Category: Portfolio Management

Seven Notes on Equity Investing

Seven Notes on Equity Investing

1) A lament for Bill Miller.? Owning Bear Stearns on top of it all is adding insult to injury.? Now, living in Baltimore, I get little bits of gossip, but I won’t go there this evening.? I think Bill Miller’s problems boil down to lack of focus on a margin of safety, which is the main key to being a good value manager.? During the boom periods, he could ignore that and get away with it, but when we are in a bust phase, particularly one that hurts financials.? When financials get hit, all forms of accounting laxity tend to get hit, making the margin of safety more precious.

2) Now perhaps one bright spot here is rising short interest. Short interest is a negative while it is going up, but a positive once it has risen to unsustainable levels.? What is unsustainable is difficult to define, but remember Ben Graham’s dictum, that the market is a voting machine in the short run, and a weighing machine in the long run.? The value of stocks in the long run will reflect the net present value of their free cash flows, not short interest or leverage.

3)? Now, if you want the opposite of Bill Miller in the value space, consider Bob Rodriguez of FPA Capital.? Along with a cadre of other misfit value managers that are willing to invest in unusual long-only portfolios aiming for absolute returns while not falling victim to the long/short hedge fund illusion, he happily soldiers on with a boatload of cash, waiting for attractive opportunities to deploy cash.

4) Retirement.? What a concept amid falling housing and equity prices.? Though we have difficulties at present from the housing overhang, and the unwind of financial leverage, there will be continuing difficulties over the next two decades as assets must be liquidated and taxes raised to support the promises of Medicare, and to a lesser extent, Social Security.? My guess: Medicare gets massively scaled back.

5) I get criticism from both bulls and bears.? I try to be unbiased in my observations, because amid the difficulties, which I have have been writing about for years, there is the possibility that it gets worked out.? When there are problems, major economic actors are not passive; they look for solutions.? That doesn’t mean that they always succeed, but they often do, so it rarely pays to be too bearish.? It also rarely pays to be too bullish, but given the Triumph of the Optimists, that is a harder case to make.

6) Bill Rempel took me to task about a post of mine, and I have a small defense there, and perhaps a larger point.? Almost none of my close friends invest in the market. It doesn’t matter whether we are in boom or bust periods, they just don’t.? These people are by nature highly conservative, and/or, they are not well enough off to be considering investments in equities.? They are not relevant to a post on investing contrarianism, because they are outside the scope of most equity investing.? They are relevant to a discussion of the real economy, and where your wage income might be impacted.

7) To close for the night, then, a note on contrarianism.? When I read journalists, they are typically (but not always) lagging indicators, because they aren’t focused on the topics at hand. They get to the problems late.? But when I think of contrarianism, I don’t look for opinions as much as financial reliance on an idea.? Many opinions are irrelevant, because they don’t reflect positions that have been taken in the markets, the success of which is now being relied upon.? Once there is money on the line, euphoria and regret can do their work in shaping the attitudes of investors, allowing for contrary opinions to be successful against fully invested conventional wisdom.? But without fully invested conventional wisdom, contrarianism has little to fight.

Book Review: 7 Commandments of Stock Investing

Book Review: 7 Commandments of Stock Investing

For those that read my book reviews, let me simply say that unless I say that I skimmed a book, I read every book that I review, and I don’t use the publishers notes to aid me, as many other reviewers do. I just give you my opinion straight, even if I didn’t like it, realizing that there will be no commissions at my Amazon Store from that review. And that is fine with me. I review new and old books — I just want to point my readers to what I think is good, and away from the bad stuff.

I would also add that my Amazon Store is my equivalent of the tip jar. If you value my writing, when you need to buy a book from Amazon, simply start by clicking on a book on my leftbar, and buy the books that you would buy anyway. It doesn’t increase your costs at all, and I get a small commission.

Anyway, onto tonight’s book review. I am genuinely not sure what to conclude on “7 Commandments of Stock Investing.”? There was much that I liked, and much I did not.? I know that Mr. Marcial wrote a column for Business Week for many years, but that was not something I followed closely.? This is my first real introduction to his thought.

Let me take his seven principles, and go in order:

Buy Panic –? Hey, I can go for that.? The difficulty for average investors, and even many seasoned investors is that they buy too soon in a panic.? One also has to focus on companies that are high credit quality in order to avoid big losses.? That got some attention in the book, but not enough for me.

Concentrate, Diversify Not — Ugh, I like having 35 companies in my portfolio, because I concentrate industries.? To the extent that you concentrate, you must have superior knowledge of the companies that you own.? Without that knowledge, the average investor should diversify more, and investors with no special knowledge should buy index funds.

Buy the Losers –? Again, I can go for this, but it takes a special person to separate out the companies that will crater from the companies that have a sustainable business model and will bounce.? Buying quality companies is a must here, or else you can lose a lot.

Forget Timing — I agree.? I keep roughly the same equity exposure all the time, and my rebalancing discipline helps protect me as well.

Follow the Insider –? That’s a good principle, but I’m not sure that it should rank so highly in a set of stock picking rules. Insiders do do better than the market as a whole, but using insider purchase and sale data takes discretion to interpret.

Don’t Fear the Unknown –? By this he means have some foreign equity exposure and biotechnology investments.? One of my rules is, “If you can’t understand it, you won’t know how to buy and sell it.”? Getting comfortable with any area of the market that is volatile takes study and effort.? This is not trivial.? As for biotech in particular, that takes a lot of incremental skill that I don’t have.? After reading what Mr. Marcial wrote, I would not feel confident investing there.

Always Invest for the Long Term: Seven Stocks for the Next Seven Years — He employs a multi-year holding period, like I do, and then points out seven stocks that he thinks will do well.? I’m not going to spoil that part of the book by mentioning any of the seven, but none of them interest me.? (Well, maybe one or two at the right level.)? All of them are large caps, and are quality companies.

Quibbles

Under his first principle, he recommends buying the stock of the company that you work for when it gets hammered down (page 8).? Unless you are an industry expert here, be careful… you are compounding your risks, because your wage income derives from the health of the firm.? Don’t put your savings there too, unless you are dead certain.? (Full confession: I put one-third of my net worth on the line on my employer, The St. Paul, in March of 2000, selling in August of 2000.? Great trade, but no one else knew in the firm did it.)

On page 62, calling Primerica the predecessor firm to Citigroup is a bit of a stretch.? Yes, I know how the case could be made, but there were links in the chain where the smaller company was acquired by a larger one, and the smaller company came to dominate the management of the combined firm.

Under his third principle, he favored GM and Ford.? I can’t support buying such credit quality impaired investments under the rubric of “Buy the Losers.”? These are two companies that will have a hard time surviving in their present forms.? Motorola would be another example… a pity there is such a lag between writing and publication.

Summary

The book is intelligently written, and is short enough for an average person to read in 4 hours (188? pages).? He gives plenty of examples to illustrate his points.? I wasn’t usually enthused by the companies that he chose — I prefer to go further off the beaten path, and buy them cheaper.

His basic principles are good principals to follow, but they need to be tempered by a focus on risk control.? It’s one thing to serve up investment ideas as a writer — you can throw out a lot of promising ideas, and do it well.? What is tough is owning the companies, and trading through their troubles.? That’s a dirtier business; one where average investors will be more prone to fear and greed, and may not do so well, just because they can’t stomach the risks.

He also does not make clear how the seven principles work together. Need you follow all seven on every investment?? I think that’s what he is saying.

Away from that, you can’t use his principles on low quality stocks; that would be a recipe for regular large losses.? Buying panic, buying weakness, and concentrating requires a high quality approach to investing.

With that, I recommend the book to those that have enough maturity to know that they will have to bring their own risk control models to the game.? His methods presuppose a degree of ability in interpreting the fundamentals of companies, so I do not recommend this book to beginners; it would be a dangerous way to start out in investing.? Better to start with Ben Graham.

Full disclosure: If you buy this book, or any other book through the links on this page, then I get a small commission.

Investment Banks Are Priced Like Bermuda Reinsuers

Investment Banks Are Priced Like Bermuda Reinsuers

Late in the day, I looked at a table of valuations of the remaining major investment banks, and thought, “Huh, they’re priced like Bermuda Reinsurers.? Price-to-book near 1 or lower, and expected P/Es in the middle single digits.”? Well, that got me thinking… how are those two groups of companies alike?

  • ?When losses come they can be severe.
  • Both have strong underwriting cycles where a lot of money is made in the boom phase, and a lot gets lost in the bear phase.
  • Earnings quality can be poor, unless management teams have a bias against meeting Street expectations, and allowing earnings to be ragged.
  • The opacity of the investment banks’ swap books is matched by that of the reinsurers’ reserving.
  • Both businesses are highly competitive, and global in scope.

Now, what’s different?

  • The reinsurers typically don’t have asset problems, only reserving problems.
  • The Bermuda reinsurers know that one day a change in their tax status may come (somehow forced to pay US tax rates — ask Bill Berkley), and that would lower earnings.
  • The financial leverage of the reinsurers is a lot lower.
  • The financing of reinsurers is a lot more secure.

The risk-reward seems balanced to me across the two groups.? The reinsurers are lower-risk/lower-reward, and the investment banks are higher on both scores.? Choose in accordance with your risk tolerance — as for me, I’ll look at the reinsurers.

National Atlantic Notes

National Atlantic Notes

Given the furor of the day, I thought I might have to abandon the National Atlantic Teleconference call.? I didn’t miss the call.? The transcript is here (thanks, Seeking Alpha).? Let me quote my portion of the call.

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Operator

Thank you, sir. Today?s question-and-answer session will be conducted electronically. (Operator Instructions). We?ll go first to David Merkel of Finacorp Securities.

David MerkelFinacorp Securities

Hi, Hello.

James V. Gorman

Good morning, David.

David MerkelFinacorp Securities

Very good. I wanted to ask a little bit about the, you had a number of parties go over your reserves, three and all I believe and how, I would assume at this point you are rather certain that you have been able to clean up most of reserving problems particularly given what was happening in your claim department prior to, I guess September 2007? Can you walk us through that one more time?

James V. Gorman

Yes, we have taken a very hard look at the claim review process, within the claim department. We have modified the procedures, we have updated our diaries. And when you go through a change like this, your historical information and your typical loss development patterns are no longer appropriate to use.

David MerkelFinacorp Securities

Right.

James V. Gorman

In estimating alternates. So, we had to rely heavily on projecting the open, ultimate number of claims that will be paid and the severity associated with those clients. And I think our review that was done as well as that done by our external auditors have focused on looking at average claim cost as opposed to looking at normal loss development methods.

We continue to look very closely, as part of our quality control process to make sure that the adjusters are in fact keeping claims up to date that we are managing them affectively and that we are in fact putting in place an aggressive settlement policy to move these claims off of our balance sheet. So, we are cautiously optimistic that we have our arms around, our ultimate liabilities. But, obviously there is no guarantee but we have scrubbed this thing it from many different angles.

David MerkelFinacorp Securities

Great, well that?s good. The re-insurance recoverable change, it was $3.1 million or something like that? What was that about?

James V. Gorman

While we project our direct loses, we also project how much is going to commend in ceded loses and you know based upon our current retention as a company we?ve retained the first 500,000 of loss the emergence of ceded losses is very slow to develop.

David MerkelFinacorp Securities

Right.

James V. Gorman

And we have looked more carefully at our projected reinsurance recoverables and determined that we are not going to be in a position to collect as much as we had previously thought. This is not connected at all to any reinsurance recoverable on paid clients.

David MerkelFinacorp Securities

Yes got it.

James V. Gorman

This is based on projected losses.

David MerkelFinacorp Securities

Okay. Last question, do you have side of your balance sheet, you know, there is a decent amount of turmoil out there now, with respect to various types of AAA structured product and I know you didn?t do that much with subprime or anything like that. But, what are you experiencing if anything on the asset side of your portfolio at present, I assume that it?s just ordinary payments of cash flows from your mortgage bonds and other assets, because you have a fairly high quality portfolio we use the way the rating agencies rate them. Are you experiencing any difficulties there at all?

James V. Gorman

Well, I?ll start that answering your question David and then I?ll turn it to Frank, but from the investments, I would like to just further assure our investors that we have absolutely no subprime exposure. In addition, any bond that we have is A or better on its own merits without the effective any MBIA or AM backed insurance less to the rating, further we have no equities in our portfolio. So, on the investment side, I think that we are pretty planned and pretty solid and we had a great yield in ?07 given all of the decrease in interest, average interest rates. Frank can you add anything to that on the balance sheet.

Frank Prudente

I think you well covered it I may I think we felt for a long time, we have a conservative portfolio and with a disruption we?ve seen in the market it?s evident it?s conservatism by us not having any issues.

David MerkelFinacorp Securities

Well, thank you gentlemen. I appreciate it and I will be looking forward to any releases that describe the logic for the $6.25 purchase price. So, I thank you both.

James V. Gorman

Thank you, David.

David MerkelFinacorp Securities

Take care.

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Okay, why did I ask those questions?? Why not bluster about the huge discount to book that they are selling the company at?

Rather than do it that way, I asked about the two least certain items on their balance sheet — their loss reserves, and the value of their assets.? If they express confidence in those two numbers, then it will be hard to back away from an adjusted book value north of $10.? Why does this have value?? Well, there are many other investors bigger than me in the company, and this gives them a reason to vote down the deal.? NAHC has no debt; there is no solvency crisis here, so a large discount to book is not warranted.? With a short-tail P&C company you could hire a specialist to inexpensively run the book off, and after a year or so, sell of the tail of the company.? We would definitely realize a price north of $6.25.

But what if the deal goes through?? In that case, I might not tender my shares, but file for appraisal rights.? I would show the judge the management’s answers to my questions, demonstrating the confidence that they had in the asset values and reserving, immediately after the deal announcement.? It is rare that the judges allow deals to go out at less than tangible book value, particularly on short-tailed P&C companies with little insolvency risk.

So, that’s why I asked those questions.? Now to see what happens.

Full disclosure: long NAHC

$6.25?!

$6.25?!

I will have a fuller post after I talk with Jim Gorman, CEO of National Atlantic.? If he thinks his company, which he owns around 13% of is only worth $6.25/share, that is a real surprise to me, and inconsistent with all of the other discussions that I have had with him over the last four years.? A few of you have asked me about appraisal rights.? Really, we should talk about this later if the deal gets approved; it’s too early to speculate there.? For those that remember my early posts at RealMoney on the Mony Group acquisition, remember that book value is sometimes illusory.? I don’t think that is the case here, but let me talk with Jim Gorman, and listen to the earnings call on Monday.? If they deliver another bomb, like last quarter, maybe $6.25 is generous.

Full disclosure: long NAHC

One Dozen Notes on Our Crazy Credit Markets

One Dozen Notes on Our Crazy Credit Markets

1) I typically don’t comment on whether we are in a recession or not, because I don’t think that it is relevant. I would rather look at industry performance separate from the performance of the US economy, because the world is more integrated than it used to be. Energy, Basic Materials, and Industrials are hot. Financials are in trouble, excluding life and P&C insurers. Retail and Consumer Discretionary are soft. What is levered to US demand is not doing so well, but what is demanded globally is doing well. Much of the developed world has over-leverage problems. Isn’t that a richer view than trying to analyze whether the US will have two consecutive quarters of negative real GDP growth?

2) So Moody’s is moving Munis to the same scale as corporates? Well, good, but don’t expect yields to change much. The muni market is dominated by buyers that knew that the muni ratings were overly tough, and they priced for it accordingly. The same is true of the structured product markets, where the ratings were too liberal… sophisticated investors knew about the liberality, which is why spreads were wider there than for corporates.

3) Back to the voting machine versus the weighing machine a la Ben Graham. It is much easier to short credit via CDS, than to borrow bonds and sell them. There is a cost, though. The CDS often trade at considerably wider spreads than the cash bonds. It’s not as if the cash bond owners are dumb; they are probably a better reflection of the true expectation of default losses, because they cannot be traded as easily. Once the notional amount of CDS trading versus cash bonds gets up to a certain multiple, the technicals of the CDS trading decouple from the underlying economics of the bond, whether the bond stays current or defaults. In a default, often the need to buy a bond to deliver pushes the price of a defaulted bond above its intrinsic value. Since so many purchased insurance versus the true need for insurance, this is no surprise.. it’s not much different than overcapacity in the insurance industry.

4) If you want a quick summary of the troubles in the residential mortgage market, look no further than the The Lehman Brothers Short Swaption Volatility Index. The panic level for short term options on swaps is above where it was for LTCM, and the credit troubles of 2002. What a take-off in seven months, huh?

LBSOX

5) Found a bunch of neat charts on the mortgage mess over at the WSJ website.

6) I have always disliked the concept of core inflation. Now that food and fuel are the main drivers of inflation, can we quietly bury the concept? As I have pointed out before, it doesn’t do well at predicting the unadjusted CPI. Oh, and here’s a fresh post from Naked Capitalism on the topic of understating inflation. Makes my article at RealMoney on understating inflation look positively tame.

7) The rating agencies play games, but so do the companies that are rated. MBIA doesn’t want to be downgraded by Fitch, so they ask that their rating be withdrawn. Well, tough. Fitch won’t give up that easily. Personally, I like it when the rating agencies fight back.

8 ) Jim Cramer asks if Bank of America will abandon Countrywide, and concludes that they will abandon the bid. Personally, I think it would be wise to abandon the bid, but large companies like Bank of America sometimes don’t move rapidly enough. At this point, it would be cheaper to buy another smaller mortgage company, and then grow it rapidly when the housing market bounces back in 2010.

9) Writing for RealMoney 2004-2006, I wasted a certain amount of space talking about home equity loans, and how they would be another big problem for the banking system. Well, we are there now. No surprise; shouldn’t we have expected second liens to have come under stress, when first liens are so stressed?

10) In crises, hedge funds and mortgage REITs financed by short-term repo financing are unstable. No surprise that we are seeing an uptick in failures.

11) As I have stated before, I am not surprised that there is more talk of abandoning currency pegs to the US dollar. That said, it is a getting dragged kicking and screaming type of phenomenon. Countries get used to pegs, because it makes life easy for policymakers. But when inflation or deflation gets to be odious, eventually they make the move. Much of the world pegged to the US dollar is importing our inflationary monetary policy.

12) Finally, something that leaves me a little sad, people using their 401(k)s to stay current on their mortgages. You can see that they love their homes, as they are giving up an asset that is protected in bankruptcy, to fund an asset that is not protected (in most states). Personally, I would give up the home, and go rent, and save my pension money, but to each his own here.

Can You Carry The Position?

Can You Carry The Position?

My post yesterday on corporate bond spreads was received well.? I want to amplify one point that I did not make strongly enough.? During market crises, asset values cheapen not only in response to likely losses over the long run, but the possibility that there might be forced sellers due to:

  • Reduction of leverage because of asset values declining
  • Reduction of leverage because of brokers lending money get skittish
  • Reduction of leverage because of rating agency downgrades
  • Reduction of leverage because of client withdrawals
  • Reduction of leverage because of an increased need for capital from the regulators
  • Arbitrage from falling prices in related markets

This can temporarily self-reinforce falling asset prices, until unlevered (or lightly levered) buyers find the returns from the assets to be compelling.? Though my piece yesterday was more fun to write, this makes the argument plain.? Can you carry the asset through hard times?? What about the rest of the asset holders?

The concept of weak hands versus strong hands is a very real issue, and for those with a subscription to RealMoney, I recommend these four classic (Labor of love) articles of mine:

Managing Liability Affects Stocks, Pt. 1
Separating Weak Holders From the Strong
Get to Know the Holders? Hands, Part 1
Get to Know the Holders? Hands, Part 2

These articles are core to my thinking, and I spent a lot of time on them.

What Should the Spread on a Corporate Bond Be?

What Should the Spread on a Corporate Bond Be?

Suppose we had seven guys in the room, an economist, a guy from a ratings agency, an actuary, a guy who does capital structure arbitrage, a derivatives trader, A CDO manager, and a guy who does nonlinear dynamic modeling, and we asked them what the spread on a corporate bond should be.

  • The economist might say whatever spread it trades at at any given moment is the right spread; no one can foretell the future.
  • The guy from the ratings agency would scratch his head, tell you spreads aren’t his job, but then volunteers that spreads are correlated with bond credit ratings on average.
  • The actuary might say that you estimate the default loss rate over the life of the bond, and the required incremental yield that the marginal holder of the bond needs to fund the incremental capital employed. Add those two spreads together, and that is what the spread should be.
  • The capital structure arb would say that he would view the bondholders as short a put from the equityholders, estimate the value of that option using the stock price, equity option implied volatility, and capital structure, and would back into the spread using that data. Higher implied volatility, higher leverage, and lower stock prices lead to higher spreads.
  • The derivatives trader would say, “Look, I sit next to the cash trader. After adjusting for a deliverability option, if cash is sufficiently cheap to to the credit default swap spread, we buy the bond and receive protection through CDS. Vice-versa if the cash bond is sufficiently rich. In general, the bond spread should be near the CDS spread.”
  • The CDO manager would say that it depends on the amount of leverage he and his competitors can employ in buying bonds for his deals, and how dearly he can sell his equity and subordinate tranches.
  • The guy into nonlinear dynamics says, “This is not a good question. There are multiple players in the market with differing goals, funding structures, and regulatory constraints. All of my friends here have the right answer under certain conditions… but at any given point in the market, each has differing levels of influence.”

After we tell the guy into nonlinear dynamics that he didn’t answer the question, he says, “Fine. Look at the high yield market today. Why were spreads so low nine months ago, and so high now? Did likely default costs have something to do with it? Yes, a sophisticated actuarial model would have looked at the quality of originations and seasoning, and would conclude that default costs would rise. But spreads have moved out far more than that. Have costs of holding high yield debt risen? Capital charges have risen as more downgrades have happened, and as anticipated. That’s still not enough. The loss of the bid for high yield bonds from CDOs is significant, but that is still not enough. As the credit cycle turns down, who is willing to make a bid? Who has the spare capital, and the guts to say, ‘This is the right time.’ Even if it will turn out all right in the end (the actuarial argument), I could lose my job, or get a lower bonus if I don’t time my purchases right. Hey, Actuary, do you want to increase your allocation to high yield at these levels?”

Actuary: “The ratings agencies have told us we only have limited room to do that. Besides, our CIO is a ‘fraidy cat; he wants his bonus in 2008. But in theory it would make sense to do so; we have a long liability structure. We should do it, but there are institutional constraints that fight the correct long-term decision.”

Nonlinear Dynamics Guy: “Okay, then, who does want to take more credit risk here?”

Derivatives Trader: “We are always net flat.”

CDO manager: “Can’t kick a deal out the door.”

Capital Structure Arb: “We’re doing a little more here, but our credit lines aren’t big. Some friends of mine that run credit hedge funds are finding that they can’t lever up as much during the crisis.”

The economist and the guy from the rating agency give blank stares. The Nonlinear Dynamics Guy says, “Look, high yield buyers took too much risk in the past, and now their ability to buy is impaired by increasing capital charges, and unwillingness to resist momentum. Now levered buyers of high yield credit have been killed, and there is excess supply at current levels. Rationality will return when unlevered and lightly levered buyers, or buyers with long liability structures (looks at the actuary) hold their nose, and step up and buy with real money, not short term debt.”

The actuary nods, and makes a mental note to discuss the idea with the CIO of the life insurance company. The economist and ratings agency guy both shrug. The CDO manager asks how long it will be before he can do his next deal. No one answers. The derivatives trader says “Whatever, I make my money in all markets” and the capital structure arb smiles and nods.

Nonlinear Dynamics Guy [NDG] says to the latter two, “Good for you. But what if your financing gets pulled? Many places are finding they can’t borrow as easily as they used to.” The two of them blink, grimace, and say “Our lines won’t get pulled.” Nonlinear Dynamics Guy says, “Have it your way. I hope you all do well.” At that the actuary smiles, and asks if NDG would be willing to speak at the next Society of Actuaries meeting. NDG hands him his card, and says, “Let’s talk about it later. Who knows, by the time of your meeting, things could be very different.”

My Disclaimer is Part of my Philosophy

My Disclaimer is Part of my Philosophy

Disclaimer: David Merkel is an investment professional, and like every investment professional, he makes mistakes. David encourages you to do your own independent “due diligence” on any idea that he talks about, because he could be wrong. Nothing written here, or in my writings at RealMoney is an invitation to buy or sell any particular security; at most, David is handing out educated guesses as to what the markets may do. David is fond of saying, “The markets always find a new way to make a fool out of you,” and so he encourages caution in investing. Risk control wins the game in the long run, not bold moves.

Additionally, David may occasionally write about accounting, actuarial, insurance, and tax topics, but nothing written here or on RealMoney is meant to be formal “advice” in those areas. Consult a reputable professional in those areas to get personal, tailored advice that meets the specialized needs that David can have no knowledge of.

My disclaimer dates back five years.? It’s at the bottom of my blog, and is there for a reason: I get things wrong.? Now, I like to think that I get things right more often, but let’s just look at the gritty downside for a moment.? I wrote a series of articles at RealMoney on using investment advice.

Using Investment Advice, Part 1
Using Investment Advice, Part 2
Using Investment Advice, Part 3
Tread Warily on Media Stock Tips

I wrote these with Jim Cramer in mind.? Now, I like Jim Cramer; he says a lot of bright things.? But when you talk about so many things, and put out so much content, particularly on TV, you have to be careful.

I don’t have 0.1% of the exposure that Mr. Cramer has, but I care what happens to my readers.? (I think Jim does too, but the shell has to get hard when one is that exposed, or, you’ll give up speaking and writing.)? So, when I make notable errors, it hurts me double.? I usually have my cash on the line when I write, or at least, my reputation, which is more valuable (you only get one of those).

Today was my worst relative performance day in a long time.? Deerfield Capital, National Atlantic, and Gehl, all did badly.? I bought more Deerfield today, and I’ll put out a post on my thoughts soon.? That said, March is off to a bad start with me, after a tremendous first two months of the year.

So, I am eating my crow, lightly seasoned, and with humility.?? Always do your own due diligence when you read me, because I get it wrong now and then, at least in the short run.

Full disclosure: long DFR NAHC GEHL

Ten Items — Saturday Evening Hodgepodge

Ten Items — Saturday Evening Hodgepodge

There are times where I feel the intellectual well is dry, and I come to my keyboard and say, “What do I write tonight?” This is not one of those times. I have too many things to write about, and not enough time. I’ll see how much I can say that is worth reading.

1) Jimmy Rogers (I?ve met him once ? a nice guy) tends toward the sensational. There is a grain of truth in what he says, but the demographic situation in China is worse than that in Japan, which is why they Communist leadership there is considering eliminating the one-child policy:

I gave a talk last October, which included a lot on the effects of demographics on the global economy:

http://alephblog.com/society-of-actuaries-presentation/ (pages 15-23) (non-PDF versions have my lecture notes)

Now, eliminating the one-child policy won?t do that much, because most non-religious women in China don?t want to have kids. In developed societies, once women don?t want children or marriage, no level of economic incentive succeeds in changing their minds.

This isn?t meant to be social commentary. The point is that there is a global demographic shift of massive proportions happening where there will be huge social pressures on retirement/eldercare systems, because the ratio of workers to retirees will fall globally. China will be affected more than most, and the US less than most (if we can straighten out Medicare).

The economic effect will feel a little stagflationary, with wage rates improving in nominal terms, taxes rising to cover transfer payments, and assets being sold (to whom?) to fund retirements and healthcare. There need not be a crisis, like a war over resources, in all of this, but it won?t be an easy next 30 years. One thing for certain, when you look at labor, capital, and resources at present, the scarcest of all is resources. Again, resource price inflation. At present, capital is scarcer than labor, but that will flip in the next 30 years.

2) A few e-mailers asked for more data on how I view monetary aggregates. On monetary aggregates, my view of it is a little different than most, and I take a little heat for it. Ideally, the lower level monetary aggregates indicate a higher degree of liquidity; greater ease and shorter time of achieving transactions. The other way to view it is how sticky the liability structure is for the banks. Demand deposits, not sticky. Savings accounts, stickier. Money market funds, stickier still. CDs, even stickier.

As the Fed changes monetary policy, there are tradeoffs. Willingness of the public to hold cash, versus opportunity at the banks to make money from borrowing short and lending longer, versus banking regulators trying to assure solvency.

That’s why I look at the full spectrum of monetary measures. They tell a greater story as a group.

3) No such thing as a bad asset, only a bad price? No such thing as a bad asset, only a mis-financed asset? Both can be true. What we are experiencing today in many markets is that many assets were financed with too much debt and too little equity. In the process, because of the over-leverage allowed for high returns on equity to be generated from low returns on assets, the buyers of risky assets overpaid for their interests.

This has taken many forms, whether it was Subprime ABS, CDOs, SIVs, Tender Option Bonds, the correlation trade, etc. Also the borrow short, lend long inherent in Auction Rate Securities, TOBs, and other speculations that make wondeful sense occasionally, but players stay too long.

Rationality comes back to these markets when “real money buyers” appear (pension plans, insurance companies, wealthy dudes with nose for value), and these non-traditional buyers soak up the excess supply of investments that are out of favor, and do it with equity, at prices that make the unlevered return look pretty sweet. This is how excess leverage gets purged from the system, and how pricing normalizes, with losses delivered to the overlevered.

4) As I said in my post last night, there is value in the tax-free muni market for non-traditional buyers. Is this the bottom? Probably not, but who can tell? Smart buyers will put a portion of a full position on now, and add if things get worse. Don’t put a full position on yet. I eschew heroism in trading, in favor of a risk-controlled style, where one makes more on average, but protects the downside. It is possible that the drop in prices will bring out more sellers, but I think that there will be more buyers in the next week. That said, the leveraged buyers need to get purged out of the muni markets.

5) In late 2004, I wrote a piece called Default Cycle Will Turn Nasty in 2007. Later I added the following comment:


David Merkel
A Low Quality Post by David
3/27/2006 3:54 PM EST

Interesting to note on Barry’s blog that he has noted that the “low quality” trade has been so stunning over the past three years. I thought Richard Bernstein at Merrill and I were the only ones who cared about this stuff. But now for the bad news: the trade won’t be over until high yield spreads start blowing out, and presently, they show no sign of doing that. Why? There haven’t been many defaults, for one reason. The few defaults have been for the most part in auto parts and airlines. There’s no systemic panic.

Beyond that, there’s a lot of capital to finance speculative ventures, and to catch bad ones when they fall. That means that marginal ideas are getting forgiveness as they get refinanced.

The demand for yield is huge, which drives the offering of protection in the credit default swap market. Fund of funds encourage hedge funds to seek steady income, which makes them tend to be insurers against default risk, rather than speculators on possible default.

I know that I wrote “Default Cycle Will Turn Nasty in 2007;” I take my calls seriously, because I have money on the line, and many of you do too. I think the low quality trade, absent a market blow-up, won’t outperform by a lot in 2006, but will still outperform. Something needs to happen to make credit spreads not look like a free lunch.

My best guess of what will do that is the seasoning of aggressive corporate bond issuance in 2004 and 2005. Bad credit be revealed for what it is, and even the stocks of low quality companies that eventually survive will get marked down for a time, as strong balance sheets get rewarded once again.

Position: none

Then later, in early 2007, I wrote: I was wrong on underperformance of junk bonds. Tight levels got even tighter, with an absence of significant defaults. Junk bonds led the bond market in 2006. In 2007, I don’t expect a repeat, but I do expect defaults to start rising by the end of 2007, leading to a widening in spreads and some underperformance of junk bonds. The real fun will come in 2008-2009. Corporate credit cycles last four to seven years, and the last bear phase was 2000-2002. We’re due for a correction here.

Well, I got it close to right. Timing is tough.

6) Would you pay a high enough price to buy a short-dated TIPS with a negative real yield? Yes you might, if you were hedging against nominal Treasuries, with the CPI running ahead at 4%, and short-dated (5 years and in) nominal bonds at 2 1/2% and lower. As it is, the market seems to be hesitating at going negative, but in my opinion it will, until the concern of the FOMC changes to price inflation.

7) Wilbur Ross didn’t get rich by being dumb. He didn’t buy stakes in MBIA or Ambac, but in one of the two healthy firms, Assured Guaranty. Better to take a stake in the healthy firm in a tough market; they will survive, and write the business that their impaired competitors can’t. This just puts more pressure on MBIA and Ambac, and provides a lower cost muni insurance competitor to Berky.

8 ) MBIA and Ambac are playing for time, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. They are willing to shrink their balance sheets, and write little if any structured business, pay principal and interest in dribs and drabs, and pray that S&P and Moody’s give them the time to do this, and keep the AAA/Aaa intact. It could be three years, and stronger players (FSA, BHAC, AGO) will absorb their non-structured markets. But it could work. If I were Bill Ackman, I would take off half my positions here. Just a rule of thumb for me, when I am managing institutional assets and I become uncertain as to whether I should buy or sell, I do half, and then wait for more data.

Remember, many P&C insurers have been technically insolvent (in hindsight) during the bear phase of the underwriting cycle. They survived by writing better business when their balance sheet was in worse shape than commonly believed. The financial guarantors have a unique ability to wait out losses.

9) There have been all sorts of articles asking whether XXX institution is “too big to fail?” Well, let me “flip it” (sending my pal Cody a nickel for his trademark 😉 ) and ask, “Is the US too big to fail?” There’s a reason for my madness here. “Too big to fail” means that the government will bail out an entity to avoid a systemic crisis. Nice, maybe, but that means the government raises taxes to do so (nah) or issues debt that the Fed monetizes, leading to price inflation. Either way, the loss gets spread over the whole country.

What would a failure of the US look like? The Great Depression springs to mind. Present day Japan does not. They are not growing, but they aren’t in bad shape. Another failure would be an era like the 1970s, but more intense. That’s not impossible, if the Treasury Fed were to rescue a major GSE via monetary policy.

10) I have had an excellent 4Q07 earnings season. As of the end of February, I am still in the plus column for my equity portfolio. But, into every life a little rain must fall… after the close on Friday. 🙁 Deerfield Capital reported lousy GAAP earnings, and I expect the price to fall on Monday. Now, to their credit:

  • They reduced leverage proactively, and sold Alt-A assets before Thornburg blew.
  • They moved to a more conservative balance sheet. It is usually a good sign when a company sells its bad assets in a crisis.

I would expect the dividend to fall to around 30 cents per quarter. I should have more to say after the earnings call. They are becoming a little Annaly with a CDO manager on board (might not be worth much until 2010).

I may be a buyer on Monday. Depends on the market action.

That’s all for this evening. Good night, and here’s to a more profitable week next week.

Full disclosure: long DFR

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