Hosking Partners on Value

  • Interesting latest piece (page 15) from Hosking Partners on why the rotation into value stocks will persist.
  • (1) They perform well at the end of recessions (2) stimulus favours value (3) Covid recovery will be long and is only getting underway now in some countries (4) fund managers are entrenched (5) Interesting ESG angle.
  • There is also a full webcast that is worth listening to.

Market Expected Return on Investment

  • Intangible assets matter more and more in the stock market.
  • Yet, they are generally poorly accounted for and valued.
  • This is a useful paper on a new metric – the market expected return on investment – that aims to give a more accurate view of returns in a world increasingly dominated by intangible assets.
  • Though technical it is worth a careful read.

Sector Neutral Value

  • Value stocks’ underperformance against growth (yellow line) is well documented.
  • Things look different at the sector neutral level (blue line) i.e. picking the cheapest stocks within a given sector.
  • This measure actually worked very well from 2002 to 2017/18, while the overall measure continued to fall.
  • It only fell apart in the last few years as growth mania took hold, but has bounced back very sharply.
  • Source.

Holding Winners is Hard

  • A nice article showing that holding winners is a trying experience.
  • For example Amazon – “The near-95% crash following the tech bust is the one most people point to. The stock was underwater from 1999 to 2009! But there was a 54% crash from 2005-2006, a 58% dive in 2008 and 5 separate losses of 25% or worse since 2009.
  • Why is it so hard – “Since 1980, more than 40% of all companies in the U.S. stock market have experienced a decline of 70% or worse without recovering.
  • This link has a full analysis of the business “failures” 2017-2020 which is worth reading.

Growth Premium and Interest Rates

  • Chart from Empirical Research shows price paid for growth (P/E multiple divided by trailing 5 year revenue growth) against the term premium in the bond market.
  • We’re now exiting a unique period of negative term premiums and growth multiples are still high. As a result, growth stocks are at risk for possibly minor changes in perceptions of future interest rates and inflation, irrespective of what the Fed decides to do and when.

Dealer Gamma

  • This chart shows the S&P 500 (green line) vs. dealer gamma exposure (yellow/purple line).
  • “The read is simple: positive dealer gamma means that dealer flow attenuates market flow (i.e. the brakes are on); negative dealer gamma means that dealer flow amplifies market flow (i.e. pedal to the metal).”
  • The level on the 4th of March is 30% more than this time last year – which ever direction the market moves it will be get an extra boost.
  • h/t Squeezemetrics and Threebodycapital.

Real Options and Valuation

  • A fascinating read about the use of real options in valuation analysis by Mauboussin and Callahan.
  • They argue it applies to a subset of companies – namely those with adept management, strong competitive position and high asset volatility.
  • They also show why 2020 had characteristics (like decoupling of volatility and equity risk premium) that made this type of analysis more attractive.

JPM Outlook 2021

  • Good outlook piece by JPM Asset Management.
  • Some amazing stats on the state of US federal finance – debt levels are about to hit World War II peaks (as % of GDP), and the projected 2020 deficit (at 16% of GDP) is the largest since 1945.
  • This interesting chart shows the fall in the corporate effective tax rate for large cap stocks over the years.
  • Under Biden’s plan – which will raise $2.2trn by raising and broadening corporate taxes (vs. $700bn Trump corporate tax cuts) – this trend could reverse (costing 10% of S&P EPS).
  • Lots of other interesting observations inside.
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