Investing Curiouscatblog

Category: Stocks

  • Dow Jones Industrial Average Changes

    The Dow Jones Industrial Average is a widely followed stock market measure of 30 stocks. I think the S&P 500 is a better measure to pay attention to, but the DJIA continues to be used and it has some historical interest. Today 2 stocks (Altria and Honeywell) were removed and two new stocks we added (Bank of America and Chevron). They were the two largest cap USA based companies (other than Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett’s company) not in the DJIA. Bank of America has a market capitalization of $186 billion and Chevron’s is $165 billion. Google’s market cap is $160 billion.

    I mentioned before I would replace GM with Toyota (though that might violate one of their traditions). I also would have added Google, with this update, rather than Bank of America (Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, American Express and AIG are all financial industry companies and GE has huge financing components also).

    The current DJIA stocks:

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    Stock Market Capitalization Year Added
    Exxon (XOM)             $438 Billion     1928
    GE 337     1896
    Microsoft 260     1999
    AT&T (T) 217     1999
    Proctor & Gamble (PG) 200     1932
    Walmart (WMT) 195     1997
    Bank of America (BAC) 186     2007
    Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) 178     1997
    Chevron (CVX) 165     2007
    Pfizer (PFE) 150     2004
    JPMorgan Chase (JPM) 145     1991
    IBM 145     1979

  • Rodgers on the US and Chinese Economies

    Jimmy Rodgers is one of the most successful investors ever. He and George Soros were partners during the amazing run with Quantum Fund (up over 4000% in 10 years) and he has been successful since. This interview provides his current thoughts – ‘It’s going to be much worse’

    “Conceivably we could have just had recession, hard times, sliding dollar, inflation, etc., but I’m afraid it’s going to be much worse,” he says. “Bernanke is printing huge amounts of money. He’s out of control and the Fed is out of control. We are probably going to have one of the worst recessions we’ve had since the Second World War. It’s not a good scene.”

    Rogers looks at the Fed’s willingness to add liquidity to an already inflationary environment and sees the history of the 1970s repeating itself. Does that mean stagflation? “It is a real danger and, in fact, a probability.”

    One smart investor, no matter how smart, will have many wrong guesses about the future. Still he is someone worth listening to.

    Related: Investment Biker – Charge It to My Kids – Buffett’s 2007 Letter to Shareholders

  • 12 Stocks for 10 Years Update – Feb 2008

    I originally setup the 10 stocks for 10 years portfolio in April of 2005. With Microsoft’s move to buy Yahoo I have sold Yahoo and replaced it with Danaher, a stock I have been considering for this portfolio from the start. I have also sold some Templeton Dragon Fund since the last update, as I indicated I would. Unfortunately, Petro China just missed reaching the price I had set to sell a portion of the position before falling dramatically (the gain at the last update was 298% now it is “only” 132%).

    The performance since the last update has not been good but that isn’t much of a concern to me. The long term prospects remain very good for this portfolio, I believe. At this time the stocks in the sleep well portfolio in order of returns –

    Stock Current Return % of sleep well portfolio now % of the portfolio if I were buying today
    Google – GOOG 137% 16% 14%
    PetroChina – PTR 132% 8% 8%
    Amazon – AMZN 106% 7% 6%
    Templeton Dragon Fund – TDF 85% 10% 10%
    Toyota – TM 44% 10% 10%
    Templeton Emerging Market Fund – EMF 39% 3.5% 4%
    Cisco – CSCO 32% 6.5% 8%
    Tesco – TSCDY 9% 0% 10%
    Danaher – DHR -4% 4.5% 8%
    Intel – INTC -4% 4% 6%
    Pfizer – PFE -11% 6% 8%
    Dell -40% 6% 6%

    The Yahoo position was closed at an 11% loss. It was the second of the original 10 stocks to be effectively removed due to changes in ownership. At this point I am most positive on Google, Petro China, Toyota, Templeton Dragon Fund and Tesco. I am wary of Dell – they seem to be moving in the wrong direction, but I am willing to give them longer to improve.
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  • Shorting Using Inverse Funds

    Shorting is selling first and buying later. The idea is to sell high and then buy low. It can be a bit risky. Since there is no cap on how high a stock can go you can loose more than you invest. Still, as part of a portfolio, using short positions can possibly be a useful strategy at times. You can use shorting to do things like hedge against existing gains (without selling those positions and incurring taxes).

    Business Week had an article on Shorting for the 21st Century using inverse funds. These are mutual funds that are structured to behave as short positions – that is to go up if the target portfolio goes down in value. One advantage of using these funds (at this time they are all ETFs – exchange traded funds, I believe) is that you losses are limited to your investment. You do incur additional expenses charged by the fund however.

    Experienced investors may find value in exploring the use of inverse funds. Some funds are engineered to move 1 for 1 with the market (that is the fund increases 1% for every 1% decline in the index) and some are engineered to move up 2% for every 1% decline – which also means they go down 2% for every 1% gain in the actual index. Index funds can also be used in retirement accounts (where shorting is not allowed).

    Most investors need much more experience and to do a great deal of reading before they would be ready to try these funds. Since markets general go up over time and timing the market is extremely difficult it is unlikely novice investors will succeed in trying to guess right. The usefulness is mainly as a hedging strategy when the investors has determined the portfolio could benefit from a partial hedge.

    Related: Risk and reward of exposure – investment speculation books – Ignorance of Many Mortgage Holders – The Greatest Wall Street Danger of All? You – How Not to Convert Equity

  • Emerging-market Multinationals

    It is not your parents world. In case you hadn’t noticed the economic power in the world has been changing quickly. Many are missing the magnitude of these changes. One visible example is explored by the Economist in Emerging-market Multinationals:

    By 2004 the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) even noted that five companies from emerging Asia had made it into the list of the world’s 100 biggest multinationals measured by overseas assets; ten more emerging-economy firms made it into the top 200.
    …
    By 2006 foreign direct investment (including mergers and acquisitions) from developing economies had reached $174 billion, 14% of the world’s total, giving such countries a 13% share (worth $1.6 trillion) of the stock of global FDI. In 1990 emerging economies accounted for just 5% of the flow and 8% of the stock.

    This is just one visible sign of shifting economic power. And it shows no sign of slowing down. Our 12 Stocks for 10 Years portfolio is heavily invested for overseas growth. Close to 20% directly in emerging markets (through Templeton funds). PetroChina, Google, Toyota and Tesco all are very well positioned to grow quickly in emerging markets. And other stocks are likely do do well too – I am not clear on how well Pfizer, Amazon and Dell are positioned at this time.

    Emerging stock markets will continue to be very volatile I believe. However looking decades out and at a pool of 20 countries it is hard to imagine they won’t do very well: China, Singapore, Mexico, India, Thailand, Brazil, South Africa, Vietnam, etc.

    Related: Growing Size of non-USA Economies – Why Investing is Safer Overseas – South Korea To Invest $22 Billion in Overseas Energy Projects – Changing Economic Clout and Science Research

  • Goldman Sachs Rakes In Profit in Credit Crisis

    Goldman Sachs Rakes In Profit in Credit Crisis

    Rarely on Wall Street, where money travels in herds, has one firm gotten it so right when nearly everyone else was getting it so wrong. So far, three banking chief executives have been forced to resign after the debacle, and the pay for nearly all the survivors is expected to be cut deeply.

    But for Goldman’s chief executive, Lloyd C. Blankfein, this is turning out to be a very good year. He will surely earn more than the $54.3 million he made last year. If he gets a 20 percent raise – in line with the growth of Goldman’s compensation pool – he will take home at least $65 million. Some expect his pay, which is directly tied to the firm’s performance, to climb as high as $75 million.
    …
    This contrast in performance has been hard for competitors to swallow. The bank that seems to have a hand in so many deals and products and regions made more money in the boom and, at least so far, has managed to keep making money through the bust. In turn, Goldman’s stock has significantly outperformed its peers. At the end of last week it was up about 13 percent for the year, compared with a drop of almost 14 percent for the XBD, the broker-dealer index that includes the leading Wall Street banks. Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns and Citigroup are down almost 40 percent this year.

    Interesting story with at least a couple of good points to remember. First it does make a difference what company you chose. There are many market conditions where anyone can make money, but those conditions will change. Also look at the type of pay these people get. The CEO’s take huge risks to possibly get even more obscenely paid. It is absolutely no surprise to me the companies write off hundreds of millions in losses. It happens constantly. Executives are paid ludicrous salaries. In order to try and justify them they take huge risks. When the gambles pay off they pocket even huger bonuses. When they fail they pocket huge severance packages. Who wouldn’t bet the future of the company for that kind of money. Some people wouldn’t but not many that fight there way to the top of the corporate world. Right now it is banks writing off hundreds of millions but just watch every year companies do it. It is not some isolated rare event – it is predictable, common happening.

    And third the financal markets are much riskier than people think. Combine that with leverage and you get huge swings – huge profits and huge losses. I suppose some company may be able to guess just write about when to leverage and make the changes at just the right time – but I doubt it. A few great investors might be able too much of the time.

  • 12 Stocks for 10 Years Update – Oct 2007

    I originally setup the 10 stocks for 10 years portfolio in April of 2005. At this time the stocks in the sleep well portfolio in order of returns –

    Stock Current Return % of sleep well portfolio now % of the portfolio if I were buying today
    PetroChina – PTR 298% 11% 7%
    Google – GOOG 210% 17% 13%
    Amazon – AMZN 173% 7.5% 7%
    Templeton Dragon Fund – TDF 116% 17% 13%
    Cisco – CSCO 67% 6.5% 8%
    Templeton Emerging Market Fund – EMF 67% 3.5% 5%
    Toyota – TM 48% 7% 10%
    Tesco – TSCDY 25% 0% 10%
    Intel – INTC 18% 4% 8%
    Yahoo – YHOO -2% 4% 5%
    Pfizer – PFE -9% 5% 8%
    Dell -16% 7% 10%

    In order to track performance I setup a marketocracy portfolio but had to make some adjustment to comply with the diversification rules. In December of 2006 I announced a new 11 stocks for the next 10 years (9 are the same, I dropped First Data Corporation, which had split into 2 companies and added Tesco and Yahoo). Earlier this year I added Templeton Emerging Market Fund (EMF) and reduced the TDF portion. Tesco also pays a dividend which I am not including in the calculation – that is one reason marketocracy is so nice it keeps track of all those details for you.

    I have orders in to sell some of the PTR and TDF if the prices rises a bit more. In the marketocracy portfolio I have several smaller positions. I do this to comply with marketocracy’s diversity rules – I also have about 8% in cash (they still won’t let me buy Tesco). Google, PetroChina and Amazon have had an incredible few months. I am getting a little tired of Yahoo’s failure to deliver. I also think Amazon’s price has gotten a bit ahead of the performance but I think the performance is great and the long term looks strong.

    The current marketocracy calculated annualized rate or return (which excludes Tesco – reducing the return, and has a significant cash position reducing the return) is 20% (the S&P 500 annualized return for the period is 13.4% – in addition to the other reductions in the return, marketocracy subtracts the equivalent of 2% of assets annually to simulate management fees – as though the portfolio were a mutual fund). View the current marketocracy Sleep Well portfolio page.

    Related: 12 Stocks for 10 Years Update (Jun 2007) – 10 Stocks for 10 Years Update (Feb 2007) – 10 Stocks for 10 Years Update (Dec 2005)

  • Misuse of Statistics – Mania in Financial Markets

    The quantitative schools of investing rely on very high powered mathematics (often drawing on physics and engineering graduate students). They tread on very dangerous ground (often engaging in complex and highly leveraged speculation) and make errors in assumptions about the market conditions upon which the mathematical models they use to invest are based. Fat Tails and Limitations of Normal Distributions describes one common mistake:

    The central reasons why fat tails exist is a result of interdependence during market extremes. People’s decisions are not always fully independent or logical. At extreme market highs, investors become irrationally exuberant. At extreme lows, investors become fearfull and less risk tolerant.

    Stock market data clearly shows that a normal distribution does not provide a good model of the market. Not every system is defined by a normal distribution – it is common for distributions to be close to normal but there is no reason any system need be. Many statistical tools have as an underlying assumption that the system in question is a normal distribution (therefore to use the tools you need to determine if the system can be classified that way – if not some tools can’t be used).

    Crazy as it seems, very smart people continually forget that the markets often experience panics, euphoria, behave in ways that models do not predict, seize up and fail to function… Against the Gods by Peter Bernstein provides a good picture of the chaotic nature of financial market risks. A good book on an example of a mathematical model failure, Long Term Capital Management: When Genius Failed. Another excellent book on financial market chaos is: Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises.

    I keep thinking people will learn but so far the faith in numbers seems to outweigh the past examples of overconfident failures.

    Related: Data doesn’t lie but you can be fooled – investment risk – Statistics for Experimenters

  • Is Google Overpriced?

    Don’t go gaga over Google by Geoff Colvin, Fortune senior editor-at-large:

    It has created more investor wealth in less time than any company in history. So investors, repeat after me: All hail, Google! But don’t put it in the wealth-creation pantheon quite yet. And please don’t buy it at today’s price.
    …
    we need to remember that the ringing superlatives are based on a stock price that’s nuts. Google is a terrific company that may one day deserve to sit beside GE, Exxon and Microsoft. But not yet.

    He is welcome to his opinion. Lets look at some previous opinions, August 2004 Wall Street Week transcript:

    COLVIN: There’s another question. We now have a company that people have to decide whether they want to invest in. $23 billion is a high valuation for a search engine, right? I mean…
    KIRKPATRICK: For anything.
    COLVIN: For anything. And, you know, we can remember when AltaVista was everybody’s favorite search engine. Google came along, better product, superior, took away the market, but who’s to say the same thing won’t happen to them?
    SCHLOSSER: Well, they are creative guys, though. I mean I have a lot of faith that they’ll come up with some new ideas down the road that we’ll be able to watch for years to come.
    COLVIN: What do you think, David? Is this valuation justified?
    KIRKPATRICK: Well, I would never say that. I think any kind of valuation at this sort of level is very, very hopeful about future opportunity.

    It is true Google is priced to perform well today (and if they fail to do so the price will go down). And I don’t think it is as good a buy today as it was at $185 (I foolishly didn’t buy at IPO). I did buy more earlier this year, which I am happy to put away for a decade and see where it is then. It is great if you can buy a good stock cheaply but often you are better paying more for a very well managed company than buying cheap companies (by PE, cash flow or EVA or whatever measure you want to use). When I started the 10 stocks for 10 years portfolio in 2005 I put 12% in Google which has increased 134% (along with 12% in Toyota, which is up 67%, and Dell which is down 15%). Google is actually the 3rd best performer as of today (Amazon, up 136%, moved ahead and PetroChina is up 140%). I don’t think Google investors are betting on impossible growth, but time will tell. And the internet makes it easy to see what people predicted previously so we can all see who was right in 5 or 10 years.

    I do think at these prices Google is a riskier investment (with lower likely returns) than is was at lower levels (Amazon too). While this may seem obvious, it really is not as obvious as it may seem. If Google’s prospects had improved more than the price increased then at a higher price I might see it as a safer, or possibly better investment… This is what happened when I first bought Google at maybe $190 – after not buying at the IPO. Basically I do not believe Google’s prospects have not increased as much as the stock price in the last 2 years. Certainly I could understand passing up investing in Google today (if so, I would keep a watch out and consider buying if it falls…) but I am perfectly happy to keep my holdings.

    Read this article from Fortune (not by Colvin) in 2004, GOOGLE @ $165 Are these guys for real? some quotes:
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  • Another Great Quarter for Amazon

    I have mentioned I like the way Amazon, and Jeff Bezos, have been managing in several posts. Recently Amazon has added very strong financial results to that portfolio of things they do well. Amazon earnings announcement:

    Net sales increased 35% to $2.89 billion in the second quarter, compared with $2.14 billion in second quarter 2006. Excluding the $46 million favorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, net sales grew 33% compared with second quarter 2006.

    Operating income increased 149% to $116 million in the second quarter, compared with $47 million in second quarter 2006. Net income increased 257% to $78 million in the second quarter, or $0.19 per diluted share, compared with net income of $22 million, or $0.05 per diluted share in second quarter 2006.

    Pretty impressive. It seems Amazon might be able to begin delivering strong current financial performance (they have done so at least twice, and maybe longer depending on how you look at it…) and continue to build and innovate for the future. That is when a company really sets itself apart from the crowd. Previously, from the investing perspective, the argument was largely based on the belief that the steps taken today were building for the future (a fine thing, but risky – without the evidence of success actually making real profit it is often easy to make a good case for why the future will be good). In an investment it is more comforting when current earning provide some evidence the profits predicted in the future have some basis in reality.

    Since the beginning of April Amazon’s share price has gone from $40 a share to $70. And based on the after hours trades today it is going to be in the $80s tomorrow (though after hours trades can often be misleading – there is some more confidence based on the large volume of hour trades in Amazon, but still…). I must admit this price does seem like it might be getting a bit ahead of itself but Amazon is making an impressive case for strong future performance.

    Related: Amazon Innovation – 10 stocks for 10 years (April 2005) – 12 Stocks for 10 Years Update (June 2007) – Very Good Amazon Earnings – Bezos on Lean Thinking – Is Amazon a Bargain?