A Survey of The Investing Horizon

24 Monday Jul 2017

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So where do we stand with the stock market? The S&P 500 trades at just under 22 times trailing operating earnings according to Bloomberg …

… and 17.5 times forward earnings estimates according to J.P. Morgan.

So by these measures, the market is overvalued compared to 25 year averages. However, when the earnings yield is compared to current interest rates, the market is — if anything — rather cheap.

Ed Yardeni calls the current conventional wisdom the “2-by-2-by-2” scenario: 2% real GDP growth, 2% inflation, and a peak Fed Funds rate of 2%.

What If We Have Much Higher Interest Rates?

But much higher interest rates could upset the apple cart. While there are many reasons for lower potential growth and inflation — such as the aging of society — what if the conventional wisdom is wrong and higher growth and inflation cause a substantial increase in interest rates?

As the above chart shows, interest rates don’t generally have a negative effect on stocks until the ten year Treasury is above 5%. While it’s not impossible for rates to go higher than 5%, I see no reason for it to happen any time soon without much higher growth and/or inflation rates. And demographics and global trade would seem to keep a lid on both.

Runaway Inflation Seems Rather Unlikely

There are a lot of smart people who seem to think a normalized 4%-5% ten year Treasury yield is a reasonable planning assumption. For instance, Morningstar has a 4-5% ten year Treasury baked into its discounted cash flow (DCF) models to come up with their fair value estimates on stocks.

There is a lot of room between the current 2.24% on the ten year Treasury and a potential 5 handle. But with gradual Fed balance sheet reduction and possible higher growth from a tax cut or infrastructure package, the 10 year Treasury could easily reach 3%-3.5% over the next year or so — maybe even 4%. But that would require the Keystone Cops in Washington to get their acts together. And don’t forget the Fed is pushing in the other direction with higher short term interest rates because their outdated Philips Curve Model suggests inflation should be on its way any day now.

While commodities prices are mixed (weak ag prices/strong industrial metals), global trade should ease pressures on inflation. The official unemployment rate looks low, but there still seems to be some slack in the labor market with the low participation rate and wage growth below par. And to the extent wage pressures exist, companies will likely invest more in automation.

Maybe A Lot More Long Term Upside?

The good folks at Bespoke show that trailing 10 and 20 year stock market returns are still pretty lousy, which hardly seems an indication of a bubble ready to be popped.

And as this chart shows, we may well have entered a new secular bull market in 2013, which could bring huge gains over the next decade plus.

Can The Fed Control Its Urge to Cause a Recession?

So even though we’ve had a great 8 year run since the bottom in March of 2009, it seems we have room to the upside if the economy continues to do well. Unless we have a big geopolitical shock or the Fed hikes us into a recession. If we get a recession, we get a bear market. This is as close to a certainty as you will find in the markets.

While it seems everyone is looking for signs of the bottom falling out of the stock market, the data shows no bubble that I can see. Well, Tesla and Nvidia look rather bubbly but M&A and the IPO market are certainly not red hot. Big Cap Tech has had a great run, but they have real earnings and cash flows, and valuations are much more reasonable than during the bubble era. This is not about metrics like eyeballs and page views like 1999-2000. There is no sock puppet bullshit this time; by and large, they are real, substantial businesses.

It seems to me there is no need for a recession unless the Fed decides it wants to cause one by raising rates too much — so they can get the dry powder to lower rates in case of a recession, which they will likely cause by raising rates…

How To Plan For An Uncertain Future

If you are worried about a bear market, you should reduce your risk while times are good. Make sure you have enough liquidity so you won’t stop buying during a bear market if you are young and in the accumulation phase. And don’t sell into a decline!

Planning for your liquidity needs is even more important if you are in or near retirement. If you are worried about a coming bear market, you should sell down to the sleeping point now, when times are good. Don’t put yourself in a position to be a forced seller into a big decline. That only makes you fail to meet your long term goals while lining the pockets of guys like Warren Buffett and Seth Klarman.

I try to stay hunkered down all the time, and I plan for my liquidity needs as if a bear market will begin tomorrow. This is more sensible than to assume you will have some magical insight nobody else has that will enable you to sidestep the worst of a bear market.

“Run of the Mill” Market Returns – Bespoke

S&P 500 Remains Reasonably Valued – Brian Gilmartin

Jeff Saut Still a Huge Secular Bull

“Success in investing doesn’t correlate with I.Q. once you’re above the level of 125. Once you have ordinary intelligence, what you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble in investing.”
— Warren Buffett

High Returns From Low Risk

16 Sunday Jul 2017

Posted by JC in Uncategorized

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Pim Van Vliet’s book High Returns from Low Risk examines the investment paradox that the lowest risk stocks (measured by volatility) outperform the highest risk stocks over the long term. This phenomenon has been established across markets and eras. The book builds on the work of Eric Falkenstein in The Missing Risk Premium and his paper on risk and return at SSRN.

According to the deans of finance, this should not be the case. For instance, the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) assumes a linear relationship between risk and reward. But of course this does not represent the real world.

“Bearing higher risk generally produces higher returns. The market has to set things up to look like that’ll be the case; if it didn’t, people wouldn’t make risky investments. But it can’t always work that way, or else risky investments wouldn’t be risky. And when risk bearing doesn’t work, it really doesn’t work, and people are reminded what risk’s all about.”
— Howard Marks

So You’re Telling Me There Is a Free Lunch?

The following diagram shows a frown whereby risk increases return up to a point, but the highest risk stocks underperform the lower risk stocks. You should take some risk, but not too much.

Valuation Still Matters

Since the low risk anomaly has been identified, several ETFs such as USMV & SPLV have been created to exploit it. In recent years, a lot of hot money has chased the strategy and driven up the prices of low volatility stocks. The observation of the phenomenon has changed it.

So returns from low risk may be somewhat muted going forward until the excitement fades and the hot money moves on to chase something else. As in any other investment strategy, valuation matters, and you should seek a margin of safety.

Low Risk Outperforms in Bear Markets, but Lags In Bull Markets

While low risk stocks tend to outperform in a bear market, it can be difficult to hang on during a bull market when you are likely to lag. The sense that everyone else is getting rich can be hard to take without capitulating. Persistence over an entire market cycle is needed to get the outperformance the low risk strategy can deliver.

“The low volatility portfolio wins by losing less during times of stress.”
— Pim Van Vliet

An Antidote to Financial Noise and Unnecessary Complexity

Pim Van Vliet’s book is a breath of fresh air. That one can ignore all of the noise and succeed with low risk stocks is a blessing for the individual investor, if he is willing to put in the work and can stand to be different from the crowd. I am perfectly happy ignoring the horserace and earning high returns with low risk.

I love to find boring, cash cow companies that it is hard to brag about owning. Sacrificing your ego for financial gain can be emotionally counterintuitive, but very lucrative. I would much rather have the cash register ring reliably than have bragging rights.

To me it is a matter of personal preference and goals. My goal is to comfortably afford the life I want to live. Pim Van Vliet shows that a low risk strategy can even outperform. I may beat the market without even really striving to do so.

A Dividend Oriented Strategy Beats Dollar Cost Averaging In Reverse in Retirement

While a low volatility strategy and a dividend oriented strategy are not precisely the same, I believe they are close cousins. A substantial benefit of the dividend growth strategy over the “living off of the pile” strategy promoted by most of the financial industry is that it is perfect for turning a portfolio into a stream of income during retirement.

This solves a major weakness in the mainstream advice to gradually sell off part of your portfolio every year in retirement. Dollar cost averaging in reverse destroys value just as dollar cost averaging in the accumulation phase creates value. A low risk, dividend growth strategy is simply much more practical in the real world for real people than trying to live off of the pile.

And the smoother ride of investing in largely defensive, low risk stocks with secure and growing dividends means that I won’t panic and sell during a downturn. The key is that I believe in it, and I know it will get me to my goals if I stick with it. That is much more than good enough for me.

“The great strategy you can’t stick with is obviously vastly inferior to the very good strategy you can stick with.”
— Cliff Asness

The Joys of Hunkering Down

Worrying is a serious offense

The Seduction of Pessimism

Why Simple Beats Complex

4 Signs of a Bubble

Mohnish Pabrai Lecture at UCI, 6-7-17 — Few Bets, Big Bets, Infrequent Bets

Is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing bad for science?

“Humility means loving the truth more than oneself.”
— Andre Comte-Sponville