Archive for the 'Stocks' Category

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S&P 500 equal-weighted index

Published on 6 years, 5 months ago in Asset Allocation, Costs, ETFs, Indexes and Stocks. 0 Comments

Found an old article from 2004 about the S&P Equal Weighted Index, “Buy the S&P 500 with better returns,” which can be bought under the Rydex S&P Equal Weight EFT (RSP). The S&P Equal Weight index holds all the stocks in the S&P 500 index equally (0.2% each). Rebalancing works like this:

If the share price of one of the companies in the index climbs sharply, the Rydex fund pares it down to a 0.2% weighting when the portfolio is rebalanced every quarter. If a stock tumbles, more is added. Thus the fund is continuously funneling profits from stronger to weaker issues; in effect, selling high and buying low.

I wouldn’t even really call this value investing. This is just common sense. If you created a portfolio yourself of 60 stocks, like the S&P TSX 60 index, would you weight them according to their market capitalization? Probably not. If one of the stocks in your portfolio went up by 50% and another went down by 50%, would you sell the one that went up and buy more of the one that went down? Yes, you probably should, if your transaction costs aren’t too high. If you want to think of it as value investing, that’s fine. I guess compared to the run-of-the-mill S&P500 it is certainly more value-oriented:

“This is a poor man’s value tilt,” says Robert Deere, head of domestic equities for Dimensional Fund Advisors, the foremost operator of customized index funds for institutions.

DFA heavily favors small and downtrodden stocks, citing academic research that shows they outperform big-cap growth stocks over long periods. Since this fund does that implicitly, “I would expect it to give you a higher return — no doubt about it,” he says.

The article pooh-poohs the Rydex Equal Weighted Index’s MERs, “The ETF’s expense ratio is 0.4%. That’s more than three times that of the Spider, eroding indexing’s greatest advantage.” But that hasn’t hurt its returns. According to the article the equal-weighted index has beaten the market-weighted index by 2% over the past 10 years,

Rydex says that the equal-weighted index has greatly outperformed the market-weighted index over the last 10 years, delivering annualized returns of 14%, compared with 12% for the index.

However, this document on S&P’s website puts the 10-year annualized returns at 12% and 9.3% respectively. I will definitely be buying RSP over SPY and not because I am chasing after good past returns but because the methodology makes sense.

Popularity: 5% [?]

2 tips from Graham

Published on 6 years, 5 months ago in Benjamin Graham, Investing, Stocks and Warren Buffett. 4 Comments

The Fool.com has an excellent little summary of two of the key concepts from the Intelligent Investor: 1) Buying stocks makes you an owner and 2) Always buy with a margin of safety.

The author expands on 1), saying that as an owner of a stock you have a right to get answers from management about their performance and to demand better. Doing this kind of thing is not out of the reach of people like Buffett or Bill Ackman who own significant portions in common stocks. But I think it is important to think about buying stocks as ownership in a company and not just a randomly fluctuating ticker symbol. It’s helpful to ask, as Graham often does, if this business were a private business, would you buy it at the current market price? 2) Always buy with a margin of safety, is extremely important. The article says,

Graham details just how to buy with a margin of safety, which he calls the “central concept” of investing. Put simply, the “margin of safety” is the difference between the intrinsic value and the price at which a stock trades. For example, a security worth $50 per share but trading at $25 per share enjoys a massive 100% margin of safety. Buying in that situation heavily stacks the odds in favour of the investor.

The margin of safety concept is very important. The term “safety” reminds me that buying low not only improves the odds of a greater return in the future, but ensures greater “safety” against a significant loss, compared to a stock which is trading at a high price. After all, this is the main purpose of investing, as Graham defines it at the beginning of Chapter 1 of the Intelligent Investor, where Graham quotes himself, from the 1934 edition of Security Analysis: “An investment operation is one which, upon thorough analysis promises safety of principal and an adequate return. Operations not meeting these requirements are speculative.” How can one ensure a margin of safety? Graham hints at this early on, in the Introduction, entitled, What This Book Expects to Accomplish: “we shall suggest as one of our chief requirements here that our readers limit themselves to issues selling not far above their tangible-asset value [book-value, or net-asset value] . . . The ultimate result of such a conservative policy is likely to work out better than exciting adventures into the glamorous and dangerous fields of anticipated growth.”

Clearly, Graham was not about speculation, and he favoured a conservative and boring approach to investing. In the Appendixes, written by Buffet, he tells about a man named Walter Schloss. Walter never went to college but took one course taught by Ben Graham at Columbia and later worked at Graham-Newman. His strategy? Buffett recalls Adam Smith wrote about him in Supermoney,

He has no connection or access to useful information. Practically no one in Wall Street knows him and he is not fed any ideas. He looks up the numbers in the manuals and sends for the annual reports, and that’s about it. . . Money is real to him and stocks are real–and from this flows an attraction to the “margin of safety” principle.

Buffet continues,

Walter has diversified enormously, owning well over 100 stocks currently. He knows how to identify securities that sell at considerably less than their value to a private owner. And that’s all he does. . . He simply says, if a business is worth a dollar land I can buy it for 40 cents, something good may happen to me. And he does it over and over and over again. [italics his]

Looking at Walter Schloss’s returns in the Appendixes show some pretty amazing returns. From 1956 to 1984, WJS Limited Partners had a 16.1% annual compound return and WJS Partnership had a 21.3% annual compound return. That compares to an 8.4% return for the S&P500 over the same period. Pretty impressive returns for what sounds like a very simple approach to investing, on the surface. We cannot forget of course that Walter J. Schloss probably spent his entire day pouring over annual reports for many companies, which is no small chore.

Finally, the author of the Fool article offers a glowing recommendation for the Intelligently Investor:

I’ve read and re-read my copy of The Intelligent Investor. It is lined with yellow highlighter ink. Reading that book was one of the most important steps I took toward developing a lucid investment strategy. And I believe Buffett was right when he called it the “best book on investing ever written.”

I second his comments, and that reading this book was one of the best investments I ever made, after getting a university education. I am just now going through it for the second time, only now I am covering it in yellow highlighter ink as well. I’ve had to take a short break this week as I need to buy a new highlighter already, after just the first two chapters!

Popularity: 9% [?]

Risk Premium for Stocks

Published on 6 years, 5 months ago in Economics, Stocks and calculations. 0 Comments

This Fortune article, “Investors Are in for a Shock,” talks about some recent comments issued by Alan Greenspan: “Investors, the Fed chairman intoned, normally demand a substantial ‘risk premium’—a high return in exchange for taking a chance that they may lose money. Now, though, investors ‘accept increasingly low compensation for risk.’” The author goes on to explain:

Greenspan’s argument rests on the idea of the risk premium—the extra return (over a supersafe investment like Treasury bills) that investors have traditionally received for putting their money in peril. For stocks, the risk premium equals the expected real (inflation adjusted) return on a broad portfolio of shares, minus the real interest rate. To calculate the risk premium that stock investors are getting today, we turned to Asness. For expected return, Asness uses the earnings yield on the S&P 500—earnings per share divided by price—adjusted for cyclical swings in profits. Asness pegs today’s earnings yield at 4.3%.

To derive the real interest rate, Asness takes today’s ten-year Treasury yield of 4.6% and subtracts the average inflation rate over the past five years, 2.7%, to get a real rate of 1.9%. So today’s risk premium is the 4.3% expected return minus the 1.9% real interest rate, or 2.4%. That’s about half the 5% margin that stocks have delivered for the past 80 years. So investors aren’t getting the usual extra bang for holding equities.

This will lead to two possible outcomes. At best,

people who buy at today’s levels are in for a sustained period of subpar returns, perhaps 4% or 5% annually, after inflation. That’s because the best predictor of future gains is the price you pay. “High prices and low risk premiums today mean low returns tomorrow,” says Cliff Asness, an economist who runs AQR Capital, a $17 billion hedge fund.

and at worst, “the more dire alternative is a steep fall in prices that makes everything from the S&P 500 to homes what they aren’t today—that is, great investments.”

Popularity: 4% [?]

Doom and Gloom

Published on 6 years, 5 months ago in Debt/Credit Cards, Economics, Investing, RRSP, Real Estate/Housing and Stocks. 0 Comments

There is an interesting chart here, “Asset Class Performance” (got the link from here) showing the performance of various asset classes since 2000 and giving several predictions. One comment said: “I believe all will fall, while bonds will soar. special thanks to debt deflation depression.” The poster leaves no website to track him down unfortunately.

While digging around in Google for the term “debt deflation depression,” I found found this article: “Will the Latest Oil Price Shock Lead to a U.S. and Global Recession?”

Interesting article with some interesting comments as well. The comment that Google picked up was this prediction:

I don’t understand how you can face two decades of real wages lagging productivity world wide, and still not be 100% convinced that a major depression is guaranteed in the coming years. The only way for consumers to absorb higher oil prices would be to take on more debt. As long as debt can be piled on, growth can go on, but there is no doubt that debt growth is the one and only fuel of the present growth.

Take away the US and european overindebted consumers, meaning, take away housing boom asset wealth induced spending… And the world falls into 30’s like debt deflation depression.

And if there’s one way out, I’d like to see it. Apart from aggressive monetising of public deficit, and aggressive policies in favor of higher wages (and I see none of them coming in the coming years), I can’t think of any.

So ?
So is there a question ?
Of course higher oil prices and lower house prices, will force the world into depression. Higher oil prices may indeed speed up the top of the debt-housing boom.

Talk about doom & gloom. Also no website provided for that comment either. No one really knows exactly what will happen in the next few years, but I have certainly seen a lot of doom & gloom predictions popping up lately regarding the stock market, real estate, and the US economy. I try not to let any predictions I read dictate my behaviour. I am invested for the long term and realize that market fluctuations are a fact of life. I am prepared to stay invested no matter happens and to invest consistently in my RRSPs year after year (especially when markets are down).

Popularity: 7% [?]

Cut and run: portfolio update

Published on 6 years, 5 months ago in Asset Allocation, Bonds/Fixed Income, Investing, My Portfolio and Stocks. 4 Comments

After reading this bearish post, “Sell some winners and most of your losers” I am thinking of increasing the cash-equivalents (bonds, money market, cash) portion of my portfolio.

I have an all-equity portfolio right now at TD, but I am just a few months away from transferring all my investments to Clearsight. Just waiting for the no-sell period to expire on some of my funds so I don’t get dinged with early redemption feeds. Once I switch to Clearsight I will assume a 25-75 bonds/equities ratio eventually. So I do not see this as a market timing strategy, but simply a re-allocation to where I will be in a few months/years from now anyways. This is my portfolio at TD as of now:

Fund % of holdings
TD CDN Equity 4.450%
TD CDN Money Mkt 7.680%
TD CDN Small-Cap Equity 4.460%
TD Emerging Mkt 1.770%
TD Global Select 13.320%
TD Science &Tech 3.480%
TD Energy 4.920%
TD US RSP Index-e 10.770%
TD Int’l Index-e 11.030%
TD CDN Blue Chip Equity 14.470%
TD Dividend Growth 14.230%
TD US Mid-Cap Growth 14.230%

The reason the money market fund is there is because that is the only thing I could put money into that doesn’t have a 90-day no-sell period. Before the monthly transfers from Clearsight were in effect I wanted to put my money somewhere (so I couldn’t spend it). Don’t ask me why I don’t have 25% bonds in my TD portfolio. I actually used to have at least that much but for some reason (can’t even remember), I sold them. That’s partly the reason I’m leaving TD. I want an advisor between me and my portfolio to stop myself from excessive trading and pointless fiddling. I think I’ll sell the Science & Tech fund. I’ve wanted to get rid of that for a long time. I have nothing good to say about tech funds or technology stocks in general. History has proved time and time again that they are nothing but trouble. I will probably also sell TD CDN Equity which has had a good run and did not perform as well in the previous bear market as did TD Dividend Growth or TD Blue-chip Equity.

I do not have access to the original article, but here is part of what The Big Picture quoted:

The disquieting overwhelming agreement among Street folk that we’re in a rally mode whose only real danger is that of missing out on the fun and profit that lie ahead is not the sole reason for our skepticism. The inevitable speculative excess that such an attitude begets is another tangible cause for unease. Speculation, of course, is always with us. And thank heavens it is, since it’s truly a vital investment ingredient, adding spice and whetting appetites. Heck, without speculation, Wall Street would be the epitome of dullness. But it’s the classic good thing that you can quickly and easily get too much of.

And whether you feel we’ve reached that state depends mostly, we reckon, on whether you own a stock that’s kicking up its speculative heels or not. What is clear, however, is that there’s no shortage of such stocks and their numbers do seem to be steadily rising. Here, we suspect the revived passion for momentum investing, the opportunistic approach of many hedge-fund managers, reminiscent of the day traders in the late ‘Nineties, to buy anything that moves, and the hyperventilating habitués of the online chat rooms are major stimulants

. . .

Stepping back a ways to get a little broader perspective, it seems to us that we are witnessing the beginnings of the end of the fabled era of easy money. And anyway you slice it, that shapes up as not exactly good news for a lot of businesses that battened rich in that extraordinary era

I do NOT listen to this kind of stuff. I do not buy in to any predictions about what the stock market is going to do next as it is completely unpredictable. I like to have a balanced asset allocation and rebalance from time to time. Predictions like these are not anything to be taken seriously or to lose sleep over; they are only a reminder that it is wise to not be 100% in equities.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Ottawa announces new policy on income trusts

Published on 6 years, 6 months ago in Stocks and Taxes. 0 Comments

The CBC reports that Ottawa has announced new policy on popular income trusts:

On the eve of an anticipated federal election, the governing Liberals announced new tax guidelines Wednesday that make dividends more attractive for investors but leave tax policy on income trusts unchanged. . . . The federal changes . . . would reduce personal income taxes on dividends, which the Finance Department says will help level the playing field between corporations and income trusts.

Note that it says they are only reducing personal income taxes on dividends, which was made more clear later in the article where Monte Solberg, Conservative finance critic is quoted as saying “pension plans will not benefit by this tax break that will go to individual investors.” The article continues:

The tax reduction will take the form of an enhanced dividend “gross-up” and tax credit to make the total tax on dividends received from large Canadian corporations more comparable to the tax paid on distributions of income trusts, and to eliminate the “double taxation” of dividends at the federal level.

The article also provides some important warnings about income trust that should be heeded:

A study released Wednesday says that despite the recent bloodbath in income trusts, the sector may still be overvalued by 28 per cent, or $20 billion. ‘Much of the overvaluation stems from abuses in the financial reporting, valuation and marketing of business trusts,’ concludes Accountability Research Corp., an affiliate of Rosen and Associates forensic accountants. . . . The study says the tax advantage of the trust structure has been overstated as the motivation for the mass conversion into trusts of corporations outside the energy and real estate sectors. ‘Rather, it has been the opportunity for selling owners to receive inflated prices well above what strategic industry buyers and professional investors alone would be willing to pay. Investment bankers have been motivated by the $1.4 billion of inflated underwriting fees that they have received since Jan. 1, 2001. Many have taken advantage of ill-informed investors seeking higher cash-yielding investments.’

This came as no surprise to me, as it was something my advisor told me about a while back. And one further blow to the non-energy, non-real-estate trusts:

Accountability Research said its examination of the 50 biggest income trusts outside the energy and real estate industries found that less than two-thirds of their cash distributions are actual income. The rest is a return of investors’ own capital.

Popularity: 5% [?]

The Three Worst Reasons to Buy a House

Published on 6 years, 6 months ago in Economics, Personal Finance, Real Estate/Housing and Stocks. 3 Comments

I just came across an excellent article, “The Three Worst Reasons to Buy a Home.” It is actually a summary of “this MSN Money article.”

(1) Real estate is better than the stock market. While the real estate market has been red hot in the past few years, with a national average increase of 50% over the past five years, and prices in some markets doubling during that same timeframe, it’s important to keep in mind that past performance is no guarantee of future results. Major real estate recessions are a very real possibility, and it can often take a long time to recover. Moreover, real estate appreciation over the past 40 years has only topped inflation by 1%, as compared to 7% for the stock market. Over the long run, the law of averages has a funny habit of evening things out, so look before you leap.

The MSN article provides further information about past market declines:

Ask homeowners in Boston, Dallas, Houston, Anchorage and Southern California — all of which suffered major real estate recessions in the past 20 years. After dropping more than 20% in the 1990s, Los Angeles home prices took almost 10 years to regain their peak, says real estate expert John Karevoll, an analyst with DataQuick Information Systems.

Two articles at the van-housing blog: here and here show that Vancouver has had drops as well. This should all be no surprise to most people. Yet 3 weeks ago one of my in-laws claimed that “real estate is the best investment ever.” Just last week someone (a recent condo buyer) said to me “you think it’s going to go down?” with complete disbelief. And this week someone else told me they didn’t think prices were going to fall but that they might “level-off.”

The final nail-in-the-coffin for the “real estate is better than the stock market” argument comes from the MSN article: “In the past 40 years, the average appreciation for homes has exceeded the inflation rate by only a percentage point or so. Compare that to stocks, which have bested inflation by 7 percentage points in the same period.”

(2) Rent is the equivalent of throwing your money away. Renting is often cheaper than owning, especially in overpriced markets. Also, you’re not really throwing your money away when you write a check to your landlord — you’re exchanging cash for a place to live, and you’re buying flexibility, freedom, and a lack of homeowner headaches.

The Wealthy Barber provides some excellent commentary against the “rent is throwing your money away” argument:

Paying rent is no more throwing your money away than is buying food or clothing. You need shelter. It’s one of the three basic necessities of life. Renting is one way to acquire that shelter, and in some cases, it’s a very intelligent way.

The last reason to not buy a house, is one that applies to those in the US:

(3) The tax deduction makes it all worthwhile. While it’s true that your mortgage will get you a tax break, it’s not like you’re going to end up profiting. Deductions such as this are like giving someone a dollar for the privilege of receiving 35 cents (or less) in return. While this helps to offset the cost of ownership, it’s by no means a justification for buying a house. Moreover, the other costs associated with home ownership (e.g., insurance, repairs, maintenance, etc.) aren’t typically tax deductible. On top of all this, recent legislation seeks to place a cap on the mortgage tax deduction, meaning that the tax benefits of buying a home may shrink substantially.

Canadians have no mortgage-interest deduction. So this is irrelevant. Not without doing something crazy like The Smith Manoeuvre. One less reason to buy a house for the wrong reasons!

Popularity: 4% [?]

Google shares reach $400, still a good value?

Published on 6 years, 6 months ago in Benjamin Graham, Bill Miller, Mutual Funds and Stocks. 5 Comments

Today, Google’s shares reached $400. It seems unlikely that any true value investor would consider Google (GOOG) to be a good “value.” Renowned fund manager Bill Miller seem to think it is. His Value Trust fund (a fund that I am considered for my US portfolio) has a good portion (4.3%) of it’s assets invested in Google. Bill Miller “follows a value discipline in selecting securities” according to Value Trust fund’s Investment Strategies statement.

Just for fun, I wanted to see if Google meets any of Graham’s basic criteria for defensive investors (or rather, how badly it fails):

  • Google’s price/book ratio from the most-recent quarter is 12.64. Graham probably wouldn’t touch Google unless it’s P/B Ratio was less than 1.5, meaning Google would have to trade in the $50 range.
  • Google does have a positive book value, which Graham considered a must.
  • Google’s current ratio from the most recent quarter is 15. Graham looked for a current ratio of at least 2.
  • Google’s growth rate has been phenomenal. About 400% from 2003 to 2004, and on pace to grow earnings about 350-400% in 2005. Graham looked for earnings growth of 33% over 10 years. Google hasn’t even been around for 10 years yet and Graham would probably classify it as a “new issue” and would stay clear of it.
  • Google has never paid a dividend. Graham looked for stocks with uninterrupted dividends over 20 years.
  • Google has not made money in each of the last 10 years. Graham liked businesses which had some earnings in each of the past 10 years. Since Google was a start-up not too long ago, there was a time within the last 10 years when it did not make money. Basically Google fails this test because it is just too new.
  • Google’s revenue was $3 billion in 2004, on pace for more than that in 2005. Graham recommends investments with annual revenue of more than $500 million (in today’s dollars).
  • GOOG’s valuation is now $119 billion. This meets Graham’s criteria of being a large-cap stock. Although if Google were valued at its book value of $9 billion it doesn’t look so big.
  • P/E ratio on trailing 12-month earnings is about 89. This is well above Graham’s recommended 15.

Google fails several of these basic criteria by such a huge margin that it makes me feel good about not owning Google, and somewhat worried about buying Bill Miller’s Fund. Apparently, in retrospect, Google’s IPO price of around $100 was a good value, and so was $200 3 months later. And it was still a good value earlier this year when it traded at $300. Google has certainly paid off for Bill Miller who apparently bought it at $85. I’m just not sure if he’s skilled or lucky. Some of his other tech stocks have not fared as well, such as Amazon and eBay, both among his top 10 holdings, and he is at risk of ending his 15 year beat-the-S&P500 streak. Miller’s Value Trust fund has only gained 1.82% this year so far, compared to 3.06% for the S&P 500.

Out of curiosity, I checked ABC Funds American Value Fund, a true value fund (no tech stocks here), and is up 6.34% year-to-date as of October 31, 2005. I am a bit more comfortable with ABC Funds’ true value investing approach, but the minimum required investment is just too high for me right now.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Growth vs. Cash

Published on 6 years, 6 months ago in Benjamin Graham and Stocks. 0 Comments

Investors (actually “288 investment professionals” according to MSNBC and “290 mutual fund managers” according to the Globe & Mail) are apparently preferring growth to cash (dividends):

About 49 per cent of the 288 investment professionals quizzed by Merrill in November said they wanted to see companies increase capital expenditure, the highest response since this question was first asked in September 2002, 11 points higher than the corresponding figure three months earlier.

I am not sure what fundamentally changed in the average business to cause this increase in three months. Here’s what Benjamin Graham had to say about this in 1949:

A company’s management may run the business well and yet not give the outside stockholders the right results for them, because its efficiency is confined to operations and does not extend to the best use of the capital. The objective of efficient operation is to produce at low cost and to find the most profitable articles to sell. Efficient finance requires that the stockholders’ money be working in forms most suitable to their interest. This is a question in which management, as such, has little interest. Actually, it almost always wants as much capital from the owners as it can possibly get, in order to minimize its own financial problems. Thus the typical management will operate with more capital than necessary, if the stockholders permit it-which they often do. [italics theirs]

Jason Zweig, in his commentary in Chapter 19 of the Intelligent Investor Revised Edition, notes two interesting pieces of research: “Surprise! Higher Dividends=Higher Earnings Growth” (Arnott and Asness) and “Dividend Changes and Future Profitability” (Nissim and Ziv). However there has been some contradictory research as well: “Dividend Changes do not signal future Profitability.” Without pouring over these papers in detail it’s impossible for me to judge who is right. Zweig does say that “even researchers who disagree with Arnnott-Asness and Nissim-Ziv agree that dividend increases lead to higher future stock returns.” Either way, I think this comment by Zweig sums it up nicely:

Paying out a dividend does not guarantee great results, but it does improve the return of the typical stock by yanking at least some cash out of the managers’ hands before they can either squander it or squirrel it away. [italics his]

Popularity: 8% [?]

iUnits conversions approved

Published on 6 years, 6 months ago in Bonds/Fixed Income, ETFs, Indexes and Stocks. 0 Comments

The iUnits unitholders of the ETFs (Exchange-traded funds) XIC, XGV, XSP, and XIN have approved changes to the underlying investment objectives (ie. they have changed the underlying index being tracked by these ETFs).

  • The new investment objectives of XIC and XGV are to replicate the S&P/TSX Capped Composite Index and the Scotia Capital Short Term Bond Index, respectively. The Funds’ new names are the “iUnits Composite Cdn Eq Capped Index Fund” and the “iUnits Short Bond Index Fund,” respectively. As of November 16, 2005, the ticker symbol for the iUnits Short Bond Index Fund will change to “XSB” on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
  • The new investment objectives of XSP and XIN are to replicate the S&P 500 Hedged to Canadian Dollars Index and the MSCI EAFE 100% Hedged to CAD Dollars Index, respectively. These are the same indexes these funds previously replicated, except the currency exposure is now hedged to reduce the risk of exchange rate fluctuations affecting the returns of XSP and XIN.

Information regarding the increase in the MER (Management Expense Ratio) for XIC is curiously absent from this press release. Not only that, but links to the original press release announcing the unitholders meeting (which mentioned the commission increase) and the information circular outlining the changes to the iUnits ETFs are now absent from the iUnits home page.

Popularity: 4% [?]