Reflections of a Relic Investor

I used to think I was a fairly knowledgeable individual investor, watching measures such as the money supply (no one even refers to that anymore), interest rates, and comparing those to the earnings yield on stocks (the reciprocal of the Price/Earnings ratio) to partially determine asset allocation.  Alternatively there was also the tried-and-true asset allocation approach, maintaining a fixed relationship between a percentage of bonds vs. stocks in a portfolio.  March 2009 presented an incredible buying opportunity with the S&P reaching its nadir of some 676 (vs. 1,800 plus today).  If you rebalanced every year thereafter, you would have missed out on some equity appreciation, but, nonetheless, participated in the rise of the S&P with less risk. Buying long term bonds today for balancing now implies taking on more risk because of the artificially low interest rates.  The asset classes would be highly correlated in a period of rising interest rates and declining equity values.  

During that same period, the earnings yield on stocks vs. bonds became more and more divergent as the Fed moved from one stage of "quantitative easing" to the next.  The impact on both markets can be seen with clarity if five years ago you decided to commit half of your investments to the iShares 7-10 Year Treasury Bond (IEF) and the other half to the SPDR S&P 500 (SPY) and, then, took a five year trip to Mars, leaving the market behind.  Returning today, you'd find your 50/50 bond/equity allocation now at 35/65, simply because of equity appreciation.  So, what to do if you don't want so much at risk?

Jason Zweig addresses that question in this past weekend's Wall Street Journal. Bottom line, "know thyself."  He quotes investment adviser David Salem who said that investors holding large stock portfolios or are considering buying more equities, should be "both willing and able to bear the loss," clarifying that "willingness is behavioral and ability is financial, and you can't know for sure in advance which one is going to trump the other."  As the last bear market quickly eroded 50% plus of equity values, a 65% equity weighting puts one's portfolio at higher risk.  What one did as that last bear market gathered momentum is a good indication of what one might end up doing if this market, too, ends badly.  Of course, it can go higher -- in that regard I'm always reminded of John Maynard Keynes' famous comment “the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent."

Today's investment environment is now as foreign to me as the Mars landscape would be.  Hostile too.  While GDP is hardly growing, and unemployment stubbornly stays above 7%, peak profits are being racked up by major corporations.  How can this be?  Zero interest rates translate into profits, borrowing at nearly nothing to reduce corporate higher-rate debt or financing stock buy-backs.  Corporations have squeezed their workers too, many laid off, a reward to shareholders in the form of increasing dividends.  Labor unions are no longer empowered, a major consequence of labor competition from overseas.  We no longer "make things" here and even intellectual labor can be harvested overseas, at lower cost, thanks to the impact of the Internet. So, by some measures, the "market" is "cheap." It certainly is cheap if you look at earnings yields vs. bond yields, a spread that has widened with every nail in the QE coffin. 

At one time I thought the Fed's actions saved the world from a financial meltdown.  Perhaps it did. But sustaining its monthly $85 billion bond buying program ad infinitum, not to mention maintaining zero interest rates, is creating an asymmetrical investment environment with every passing day (I'm avoiding the word "bubble" as the latter I sort of understand).  It gets worse: recent Fed minutes implied lowering the interest it pays on bank reserves, which has led banks to warn that such an action might force them to charge depositors for holding money in savings and checking accounts (a negative interest rate!). 

Perhaps all of this is being engineered to create a feeling of prosperity from the inflated asset prices of 401Ks, real estate, and equities, hoping that some will trickle down to the middle class via increased spending by the main beneficiaries, the wealthy. (Not surprising, Tiffany & Co. "reported a 50% increase in net earnings in its third quarter..., largely resulting from 7% growth in worldwide net sales and a higher operating margin.")   Or, perhaps, there is something more ominous behind the Fed's actions, a fear of deflation outweighing its concern for (or even desire for) inflation.  Deflation would be an investor's clarion call to buy longer term "secure" bonds, even at these low rates, but, then, we will soon see the next round of the shoot out at the O.K. Corral (a.k.a. Congress), when the debt limit debate comes up again in March.  So, even US Government Bonds may not be rated AAA given the crazy political environment.

No, all the old rules of investment are out the window in this investment environment, as understandable to me as Bitcoins, the price of which surpassed $1,000 today vs. $30 earlier this year, resembling the parabolic price rise of Dutch tulip bulbs in the 17th century.

Ending on a more understandable note, a Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Data Points

Driving home today I happened to hear some stock market guru on the radio (there are countless numbers nowadays, and I didn't get his name during my brief time in the car) predicting that the "bull market" will steadily march onwards and upwards and he compared it to 1982 (when the S&P 500 Index was around 140 vs. today's 1,500 plus), pointing out that bull market move began when unemployment rate was more than 9% vs. a little under 8% today.  I didn't quite get the connection to the S&P other than the inference that things looked gloomy then on Main Street as they do today. 

He sounded like a youngish man, probably either unborn in 1982 or in diapers.  He's right about the gloomy part, but he failed to cite other relevant data points in the comparison, such as the Price Earnings Ratio (P/E) that was about 7.5 then vs. today's 17.5.  Also, adjusting the 1982 140 S&P for the CPI, it was really about 340 not 140.  So, half the growth of the S&P since then is explained by the expansion of the P/E multiple.

Here are some other interesting data point comparisons (these are approximates -- not exact averages for the years cited):

                                                           1982                2013

3 month T Bill Rate                       12.49%            0.11%

10  year T Note Rate                    13.86%            1.88%

S&P Dividend Yield                       4.93%             2.13%

S&P Earnings Yield                        9.83%             7.18%

Classic asset allocation models dictate that if the earnings yield is less than the yield on a 10 year Treasury Note, stocks are overvalued and conversely, if the earnings yield is more than the 10 year T Note, they are undervalued.  By that measure, stock markets should indeed continue to rise now, but they should have been flatlining in 1982.

The reason the usual asset allocation rules may not apply to either scenario is that both 1982 and 2012 represent extraordinary economic times, almost the mirror images of one another, but with one thing in common: the Federal Reserve is in the pilot's seat.  Remember during the Ford administration we were brandishing "WIN" (Whip Inflation Now) buttons?  The oil embargo of 1973 had ratcheted up crude prices from 1972's $3.60 to more than $30.00 by 1982.  Consumer prices followed and wage demands took off.  Paul Volker's Federal Reserve slammed the breaks on the economy raising interest rates to unheard of levels. 

Today, we have the flip side of the coin.  The economy nearly collapsed five years ago into a depression and the Fed became the purchaser of last resort of mortgage-backed securities and is still buying 90% of new US Treasury securities, creating a scarcity of Treasury debt and ratcheting down rates to unheard of levels, this time to "Whip Deflation Now."

What does it all mean for investing?  I can't imagine it means a "new bull market," but who knows as we've never been in this situation before (and throw a calcified government into the mix). One thing I do know, in extraordinary times markets can behave illogically -- unremittingly postponing a normal reversion to the mean --  or as John Maynard Keynes said, “the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.”

Inflation or Deflation?

I remember watching Wall Street Week with the late Louis Rukeyser in the late 1970s and early 1980s during another alarming economic period, with talk of South American style inflation reaching the U.S. and the mindset that goes along with that fear, people buying gold, eschewing long term US Treasuries which were yielding around 15%. It seemed each and every week investors were waiting for reports on the “money supply” with any large increase reinforcing the then prevailing view. In retrospect, how much simpler and more benign economic matters seemed then.

Now money supply measurements are not even discussed. Instead, we wait with baited breath for the Fed’s latest interest rate decision, endeavoring to parse the Federal Open Market Committee’s statements, comparing them with prior statements for clues as to what the future holds.

Today seems to be the inverse of those days with US Treasuries yielding nearly nothing, and the fear of deflation driving investor psychology, leaving few alternatives to us average folk not of CNBC’s fast money crowd. By the Fed’s decision to reinvest its portfolio of maturing mortgages in U.S. Treasury debt, rather than shrinking its balance sheet, it has embarked on a method of monetizing debt. Normally this would ring the inflation bells but not in this economic environment where spending is a higher priority than reducing debt or saving. Deflation is a state of mind that once it takes hold becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, particularly in the wake of the economic turmoil and bailouts of the financial sector of the last few years, with high unemployment and state and local government fiscal problems, leaving the Fed with few remaining options. And, unlike inflation, we have little experience with it other than the 1930s and Japan’s ongoing battle with it since the early 1990’s.

As reflected by CD rates of nearly zero, it is an investment environment where one has two choices, take risk (which is being encouraged by the government’s actions) or put your savings under a mattress (which, in a deflationary environment produces a positive return without risk). Inflation or deflation? One has to wonder what the Fed knows that we don’t. It is a conundrum for the saver. Bring back the good old days of Wall Street Week!

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Swimming against the deflationary tide

There was a small, unobtrusive article in today’s Wall Street Journal: “A Deflated Fed Battles to Keep Prices Up”

Here are the bullet points:

* “In March the consumer-price index slipped 0.4% below its year-earlier level, the first decline in over 50 years”

* “It is hard to imagine [consumers] returning to their spendthrift ways anytime soon”

* “Falling prices would make it tougher for borrowers to pay off debt, leading to even more defaults and even tougher lending standards”

* To fight back… “the Fed could buy the Treasuries issued to finance such moves. In practice, that is like printing money and handing it out to households, and it is pretty much what is happening now.”

* “When the fight is between falling prices and the Fed, it is hard to predict which will prevail.”

Add to this mix, 30-day T-Bills now yield nearly zero (0.02%). Soon, one may have to pay the Treasury to hold short-term deposits, but nonetheless if deflation persists or worsens, equities and bonds will not be able to compete with cash. Everyone is expecting inflation as a consequence of government spending, but prolonged deflation would be a Black Swan with potentially serious consequences. Gold fell more than $13 an ounce today, below a technical support level, another indication that inflation may not be the main worry.