixed-income positions to well chosen dividend paying stocks and funds. If the current income is insufficient to meet current prudent expenditures, the law now recognizes that total return, including stock price appreciation is an appropriate source of income. Some bonds and other credit instruments that have equity-like characteristics, including risk of loss of capital, could be substituted for long-term high quality bonds as long as the investors recognize that the central banks have coerced them to take more risk.

Correction to last week’s post

There was an error in some editions of  last week’s post relating to my discussion of applying the “Rule of 72” to how long it would take to reduce by half (instead of all) the spending power of  principal amounts through the application of a 2% inflation rate. The correct answer is 36 years.  I thank the sharp reader in the UK who called this to my attention and I appreciate the notice of where I make a mistake of thought or proof-reading.  

Question of the Week: for you to ask yourself and perhaps share with me, so that we both can learn:

How are your assets allocated and where would you like them allocated at the end of the year and in five years?

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A. Michael Lipper, C.F.A.,
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Contact author for limited redistribution permission.