April 2013 Review

Portfolio Update 

There were numerous changes to the portfolio during April, which are recapped here.

Performance Review 

April was a relatively volatile month for the portfolio, though it ended up positive (+0.27%) but still remains negative year-to-date (-2.1%).

The major drivers of performance were the Value Equities (+223bps), Energy Efficiency (-112bps) and Currencies (-66bps) books.  The USD weakened against the Euro during the month, which drove the loss in the Currencies book but Our Man believes that this is a counter-trend rally in what will be a longer downtrend.  The Energy Efficiency book’s losses came almost entirely from the position in XIDE, which cost over 100bps in April.  The stock fell heavily on 2 major negative pieces of news; the stock fell heavily on news it had hired Lazard to look into a restructuring plan and then fell further when the firm had to close its Vernon recycling plant after it failed to meet health-risk standards.  These losses were more than offset by the sharp rise in THRX, which accounted for almost the entire gain in the Value Equities bucket.  The stock rallied after an FDA Advisory Committee recommended the approval of one of its core drugs.  The rally continued after the company announced plans to split itself into 2, a patent/royalty management company and a drug discovery company; with GlaxoSmithKline being a key partner, and large stakeholder, in THRX this helped reignite speculation that GlaxoSmithKline may be a bidder for the royalty management company.

Elsewhere, the portfolio saw much smaller winners and losers.  The Absolute Return Funds (-13bps) were a negative contributor, as was the NCAV book (-9bps) despite the rising market.  The sharp rise in the market during the second half of April also negatively impacted the Puts/Hedges book (-20bps) and though the Precious Metals book (-18bps) cost money in the first few days of the month, the decision to exit Gold proved to be one that prevented larger losses.  The other good decision in the portfolio update was to size-up the position in Greece (GREK), which rallied strongly late in the month and helped the Other Equities book (+41bps) contribute strongly.

Portfolio (as at 4/30 - all delta and leverage adjusted, as appropriate) 

18.2% - Bond/Absolute Return Funds (DLTNX and HSTRX) 

7.7% - Value Idea Equities (THRX, and DRWI) 

6.7% - Other Equities (GREK, and EWI)  

1.0% - NCAV Equities 

0.7% - Energy Efficiency (AXPW, and XIDE) 

-0.0% - China-Related Thesis (no positions) 

-2.1% - Hedges/Put Options (premium of 5bps in XLP Jan-14 puts, 36bps in XLB Jan-14 puts and 10bps in EWG Jan-14 puts) 

-23.3% - Currencies (EUO – Short Euro)

53.6% - Cash 

Disclaimer:  For added clarity, Our Man is invested in all of the securities mentioned.  He also holds some cash and a few other securities (of negligible value).  You should not buy any of these securities because Our Man has mentioned them, but should do your own work and decide what’s best for you.

Portfolio Update (and NCAV 2013-1)

At the beginning of April, OM (and Mrs OM) added a little bit of money to the portfolio despite the recent weak performance (we’ll leave it to you to judge if it was a sign of being value investors (?) or merely gluttons for mediocrity?).  As you may have noticed, OM doesn’t (and can’t) trade very often, so this infusion provided a useful opportunity for OM to step back and make some portfolio changes.  Given there are more changes than in a typical month, it’s also a good time for OM to give you some of the rationale behind them all: 

- Absolute Return Funds:  The Absolute Return Funds book represents Our Man’s way of getting exposure to markets, instruments, or investors/asset allocators that he otherwise would be unable to.  This is the longest time-horizon part of the portfolio and holdings will generally be held for many years and rarely traded.  Typically, these holdings will be mutual funds though they it isn’t a necessity; for examples, should Our Man ever have exposure to the likes of Leukadia, Berkshire Hathaway, Markel, etc or other US listed companies where a key driver is an investor/asset allocator they would be in this part of the portfolio.    The two existing holdings (DLTNX and HSTRX) have been full positions for some time and give Our Man exposure to 2 fascinating investors (Jeff Gundlach at DoubleLine, and John Hussman at Hussman Funds) who also invest in an area that OM has no real access to (fixed income).  Both have been solid contributors since the launch of the portfolio but with fixed income having had a great run since 2009, both positions were allowed to decline slightly as a percentage of assets. 

- Value Equities & Energy Efficiency Equities: These two books have been grouped together, as the decision process was very similar.  THRX position size (in %-terms) was maintained, by buying a little stock, ahead of a number of expected rulings and product updates during the remainder of 2013.  For all of the other position, no capital was added to them which resulted in smaller position sizes (in %-terms); both DRWI and XIDE’s continue to struggle with short-term issues that are dominating the long-term potential and prospects for the companies.  AXPW by its nature is more speculative position, and while the company has moved from concept to reality by shipping the first of its new batteries and working with top tier partners (BMW, Norfolk Southern, etc), there remains the likelihood that it will have to access capital markets again before it becomes profitable.

- Other Equities:  The sharpness of Italy’s pull-back (in the context of its run-up from 2012’s lows) and the nature of the move gave Our Man technical-related pause and conviction that there will be far better opportunities to size up the position in the future.  Again the short-term clouds obscure an interesting longer-term story and again OM chose to add no capital to the position, allowing it to shrink as a % of the book due to the increased asset base.  Greece was an entirely different story; it too pulled back sharply but it appears to be more corrective in nature and with its potential end during April, OM took this as the opportunity he’d been waiting for to aggressively increase the position to almost 5% of assets.

- Currencies & Precious Metals:  These books were also grouped together as the decision process was similar and both relate as much to Our Man’s view of the US Dollar rather than Gold or the Euro.  Our Man has talked before about his liking for the US Dollar, and that conviction continues to grow.  Fundamentally, all of the main reasons for disliking the US Dollar are well-known (be it QE-forever, the budget deficit, etc) and have been discussed in great detail.  The glory days of the dollar seem a long-time ago – between 1980 and 1985 the dollar appreciated 50% against the Deutschmark and Yen, leading the Plaza Accord which saw the dollar index peak at 164.72 (compared to today’s low 80’s number) – and the dollar has largely been in a bear market since (see charts here).  Perhaps, the time spent bouncing along that we’ve seen in 2008-11 isn’t a mark of the world’s discontent with the Dollar and a sign of impending doom, but instead the forming of a bottom that precedes a multi-year bull market for the Dollar.  Europe, on the other hand, remains a mess – the optimal solution for “Europe” is likely sub-optimal for the substantial majority of European countries – and Our Man used the recent bounce from March’s lows to increase his Short Euro position further.  There remains room to add a little more to the position, but it’s close to its maximum.  Regular readers will know that while Gold was Our Man’s biggest position many moons ago, he’s never been a bona fide gold bug; gold was far more interesting when it wasn’t seen as a panacea and wasn’t owned by just about everyone.  Given that, Our Man had already exited 40% of his position earlier this year, it shouldn’t be surprising to learn that he exited the rest at the start of April – it’s always good to be lucky! 

- Puts/Hedges: The S Germany puts were held at the same position size (%-terms) by buying some additional puts.  The Consumer Staples has done very well in 2012-3, benefitting from the search for yield as of investors see companies that are ‘safe’ and provide strong dividend.  Given no indication of a break in this trend or behaviour (and without valuations reaching offensive levels), Our Man chose to let the position size (in %-terms shrink) by not adding capital to the XLP puts.  Things looked very different in the Materials sector, which is far more impacted by the questions surrounding global growth and where the trend appeared to peak in March before reversing.   As a result, Our Man added substantially to the position almost doubling it. 

- NCAV (2013-1): Our Man ran his model at the end of March, and the results were as follows: 

i) No new stock that met all the criteria, thus no new positions.

ii) IMN still meets the criteria, so its deadline for exiting the portfolio is extended to April 1^st 2014. As it was retained at the same % of the portfolio, this meant buying a little extra stock. 

iii) TWMC’s deadline came and passed and as it no longer met the criteria the position was sold in its entirety. 

iv) Though RSH was only recently added to the portfolio, it has increased 60%+ and thus met one of the criteria for when positions are sold.  In accordance with this criteria its position size (in %-terms) was halved - in practice this resulted in selling a little less than 50% of the stock (since the dilution of new capital naturally reduced the position size). 

Disclaimer:  For added clarity, Our Man is invested in all of the securities mentioned.  He also holds some cash and a few other securities (of negligible value).  You should not buy any of these securities because Our Man has mentioned them, but should do your own work and decide what’s best for you.

March 2013 Review

Portfolio Update 

There were no changes to the portfolio in March.

Performance Review  

March was the portfolio’s first positive month of the year (+0.39%), though performance for the year remains negative (-2.4%). 

The Bond/Absolute Return Funds (+4bps) were a small contributor, but unlike previous years their performance has been a non-entity so far in 2013.  It was a pleasant surprise, given Our Man’s bullish view on the US Dollar, that both the Currencies book (+28bps) and the Precious Metals book (+7bps) were positive on the month; though given the continued troubles in the Euro-area with the messy bail-out (and bail-in) in Cyprus largely explained how both the Dollar (vs. Euro) and Gold were up in the month.

The Puts/Hedges book (-9bps) was a small detractor from performance as the market or more specifically, Consumer Staples and Industrials companies in the US, and German companies in Europe continued to rise.  The NCAV book (+17bps) continued to add to performance, though the book makes up a very small portion of capital.

The 3 main equity books were mixed during the month, and despite the rise in the equity markets in Q1 they are all down for the year.  The Other Equities book (-32bps) fell during March, as the positions in Italy and especially Greece suffered from the continued troubles in Europe.  The Energy Book (-0bps) was flat for the month and the Value Equities book (+23bps) merely recouped last month’s losses.

Portfolio (as at 3/31 - all delta and leverage adjusted, as appropriate) 

20.0% - Bond/Absolute Return Funds (DLTNX and HSTRX) 

7.1% - Precious Metals (GLD) 

5.9% - Value Idea Equities (THRX, and DRWI) 

2.9% - Other Equities (GREK, and EWI)  

2.3% - Energy Efficiency (AXPW, and XIDE) 

2.0% - NCAV Equities

-0.0% - China-Related Thesis (no positions) 

-2.0% - Hedges/Put Options (premium of 8bps in XLP Jan-14 puts, 27bps in XLB Jan-14 puts and 15bps in EWG Jan-14 puts) 

-16.3% - Currencies (EUO – Short Euro)

50.8% - Cash 

Disclaimer:  For added clarity, Our Man is invested in all of the securities mentioned.  He also holds some cash and a few other securities (of negligible value).  You should not buy any of these securities because Our Man has mentioned them, but should do your own work and decide what’s best for you.

Things from my Google Reader (or is it Old Reader, Feedly, Instapaper…): Mar-12 Edition

With Google announcing its closing down Google Reader, Our Man is amongst many on the hunt for a new RSS feed aggregator but more importantly the title of these posts is going to have to change soon!  Until then, here are some things I’ve been reading over recent months that might keep you entertained…

- A Pickpocket’s Tale 

The first 200-250 words of this article boggled Our Man’s mind; read them, then take 30 seconds to think about what just transpired…it’ll likely blow your mind too!  As regular readers have likely gathered, Our Man is fascinated by human behaviour (and especially its impact in economics and on stock market moves) and this article illustrates that in pickpocketing, psychology and persuasion of the mind play as large a role as any physical skills.  (Adam Green, The New Yorker)

- Watching Behaviour Before Writing the Rules 

Prof Thaler is known as one of the father’s of behavioural economics/finance, and for his collaboration with Daniel Kahneman and others in further defining the field.  Given his (and other behavioural finance experts) work with governments (especially in the US and UK), it will be interesting to see if the hoped for positive impacts on policy will flow through over the coming years.  (Prof Richard Thaler, New York Times)

- Up All Night 

With a new baby in the Our Man household, this March title and article on the science of sleeplessness seemed awfully well-timed! (Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker)

- The Vine Nerds 

The 21^st century has already been described as the era of “Big Data” and recently we looked at how data-driven electoral sites (whether it was 538, RCP, Pollster, or my personal favourite Votamatic) were far more successful than professionals at predicting the recent US election.  Unsurprisingly, with data far more prevalent, accessible and storable than ever before, its usage and analysis is being used in other fields to challenge long-held assumptions and beliefs.  Over time, it’ll be interesting to see if any of the vintners will produce ‘better’ wine as a result, or merely just more of it.  (Jeffrey M O’Brien, Wired)

- Cheap LED Light May Light Up the Market 

Way back, in Mar-10, Our Man mentioned his interest in the LED theme (as part of the Energy Efficiency book) – sadly, he never ended up doing much with it as it appeared that while the long-term cost advantage of LED bulbs seemed clear the tipping point when the initial cost was palatable to consumers seemed a little too far away.  With Cree just announcing a bulb that retails at a more than affordable $10, perhaps it’s time to dust off those files. (Nayantara NAraryanan & ClimateWire, Scientific American).

- The Paper World of Brookfield Asset Management 

The great, and almost always false, promise in finance is something that offers high returns (or yield) while being very safe.  A large number of the frauds and collapses have been based around this implicit (or explicit) promise – think Madoff, LTCM or even the likes of Enron.  One of the typical models of offering this promise is to take a low risk asset and create a structure around it that creates higher returns through levering it up (or by ‘ponzi finance’ through continually raising capital) .  Roddy Boyd takes a deep investigative look at Brookfield Asset Management, a high flying Toronto-based company, which has an exceptionally complex structure and is viewed by skeptics as another of those false promises that are all too common in finance.  (Roddy Boyd, Southern Investigative Reporting Foundation)

February 2013 Review

Portfolio Update 

There was a couple of changes to the portfolio during the month: 

- Puts/Hedges: A put position in EWG (Jan-14, $18 strike) was added to the portfolio.  

- Precious Metals:  About 40% of the position in Gold (GLD) was sold during the middle part of the month. 

- Currencies: The size of the Short Euro (EUO) position was increased by about 40% in the middle of the month.  Together with the change in the Gold position (see above) this reflected Our Man’s more bullish view on the US Dollar.

Performance Review  

February continued the portfolio’s recent trend of disappointing months, ending down -1.5% and leaving the portfolio -2.5 YTD.

Despite the positive equity markets, it has again been the equity-orientated books that have been the main driver’s of the disappointing performance.  The Value Equity book (-22bps) fell after THRX drifted lower though the major short-term newsflow, an FDA decision, is not expected until May.  Then Energy Efficiency book (-59bps) also hampered performance, falling on the back of a disappointing quarter for XIDE – while there continue to be positive medium and long-term trends for the company, they’ve largely been overshadowed by the disappointing short-term news that continues to come out.

The Other Equity book (-33bps) also contributed negatively, after the Italian equity markets (EWI) weakened significantly following the elections there.  The Italian election saw no party win a majority and the parties that stand against austerity do better than expected, all of which resulted in a lot of uncertainty…something that’s rarely looked upon favourably by the markets.    

The US Dollar continued to strengthen over the course of the month, which hurt the Precious Metals book (-69bps) but aided the Currencies book (+47bps) as the Euro showed signs of hitting an important peak against the dollar.  Elsewhere the Bonds Funds (-0bps), NCAV book (-6bps) and Puts/Hedges (-6bps) had a very limited impact on performance.

Portfolio (as at 2/28 - all delta and leverage adjusted, as appropriate) 

20.0% - Bond/Absolute Return Funds (DLTNX and HSTRX) 

7.1% - Precious Metals (GLD) 

5.7% - Value Idea Equities (THRX, and DRWI) 

3.2% - Other Equities (GREK, and EWI)  

2.3% - Energy Efficiency (AXPW, and XIDE) 

1.8% - NCAV Equities 

-0.0% - China-Related Thesis (no positions) 

-2.6% - Hedges/Put Options (premium of 11bps in XLP Jan-14 puts, 33bps in XLB Jan-14 puts and 15bps in EWG Jan-14 puts)  

-16.4% - Currencies (EUO – Short Euro)  

51.0% - Cash 

Disclaimer:  For added clarity, Our Man is invested in all of the securities mentioned.  He also holds some cash and a few other securities (of negligible value).  You should not buy any of these securities because Our Man has mentioned them, but should do your own work and decide what’s best for you.

January 2013 Review

Portfolio Update

There was a couple of changes to the portfolio during the month: 

- Puts/Hedges: A put position in XLB (Jan-14, $33 strike) was added to the portfolio.  The position adds negative exposure to the materials sector.  With the expiry of the older put options, this leaves the Puts/Hedges book with exposure to the Materials and Consumer Staples sector, both of which were added in preference to general index exposure. 

- Other Equities:  As mentioned in this recent post, positions in GREK and EWI were added to the portfolio.  

Performance Review  

The portfolio unfortunately started 2013 in the same manner as it performed in during 2012, failing to capture any of the market’s upside.  The month (and YTD) ended up negative, at -1.3%, and well behind the S&P which began the year with a 5%+ gain. 

Almost all of the books contributed negatively to performance during January, with the exceptions being the NCAV book (+17bps) and Energy Efficiency (+5bps) which rose with the equity markets.  The Gold (-6bps), Bond Funds (-7bps), China (-0bps) and Other Equities (-11bps) were largely unaffected by the equity markets but all posted marginal losses during the month.

 

Elsewhere the Currencies (-33bps) and Puts/Hedges (-29bps) both negatively impacted performance.  The Puts/Hedges book suffered from the costs of entering the XLB position, and the value of put options declining during the month due to the rise in the underlying ETFs (XLB and XLP) and the continued fall in volatility.  The Currencies book fell again, after the Euro strengthened during the month.

 

However, the primary negative contributor was the Value Equities book (-63bps) which was caused entirely by the Long position in DRWI.  The company announced results ($38.5mn revenue) around expectations, but its guidance for the next quarter ($40-45mn revenue) was marginally under expectations.  The concern is that following DRWI’s recent transaction, the firm needs a quarterly revenue of c$70-80mn to meet its break-even target, which was expected to be achieved later this year.  The slower than expected growth implies that it will take DRWI longer to reach its targets (likely early next year) and increases the risk in the position.  The stock responded to the news and the subsequent conference call by falling heavily, negatively impacting the performance of the book.  Given the position’s reduced size, and the longer-term view on the company and opportunity for microwave wireless in the global 4G build-out, it adequately reflects the risk going forwards and Our Man is unlikely to seek to add to it.

 

Portfolio (as at 1/31 - all delta and leverage adjusted, as appropriate) 

19.7% - Bond/Absolute Return Funds (DLTNX and HSTRX) 

12.9% - Precious Metals (GLD) 

5.8% - Value Idea Equities (THRX, and DRWI) 

3.5% - Other Equities (GREK, and EWI)  

2.9% - Energy Efficiency (AXPW, and XIDE) 

1.9% - NCAV Equities

-0.0% - China-Related Thesis (no positions)  

-3.2% - Hedges/Put Options (premium of 14bps in XLP Jan-14 puts and 31bps in XLB Jan-14 puts) 

-10.9% - Currencies (EUO – Short Euro) 

 

47.5% - Cash 

 

Disclaimer:  For added clarity, Our Man is invested in all of the securities mentioned.  He also holds some cash and a few other securities.  You should not buy any of these securities because Our Man has mentioned them, but should do your own work and decide what’s best for you.

Other Equities: Global CAPE Valuations (and Positions)

Our Man’s performance last year was disappointing, and one of the major sources of the disappointment stemmed from failing to capture some profits when positions moved significantly in OM’s favour before later reversing.  This was particularly the case with some long-term positions, such as EUO, which went was being a positive 50bps+ contributor to one that cost the portfolio over 30bps on the year.  Thus one of Our Man’s aims for 2013 is to show greater flexibility around his longer-term positions, especially by using technicals more to help with when to resize positions by taking profits or adding to positions.

Those who read this blog regularly know that Our Man likes discussing the CAPE, or the Cyclically-Adjusted PE (it’s can also be known as the ‘Shiller PE’), ratio quite a lot (such as way back when).   While the ratio is not very good at telling you what will happen with markets in the short or even medium term, it’s very helpful as a long-term guide to value or anchor.  Over the last couple of years, there has also been some great work and research done on CAPE’s globally and also using empirical data to test whether the ratio does indeed prove a good guide to long-term value.  The most interesting (and easily understood) stuff comes from Mebane Faber (Cambria Investments); and this recent paper provides a short and simple read that you don’t need to be an egg-head to understand.  Among the things that Faber’s work (and others) empirically shows is that when CAPE’s are low (i.e. the market is cheap) expected future returns are typically higher (especially over longer time periods, 5-10yrs.  See Figs 3A & 3B on page 5).  This also holds true outside of the US, where Faber looked at CAPE’s and returns for 32 markets (Fig 7 on page 10).

Why bring this up now?   Well, the crisis in Europe has seen markets fall and looking at the CAPEs, some are starting to reach valuations that are very attractive both absolutely and relative to the respective country’s history.  While getting good data outside the US is difficult (or expensive) for an individual investor, data back to the mid-90’s is very easily accessible and Our Man used it to create his own CAPE mini-database to get a sense of the valuations in Europe.  (NB.  You may notice that Spain is a glaring omission from the below.  Rather oddly, OM has misplaced his Spanish data…)

What should be reasonably clear is that valuations are clearly cheaper today than at any time in the last 7-10yrs in almost all of the countries.  While the US’ longer data set (see first graph in this post) suggests that the last 7-10yrs have not been particularly cheap in a historical context, it’s noticeably that in Italy (CAPE of just over 8) and especially Greece (CAPE of c2) valuations are at an attractive level on an absolute basis. 

Given these valuations and the longer-term nature of CAPEs, it makes sense that OM is going to try and apply some of the aforementioned flexibility by using technicals to help him get into and size positions driven by CAPE valuations.   Interestingly, both Greece and Italy appear to have formed potential bottoms during 2012.  While it’s not clear that the long-term pain in those economies and markets is over, it seems to make an interesting entry point. 

Given that CAPEs are a good guide to long-term valuation and Faber’s work which suggests the benefits are better felt through long-term holdings (i.e. 5yrs+), you should expect to see EWI and GREK in the portfolio for some time though their size will vary.  While the positions have been started in Italy (EWI) and Greece (GREK), given the sharper run-up in GREK since the summer, the position there is smaller (c1%) with Our Man looking to add to it if there’s a pull-back of note.

As a final note, neither EWI nor GREK hedge their currency exposure hence both would fall if the indices they track were flat (or rose), but the Euro weakened (more).  As such, at some point, Our Man may add some EUO as a short-term hedge specifically against these positions.