Financial topics

Investments, gold, currencies, surviving after a financial meltdown
Higgenbotham
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Joined: Wed Sep 24, 2008 11:28 pm

Re: Financial topics

Post by Higgenbotham »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... 7G0OfJUON8

How about these guys? While there is some good information here, I will not go to the effort of picking it apart. Suffice it to say the just because somebody is a "professional trader" it does not mean they can beat the market.
She cites a joint paper from the Center for Applied Research and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University that found that less than 1 percent of 2,076 U.S. mutual funds tracked between 1976 and 2006 achieved superior returns after costs.
Enough said.
While the periphery breaks down rather slowly at first, the capital cities of the hegemon should collapse suddenly and violently.
John
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Joined: Sat Sep 20, 2008 12:10 pm
Location: Cambridge, MA USA
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Re: Financial topics

Post by John »

Higgenbotham wrote: > Has Schwab done a disservice to their clients? Not necessarily,
> because they may have low ratings on high fliers that will
> outperform when everything is being bid up, but will underperform
> in a bear market.

> Likewise, a stock picker who has outperformed during a bull market
> may have only done so because he picked the high fliers and his
> performance will fall apart when the market turns down.
> So I go back to Ellis. He too has been advocating that investment
> managers return to the business of providing tailored advice. He
> says it’s the one service they can consistently deliver. Managers
> who promise steady outperformance can’t make good on the
> pledge. “But what about David Swensen,” I say, trying to speak
> softly as my voice booms in a cavernous room on the second floor
> of the Yale Club in Midtown Manhattan. “How can you so staunchly
> believe that investment managers can’t outperform, when you
> watched David do it for so many years?” (Even with the losses of
> 2008, Yale’s endowment returned 13.7 percent a year over the two
> decades ended June 30, 2012.)

> Ellis is undeterred, making the case that Swensen’s skill is not
> unlike that of a Picasso or a Renoir. “He’s the most rigorous
> thinker about investments in the world,” says Ellis.
Higgenbotham wrote: > That's not enough. He hasn't invested through a severe bear market
> yet. Fortunately for a Picasso, he can toss his crappy paintings
> out and nobody ever sees them, but somebody who manages a Yale
> endowment has to gamble all the time.

As with many things, I try to explain it generationally. The sources
you've quoted point to something different today from 2007 -- the
metrics used by stock analysts to evaluate stocks used to work pretty
well, but have been failing since 2007.

Various reasons are given for this change, but all the reasons
seem to have the same core explanation -- the rise of algos.

So I have two questions:

* Suppose the same algos had existed in the 80s and 90s. Would that
have meant that stock analysts would have failed similarly?

* How did stock analysts perform in the 1930s, which is a similar
generational period, but without algos.

There's no way to get answers to these questions, but I just
don't think the rise of algos is the core reason.

The major core generational issue today -- something that stock
analysts seem completely ignorant of -- is the velocity of money:

Image

Image



https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?cate ... _id=366117

The velocity of money fell sharply from 1929-32 (stock market
crash) and 1941-46 (World War II). It's also been falling
steadily since 1997.

The falling velocity of money explains why inflation targets
have not been met, because pouring money into the economy
with QE makes no difference if the money just sits in bank
accounts without being spent.

The same reason could also explain why stock analysts are now failing.
If people are unwilling to spend money on people or employees, they're
also unwilling to spend money on stocks according to metrics that
prevailed in the 1980s and 1990s.

Nobody ever mentions the velocity of money, but I believe that it's
the major generational factor affecting the economy and the stock
market.

This should actually be obvious. Economic pundits obsess endlessly
over whether the Fed will lower interest rates by 0.25%, but a fall in
the velocity of money from 2.2 in 1997 to 1.4 today has got to have at
least as great an effect as a small change in interest rate.
Higgenbotham
Posts: 7990
Joined: Wed Sep 24, 2008 11:28 pm

Re: Financial topics

Post by Higgenbotham »

This is an example of how I made some money in the market last year.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data ... 3/doc4.xml

This is an SEC Form 4 filed by Francisco Partners in August 2017 where it is disclosed that they will sell 5 million shares of ICHR, leaving 6.6 million shares of ownership after the sale. Francisco Partners is a venture capital firm and the sale could depress the price of an otherwise healthy company. The Form 4 says sales will begin on August 8, 2017.

This is what happened to the stock price during and after the sale.

Image

This type of thing comes up practically every day. An individual who is paying attention, is a good short term trader, and can read news properly can come out a little ahead. I call it "mice and elephants". I liked this trade because I could only find one place on the internet where the sale was discussed, and it was an out of the way place (not mainstream).

The individual can have an advantage, but it's hard. It takes extreme discipline, risk control and nerves of steel.
While the periphery breaks down rather slowly at first, the capital cities of the hegemon should collapse suddenly and violently.
Higgenbotham
Posts: 7990
Joined: Wed Sep 24, 2008 11:28 pm

Re: Financial topics

Post by Higgenbotham »

John wrote: There's no way to get answers to these questions, but I just
don't think the rise of algos is the core reason.

The same reason could also explain why stock analysts are now failing.
If people are unwilling to spend money on people or employees, they're
also unwilling to spend money on stocks according to metrics that
prevailed in the 1980s and 1990s.
The observations I would make about this are:

Like you said, the public is out of the market to a greater extent. There is less "dumb money" to suck returns from.

The public that is left in the market is buying index funds to a greater extent than in the past.

The participants who are left in the market are engaging in groupthink to a greater extent, tending to all do the same thing. To a larger extent, they are buying without regard to fundamentals or valuation, so the performance of individual stocks that are classified on that basis is indistinguishable.
While the periphery breaks down rather slowly at first, the capital cities of the hegemon should collapse suddenly and violently.
Higgenbotham
Posts: 7990
Joined: Wed Sep 24, 2008 11:28 pm

Re: Financial topics

Post by Higgenbotham »

Regarding the above post on the SEC Form 4, this is by no means the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. There was another situation last year where a director of a company bought in when the stock was at 40 and it is now at 30. What made this even more alluring was the same director had last bought into the stock, in an equal amount, right at the 2016 low and rode it nearly all the way up, selling for a several fold gain. But this time, there was an unscrupulous broker (I believe) spreading fake news about the company with hedge funds in collusion.
While the periphery breaks down rather slowly at first, the capital cities of the hegemon should collapse suddenly and violently.
Higgenbotham
Posts: 7990
Joined: Wed Sep 24, 2008 11:28 pm

Re: Financial topics

Post by Higgenbotham »

Schwab currently has Domino's Pizza stock rated an F. I agree Domino's stock has been too expensive for quite some time, but up and up it goes, through thick and thin, all the way to its all time high of the past couple weeks.

Domino's is a good company, don't get me wrong; it's just that I think the stock is too expensive. One thing I don't like about the valuation is that earnings are growing about twice as fast as revenues. The earnings growth may justify the price, but the revenue growth does not, and the lagging of revenue growth behind earnings growth probably indicates the earnings growth is unsustainable at recent levels. But apparently nobody cares.
While the periphery breaks down rather slowly at first, the capital cities of the hegemon should collapse suddenly and violently.
John
Posts: 11501
Joined: Sat Sep 20, 2008 12:10 pm
Location: Cambridge, MA USA
Contact:

Re: Financial topics

Post by John »

Higgenbotham wrote: > Schwab currently has Domino's Pizza stock rated an F. I agree
> Domino's stock has been too expensive for quite some time, but up
> and up it goes, through thick and thin, all the way to its all
> time high of the past couple weeks.

> Domino's is a good company, don't get me wrong; it's just that I
> think the stock is too expensive. One thing I don't like about the
> valuation is that earnings are growing about twice as fast as
> revenues. The earnings growth may justify the price, but the
> revenue growth does not, and the lagging of revenue growth behind
> earnings growth probably indicates the earnings growth is
> unsustainable at recent levels. But apparently nobody
> cares.
Why are earnings growing twice as fast as revenue? Are they
using robots to make pizzas? Are they using cheap ingredients?
Higgenbotham
Posts: 7990
Joined: Wed Sep 24, 2008 11:28 pm

Re: Financial topics

Post by Higgenbotham »

John wrote:
Higgenbotham wrote: > Schwab currently has Domino's Pizza stock rated an F. I agree
> Domino's stock has been too expensive for quite some time, but up
> and up it goes, through thick and thin, all the way to its all
> time high of the past couple weeks.

> Domino's is a good company, don't get me wrong; it's just that I
> think the stock is too expensive. One thing I don't like about the
> valuation is that earnings are growing about twice as fast as
> revenues. The earnings growth may justify the price, but the
> revenue growth does not, and the lagging of revenue growth behind
> earnings growth probably indicates the earnings growth is
> unsustainable at recent levels. But apparently nobody
> cares.
Why are earnings growing twice as fast as revenue? Are they
using robots to make pizzas? Are they using cheap ingredients?
Supposedly their ingredients got a lot better when they revamped their recipe a few years ago based on customer feedback. Beyond that, I only remember seeing comments about the fact that their ingredient costs have decreased. My thought at the time was, in a business like this, how the heck do you continue to grow earnings at ~20% per year while revenues are growing at ~10% per year after 4 years of already having done so. That's with 2017 profit margin at 10%, which seems high to me in a business like this. What also seems high is the PE of 40.

I haven't looked at this in great detail, but I can't help but notice that here's a stock that probably should rate an F, but up and up it goes.

An illustration of just how tough it is to beat the market. Whoever bought this stock a year ago has indeed beaten the market handily.
While the periphery breaks down rather slowly at first, the capital cities of the hegemon should collapse suddenly and violently.
Higgenbotham
Posts: 7990
Joined: Wed Sep 24, 2008 11:28 pm

Re: Financial topics

Post by Higgenbotham »

Higgenbotham wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... 7G0OfJUON8

How about these guys? While there is some good information here, I will not go to the effort of picking it apart. Suffice it to say the just because somebody is a "professional trader" it does not mean they can beat the market.
She cites a joint paper from the Center for Applied Research and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University that found that less than 1 percent of 2,076 U.S. mutual funds tracked between 1976 and 2006 achieved superior returns after costs.
Enough said.
Maybe more needs to be said for those who are going to protest that mutual fund managers are way different than hedge fund managers.
Warren Buffett wrote:Now, to my bet and its history. In Berkshire’s 2005 annual report, I argued that active investment
management by professionals – in aggregate – would over a period of years underperform the returns achieved by
rank amateurs who simply sat still. I explained that the massive fees levied by a variety of “helpers” would leave
their clients – again in aggregate – worse off than if the amateurs simply invested in an unmanaged low-cost index
fund. (See pages 114 - 115 for a reprint of the argument as I originally stated it in the 2005 report.)

Subsequently, I publicly offered to wager $500,000 that no investment pro could select a set of at least
five hedge funds – wildly-popular and high-fee investing vehicles – that would over an extended period match
the performance of an unmanaged S&P-500 index fund charging only token fees. I suggested a ten-year bet and
named a low-cost Vanguard S&P fund as my contender. I then sat back and waited expectantly for a parade of
fund managers – who could include their own fund as one of the five – to come forth and defend their
occupation. After all, these managers urged others to bet billions on their abilities. Why should they fear putting
a little of their own money on the line?

What followed was the sound of silence. Though there are thousands of professional investment managers
who have amassed staggering fortunes by touting their stock-selecting prowess, only one man – Ted Seides –
stepped up to my challenge. Ted was a co-manager of Protégé Partners, an asset manager that had raised money
from limited partners to form a fund-of-funds – in other words, a fund that invests in multiple hedge funds.
I hadn’t known Ted before our wager, but I like him and admire his willingness to put his money where
his mouth was. He has been both straight-forward with me and meticulous in supplying all the data that both he
and I have needed to monitor the bet.

For Protégé Partners’ side of our ten-year bet, Ted picked five funds-of-funds whose results were to be
averaged and compared against my Vanguard S&P index fund. The five he selected had invested their money in
more than 100 hedge funds, which meant that the overall performance of the funds-of-funds would not be
distorted by the good or poor results of a single manager.

Each fund-of-funds, of course, operated with a layer of fees that sat above the fees charged by the hedge
funds in which it had invested. In this doubling-up arrangement, the larger fees were levied by the underlying
hedge funds; each of the fund-of-funds imposed an additional fee for its presumed skills in selecting hedge-fund
managers.

Here are the results for the first nine years of the bet – figures leaving no doubt that Girls Inc. of Omaha,
the charitable beneficiary I designated to get any bet winnings I earned, will be the organization eagerly opening
the mail next January.

Footnote: Under my agreement with Protégé Partners, the names of these funds-of-funds have never
been publicly disclosed. I, however, see their annual audits.

The compounded annual increase to date for the index fund is 7.1%, which is a return that could easily
prove typical for the stock market over time. That’s an important fact: A particularly weak nine years for the
market over the lifetime of this bet would have probably helped the relative performance of the hedge funds,
because many hold large “short” positions. Conversely, nine years of exceptionally high returns from stocks
would have provided a tailwind for index funds.

Instead we operated in what I would call a “neutral” environment. In it, the five funds-of-funds
delivered, through 2016, an average of only 2.2%, compounded annually. That means $1 million invested in
those funds would have gained $220,000. The index fund would meanwhile have gained $854,000.

Bear in mind that every one of the 100-plus managers of the underlying hedge funds had a huge
financial incentive to do his or her best. Moreover, the five funds-of-funds managers that Ted selected were
similarly incentivized to select the best hedge-fund managers possible because the five were entitled to
performance fees based on the results of the underlying funds.

I’m certain that in almost all cases the managers at both levels were honest and intelligent people. But
the results for their investors were dismal – really dismal.
http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2016ltr.pdf
While the periphery breaks down rather slowly at first, the capital cities of the hegemon should collapse suddenly and violently.
Higgenbotham
Posts: 7990
Joined: Wed Sep 24, 2008 11:28 pm

Re: Financial topics

Post by Higgenbotham »

What Buffett omits there is the hedge funds didn't even beat the stock index before fees.
While the periphery breaks down rather slowly at first, the capital cities of the hegemon should collapse suddenly and violently.
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