Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Ukraine

Here are quotes taken from posts  on two separate blogs that probably best capture the essence of the geographic, economic and political reality as to what's been going on in Ukraine.  I've given you a highlight but there's so much more to each article and I'd urge you to go read both.  The Taki article is worth reading alone for the nugget about Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. There's been a lot of talk regarding what the Russians are doing in Ukraine but in the end not much has been done to stop their aggression.  Not much is likely to be done either.  Markets see this.  That's why unless somebody really oversteps we're unlikely to see this develop into a full bore international crisis.


"Russian nature is cruel, as are the people living there. But they defend the land like wild animals defend their young, something the soft Western op-ed writers will never comprehend. For Russians, the farther west into Europe their borders extend, the farther any future Napoleon or Hitler has to travel to reach Moscow. It’s as simple as that. The great George Kennan went on record saying that NATO and the U.S. were making a great mistake in bottling up Russia after the fall of communism. Kennan knew the Russian character better than the know-nothings inside the beltway. And the ludicrous unelected EU bureaucrats who sang a siren song to the Ukrainians only showed what nincompoops they are by egging on anti-Russian sentiments in a country that became the Ukraine only in 1991, having been a batted-about set of provinces until it joined the Soviet Union."


"After careful deliberation, I have determined that it is in the national security interests of the United States to bluff crippling sanctions that would only succeed with European support that I'll never get, in order to deter Putin from invading Ukraine again, even though his first invasion was a wild success for him that we will probably never overturn. Even if the European miraculously come through, ordinary Russians will suffer more than Putin ever would, and his authoritarian government will continue its crackdown in free speech and civil liberties basically unimpeded.
If our plan succeeds, Russia will still maintain control of Crimea, and Ukrainians will continue living under the same threat of Russia invasion that has haunted them for centuries, but at least we will have prevented Russia from annexing eastern Ukraine as well. If it fails, America will return to the sidelines of this conflict, which is probably what most Americans want."



Tuesday, April 29, 2014

How Not To Invest!

Somewhat tongue and cheek chart over at Business Insider that attempts to illustrate the mistakes that investors and traders make all the time.




Investors again and again are prone to following what's been hot recently.  It's also why left to their own devices, investors time and time again do not achieve their investment goals.

Friday, April 25, 2014

Large Caps vs. Small


From Dr. Ed Yardeni blog.  A post looking at valuations by asset size.  Here's his thoughts:


"So far this year, the {Small and Mid-Caps} have been trading around valuation multiples of 17-19, while the S&P 500 has been hovering around 15. That suggests that the bubble this time is in small stocks. Indeed, the forward P/E of the Russell 2000 universe of these stocks, at the end of March, was 24 for the composite, with the growth and value components at 30 and 20, respectively. 


The Russell P/E is significantly higher than the S&P 600’s current reading of about 18 because it includes more stocks of companies that either have no earnings or are losing money. Yet investors are willing to pay high prices for them, expecting that they will eventually have great earnings. These great expectations more often than not end very badly once these companies actually start earning money. When they do so, it becomes obvious how dangerously overvalued these stocks are, especially if growth expectations turn more realistic and less fanciful. 



By the way, while the forward P/E of the S&P 500 was 15.5 during March, the median forward P/E was 16.6. This indicates that the larger-cap stocks are more fairly valued in the S&P 500 than the smaller-cap ones in this universe of LargeCaps. Back during 1999, the reverse was true."

My thoughts:  Stock valuations are elevated and this has likely been a chief reason prices have struggled so far this year.  While the most likely way for stocks to correct these valuations is to decline, it should be noted that stocks can correct by time as well as price.  I mean it's possible that stocks could simply just churn about for awhile.  I'm not saying that's going to occur and I've said in the past both here and here that I think that probability is suggestive of a correction some time in 2014.  But if valuation is a headwind for stocks then we also need to point out that earnings, economic growth that I think may be better than expected going forward and low interest rates have the market's back.  If markets do what they have to do to prove the most amount of investors wrong, then an unlooked for scenario could be that stocks go back and forth for much of this year and do………nothing!  Time will tell.

I will be traveling on Monday.  The next post here will be Tuesday unless there's a need to break in.

*At the time of this post we were long ETFs related to these different asset classes in many client and many {but not all} personal accounts.  

Link:  Dr. Ed's Blog:  "Large Caps are Cheaper than Small Mid-Caps."

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Advantages of ETFs

Some links that I think Investors ought to read about the advantages of ETFs.

ETF Database:  Why ETFs are Better Than Mutual Funds in Two Charts.

ETF Database:  Seven Charts to Put the ETF Industry in Perspective.

ETF.Com:  Three Reasons ETFs are so Inexpensive.

Vanguard:  Why are ETFs Tax Efficient?

Fortune:   The Great ETF Mega-War on Fees.

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Market Crashes


I get asked quite often about whether the stock market is setting itself up for a "crash".   I've also recently seen more about this written in the financial press as more speculative parts of the market have come under pressure.  Here's what I think.

First of all markets have the potential to move lower at anytime.  Even in bull markets stocks will go through corrective phases.  This JP Morgan chart below shows that in almost every year, including those that showed nice gains, stocks at some point experienced a decline.  Take as an example 2012.  Stocks posted a 13% increase that year which is well above equities 8% long term annual rate of growth but they also at some point during that year went down 10%.  Last year's 30% increase versus only a 6% decline is more the exception.  The average decline most years per this chart is nearly 15%.



I’ll define for the purpose of this post a market crash as a brief violent period {a day to a few weeks perhaps} when stocks rapidly decline due to some outside unlooked for event. Simply put, crashes occur when sudden unexpected events catch the majority of investors leaning the wrong way.  That is investors  have too much exposure to the markets given the new level of risk that's suddenly been injected into the system.   The market’s decline after the events of September 11, 2001 is a good example of markets rapidly declining.  Another would be the market’s reaction in 2008 after the Government refused to bail out Lehman Brothers.  The first example is something that unlooked for washed over the gunnels.  It was an exogenous shock to the system that nobody could have foreseen.  Similarly,  if there's an earthquake tomorrow that leaves parts of Southern California  in ruins, then the market will likely experience a decline.  The discounting mechanism of the markets isn't currently accounting for something like this.  It is hard to protect your portfolio from such events since they cannot be predicted.  They may happen tomorrow or they may never occur.  The 2nd example happened because an outside entity {in this case the Federal Government} refused to act in a manner market participants expected which resulted in unlooked for shock to the system.


Investors may worry about something like the tensions over Ukraine as this sort of thing, but that crisis is so well known as to be on investor’s radar screen.  The market’s discounting mechanism is already working on it.  Currently markets don't see Ukraine as much of a big deal.  If they did then we'd likely have seen much larger declines.  The only way an event like Ukraine morphs into something more serious would be for events there to take a turn for the worse in ways markets don’t anticipate.  If for example we wake up in the morning and the Russian Army is marching toward Kiev then markets are going to have a bad day.  

I'm not saying we can't have a rough decline in prices at some point.  Investors should understand that stocks don't travel in a straight line higher.  Corrections are inevitable and are part of the market's mechanism that keeps financial excesses in check.  But a crash is in most cases an event that can't be gamed.  They are also rare.  In my opinion investors should spend more time concentrating on sound portfolio management than worrying about an event that may or may not happen.

*Long ETFs related to the S&P 500 in client and personal accounts.

Link:  JP Morgan Asset Management:  Guide to the Markets:  2Q, 2014

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Things Are Getting Better: Rent vs. Buying

From Business Insider.com.


"There was once a time when buying a house was considered a guaranteed winner of an investment.
But the inflating and subsequent burst of the housing bubble has left many skeptical of the long-term value of owning a home.
Further, many households are less willing to take on such a large fixed liability.
As a result, rentals have been hot.
And while home prices and sales have rebounded recently, it continues to be much cheaper — on average — to make mortgage payments than rental payments in the U.S.
"Nationally, the share of income that households must devote to rent has increased steadily and consistently since 2000, as the increase in rent has dramatically outpaced the growth in income over the same period," Zillow's Krishna Rao said.
"Over the period from 2000 to 2014, median household income has increased by 25.4 percent, while rents have increased over 52.8 percent, more than twice as much. On the heels of our recent analysis showing the erosion of affordability of homes for purchase, this represents even more bad news for those looking for housing," Rao said.
Check out this chart {above} from Zillow for some historical context."
My comment:  One of the greatest economic multipliers is housing.  The reason for that is that the purchase of a new house also usually brings the need for all sorts of other products.  Think for example furniture and appliances.  Housing construction remains below population growth and has been that way since the start of the Great Recession.  Slowly we've seen a steady build up in this area and it can only be helped by the statistics on affordability shown in the article above.  I know that in the suburb where I live there are more young families moving in than I remember probably in the past ten years.  Lower prices, historically low interest rates are a potent mix that is an important tailwind to the economy.  Housing starts  and construction have slowed over the past few months.  I'm blaming the winter on that.  I expect we'll see a pick up as warmer weather moves its way north.  I do know that one of the common denominators on my most recent trip was the amount of new construction I witnessed every place I went.

Monday, April 21, 2014

Market Rotation

A good article and somewhat counter on what I think is happening in the markets right now.  Go read this article over at All Star Charts.com on Money Rotating into Late Cyclical Names..  Pertinent take-away:

"This seems all too similar to prior market peaks. We’re going to want to see Financials, Tech and Discretionaries start to turn back up on a relative basis in order to take this scenario out of the equation. But the consistent underpermance out of these sectors and money flow into Utilities and Energy can’t be ignored." 

Link:  All Star Charts.com: Money Rotates Into Late Cyclical Names 

Sunday, April 20, 2014

Easter




Christus Resurrectus Est! Vere Resurrectus Est!

Happy Easter!

Saturday, April 19, 2014

Ecce homo! Pilot as the First Behavioralist.




An interesting read over at Dragonfly Capital.com.  Very appropriate for this weekend.

"Pontius Pilate wis the First Behavioralist."

Pontius Pilate presenting a scourged Jesus to the mob.  "Ecce Homo"-{Behold the Man}.  Panting by Antonio Ciseri. 1871.


Friday, April 18, 2014

Good Friday


Dingle Peninsula, Co, Kerry, Ireland.  2008.


Thursday, April 17, 2014

Certain Indices


I've highlighted certain indices and one sector here to show the discrepancy of the markets over the past month or so.  In this case you'll notice the S&P 500 is basically flat, emerging markets have finally caught a bid and the technology laden Nasdaq has just traded like dreck.  To illustrate this better I've also put the First Trust DJ Internet index in here as well.  It's down over 10%.  Our money flow indicators are showing that some of these sectors are oversold enough where probability is suggestive of a potential move higher.  Disclosure: some of the indices pictured above we've nibbled just a tiny bit for new money and more aggressive strategies over the past week or so.  We may also continue to buy going forward depending on how these areas trade {Disclosure I've also nibbled a bit in personal accounts in some of these areas as well, although positions can change at any time.}  

I'm thinking that one of two things has to happen either the bearish trading in some of the market's high flyer's is overdone or some of the more staid sectors and asset classes need to play catch up to the downside.   Obviously in the short term we think there is the potential for a move higher.  Wouldn't be surprised though if this is more of a short term phenomena and I think we may be re-evaluating these sectors in a shorter period of time than we normally use in accounts.

*Long all of the indices or indices related to these sectors mentioned above in client and personal accounts.  Positions can change at any time and we are under no obligation, nor will we necessarily attempt to disclose when these changes occur.

Posting Schedule:  Markets are closed tomorrow for Good Friday.  We have family in town for Easter so the next post here will be Tuesday.

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Market Sectors


Market Sector Performance over basically the last month.  Energy has been a star but it's been outperformed by the utilities which are a very defensive sector.  Consumer staples have also done well and they are also more defensively oriented.   These are usually not the sectors you want to see leading if the market is going to make some headway in here.

*Long energy ETFs in client and personal accounts.

**Performance charts comes from Stockcharts.com

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Valuation

With the 1st Quarter in the books and earnings season kicking in, I thought I'd revisit our valuation models for the S&P 500.  I will use our midpoint earnings estimate of $118.75 on the S&P 500 and introduce an analysis based on the four quarter rolling earnings estimates on the same index.  These earnings estimates go out through March 31, 2015.  That estimate per Thomson Reuters and via Fundamentalis.com is $123.04.

Our Midpoint Estimate $118.75 {Through 12.31.2014}

Current PE:                   15.41
Earnings Yield:               6.48%
Dividend Yield:              1.86%

Current Expected Price Cone of Probability, 12.31.2014:   1,625-2,000.

Rolling Four Quarter Estimate  $123.04 {Through 03.31.2014}

Current PE:                   14.88
Earnings Yield:               6.71%
Dividend Yield:              1.86%

Current Expected Price Cone of Probability,   03.31.2014:   1,750-2,100.

The current yield on the 10 year US Treasury is 2.65%.  

We have lowered our estimated price ranges for 2014 from those published in our Winter Letter to Clients.  I will talk about this in a future post.  I also suspect that those March 31, 2015 numbers are high.

The Cone of Probability is our current assessment of the trading range within which we think stocks have the potential to trade during the described time period.  It is a probabilistic assessment based on a many factors.  Some of these inputs are: Earnings estimates, also are those estimates rising or falling, dividend yield, earnings yield and the current yield on the US 10 year treasury.  This is not an exhaustive list of all of the variables that are used in creating the cone.  The Cone of Probability is used solely for analytical purposes.  It will fluctuate with market conditions and changes to the data inputs.  Index prices can and have traded outside of the range of the cone.  The data supplied when we discuss the cone is for informational use only.  There should be no expectation that this price range will be accurate and there are no guarantees that this information is correct.

*Long ETFs related to the S&P 500 in client accounts.  

Monday, April 14, 2014

And Maybe Winter's Not Done With Us Yet!

From the Chicago Tribune this AM:  "Winter is returning for an encore this week, with up to an inch of snow this evening and lows in the 20s over the next two nights."

Things Are Getting Better {Retail Sales}


Retail sales picked up in March, beating analyst expectations. We've argued a few times over the past month that having much of the USA east of the Mississippi resemble a remnant of the last ice age was going to put a serious dent into the consumer's willingness to open their checkbooks or pull out the credit cards.  {See here and more specifically here.}  It seems that consumers didn't even wait for the snow to melt.  These numbers are for March.  This is what it still looked like in this parts mid-March:


Note some of these numbers from March: Auto Sales: +3.1% and Retail Sales: +0.7% {The best gain in over a year according to Quartz.}  

Stocks are up early this morning on the news.  A nice snapback to last week's drubbing and as good an excuse as any for a rally in an over sold market.  Clues on whether we'll get some kind of a more sustainable bounce will start to arrive on whether we get a sell later today.  That is will the professional class sell into this rally later in the day like they have for the past week or so?  

Irrespective of what the market does, this just supports my thesis that the consumer was trapped at home most of the winter.  Like the Swallows returning to San Capistrano, the American consumer is returning to the mall or wherever they go these days to buy things!

  

Friday, April 11, 2014

an tSionna (04.11.14}



I'll have more to say about market volatility next week.  For today I've identified the current near term support and resistance levels for the S&P 500's ETF SPY.  I think an important clue as to near term performance is going to come about by seeing how the markets react to the support points between 180-182 on the index.  

Our indicators are showing that we are also getting oversold enough that some sort of rally could soon take hold.  At this point it is hard to get a handle on what that rally could look like.  Again probability suggests that the resistance level we've tagged above could be a barrier to higher prices.  That's particularly true  if the next time it is tested comes soon during the context of the next rally.

More at the beginning of the week.

*Long ETFs related to the S&P 500 in client and personal accounts.  

Chart is from Stockcharts.com

Thursday, April 10, 2014

an tSionna {04.10.14}


Market has spent the winter months just churning about.  Hard to tell at this point if it's just digesting the gains from 2013's fourth quarter or if this is the prelude to something else.  I do know that the market has behaved differently January-March this year than it has at any time since 2009.  In the years 2010-13 the markets posted nice positive gains in their respective first quarters, although in each of those years but 2013, stocks gave back all or nearly all their gains at some point during the year.  I don't know how this translates for the rest of the year.  I do know we are seeing a pattern shift in how stocks have traded since the 2009 lows.

Chart comes to us from Stockcharts.com.

*Long ETFs related to the S&P 500 in client and personal accounts.  

Wednesday, April 09, 2014

First Quarter: What We Did.

I often get questions about some of the actual processes and portfolio management techniques we use when managing client portfolios, so we're going to try a few new things.   I'm going to spend some time  going forward on peeling back the onion on some of the processes we use in at Lumen Capital Management, LLC.  I'm going to start this off today with a general discussion of some of the changes we made in the first quarter of 2014.

First the ground rules:

1.  We will generally not discuss specific names of securities we bought or sold during the quarter.   Where we specifically do discuss equities or ETFs, we give a disclosure about what we own.  We don't want to ever be in a position where it looks like we are touting our positions.  If you want to know what our portfolios look like then you need to hire us.
2.  The time period we are currently discussing was the first quarter of 2014.  No guarantees that our portfolios look like this today or will by the end of the quarter.  
3.  These are generalized descriptions of changes that we've made during the quarter.  While these descriptions are in general based on actual changes we've made in accounts, individual portfolios may look different depending on the make-up of a client's portfolios.  Some of the reasons that these changes may not have been made on an individualized basis are:  client risk/reward parameters, cash positions in the portfolio, portfolio strategies in which the client is involved, tax considerations, position sizing and original composition of the portfolio.  There may be other criteria that changes weren't made but these are the main reasons.  
4.  No guarantees that any of these new purchases will turn out to be profitable and no guarantee either explicit or implied that any of the sales we made were done so at a profit unless we specifically state as such.  

Now as to what we did.

One of the principal things that we did was to rebalance portfolios during the quarter.  We have had some positions that we felt had become to big relative to our benchmarks in client accounts in 2013.  We waited until this year to make those changes because we wanted to avoid the tax consequences in 2013.  Also our proprietary money flow analysis indicated a higher probability that stocks would continue to move higher in the last few weeks of 2013.   Some of the money we raised has been allocated to cash instead of  being  redeployed back into the equity markets.  In general we went from a mid-single digit cash position in portfolios at the end of 2013 to cash positions that are currently in general between 10-15% of client accounts.  

Two sectors where we either initiated or added to positions was to securities related to real estate investment trusts and to emerging markets.  In regards to real estate we felt that their relative performance to other asset classes in 2013 and their yields made them attractive investments.  Also money flows indicated a lower risk entry level when we made these purchases.  Regarding emerging markets, I've felt going back to last summer  and since the fall that emerging markets were cheap relative to other asset sectors.  That view until recently was not shared by the rest of the investment world as these sector was one of the worst performers in 2013.  However, our view is that much of the bad news overseas has been priced into these securities and the securities we purchased for clients also have attractive yields.  Depending on the client account, some of these emerging market purchases also included exposure to individual countries that we find attractive.  Some of the purchase were new positions, some were adding to client accounts and some transactions were meant to swap securities in order to use some tax harvesting strategies.

On a valuation basis we reduced our exposure to biotechnology.  We still own positions here in some accounts but pared back given the move higher in the quarter.  Note that these positions were and are held only in accounts exposed to our most aggressive strategies.

We also used the decline and subsequent rally in February to exchange legacy ETF positions in sectors we find attractive.  I will explain.  When we began our ETF strategies back in the middle part of the past decade most ETFs beyond those exposed to major indices had an expense ratio of between .50 and .75%.  These seems expensive today but was a bargain back then compared to what mutual funds charged for the same exposure.  Since then both Vanguard and State Street have come out with sector funds where the costs are significantly lower for virtually the same equity exposure.  In some cases today we can save nearly a third of one percent by simply switching securities from one ETF family to the other.  This may seem small in relation to one security but it can really add up over time in regards to an overall portfolio where securities may be held for multiple years.  We have made these switches in new purchases over the past few years but have held off on changing legacy positions owing to issues such as taxes, where we are in the investment cycle and opportunity via money flows.  In February, when the market pulled back around 6%, we saw an opportunity to exchange one of these funds as the sector in which it traded became very oversold.  In essence we first purchased the corresponding lower cost ETF and held it till we found a more advantageous time to make a sale.    There is still the issue of taxes but the client now on a going forward basis is receiving the advantage of lower cost in the fund.  There are a few other ETFs in our portfolios that we will try to change in this manner if we get the right opportunity in 2014.

That's basically what we did.  For the most part we've been otherwise content with our different strategies portfolio' construction.  In accordance with the playbook and game plan we have an idea where we'd raise the next tranche of cash should the need arise and have identified levels where we'd be buyers of securities we find attractive  at this point but for the most part right now we are content to wait.

Monday, April 07, 2014

Somebody's Turning 21 Today!


One of our employees who runs the Butler University branch of Lumen Capital turns 21 today!

Have a wonderful day Mo Chuisle , God Bless and Happy 21st  Birthday!


Saturday, April 05, 2014

Next Week's Schedule

A combination of appointments and internal work here at the "shop" means I'm going to be busy the first part of the week.  Posting will resume here Wednesday.  I have some new things for the hopper that I'm going to start rolling out soon.  I hope you like them and find them helpful. 

Friday, April 04, 2014

And Winter Came!




Want proof that maybe just maybe winter weather has played a role on slower than expected economic growth this winter?   Then I give you Chicago.  The National Weather Service says that Chicago just booked it's coldest four month period,   EVER!  Temperature records for the December-March period go back to 1872.  We shattered the old record set in 1903-1904 by 3 tenths of a degree.  Other cities east of the Mississippi have to be in a similar boat.  Nobody did anything here for three months.  Nobody bought cars, went to the mall or looked for a house.  Now some economic activity doesn't get made up.  You don't make up going to the movies or going out to dinner.  But most demand is simply demand that's been put off.  I think that things like car sales and consumer purchases will be much higher this spring than most investors expect.  I think we'll add a few basis points on to GDP because of this as well.  I don't think this is priced into stocks.  

Not saying that stocks will go up but I do think investors simply aren't pricing this into the equation.  Time will tell.