Saturday, April 27, 2013

The Closing Bell-4/27/13


The Closing Bell

4/27/13

Statistical Summary

   Current Economic Forecast

           
            2012

Real Growth in Gross Domestic Product:                      +1.0- +2.0%
                        Inflation (revised):                                                             2.5-3.5 %
Growth in Corporate Profits:                                 5-10%

            2013

                        Real Growth in Gross Domestic Product                       +1.0-+2.0
                        Inflation (revised)                                                             2.5-3.5
                        Corporate Profits                                                              0-7%

   Current Market Forecast
           
            Dow Jones Industrial Average

                                    Current Trend (revised):  
                                    Short Term Uptrend                                14144-14850
Intermediate Uptrend                              13792-18792
Long Term Trading Range                       4783-17500
                                               
                        2012    Year End Fair Value                                     11290-11310

                        2013    Year End Fair Value                                     11590-11610                                          

            Standard & Poor’s 500

                                    Current Trend (revised):
                                    Short Term Uptrend                                       1550-1624
                                    Intermediate Term Uptrend                       1459-2053 
                                    Long Term Trading Range                        688-1750
                                                           
                        2012    Year End Fair Value                                      1390-1410

                        2013   Year End Fair Value                                       1430-1450         

Percentage Cash in Our Portfolios

Dividend Growth Portfolio                              41%
            High Yield Portfolio                                        42%
            Aggressive Growth Portfolio                           43%

Economics/Politics
           
The economy is a modest positive for Your Money.   The economic data was mixed this week: positives---weekly mortgage and purchase applications, weekly retail sales, weekly jobless claims, first quarter GDP and the final April University of Michigan consumer sentiment index; negatives---the Chicago National Activity Index, the Richmond and Kansas City Fed April manufacturing indices and March durable goods orders; neutral---March new and existing home sales.

 This continues the transition in economic measures from a period in which the stats were largely positive to one in which they are much more mixed.  As I noted last week, we have seen this pattern before so I am not presently alarmed about a possible recession.  However, the amber light is flashing and if the data becomes more negative and remains that way for a month or so, then it will likely be a sign that the current economic upturn may be ending.

For the moment, our outlook remains unchanged:

‘a below average secular rate of recovery resulting from too much government spending, too much government debt to service, too much government regulation, a financial system with an impaired balance sheet. and a business community unwilling to hire and invest because the aforementioned along with the likelihood a rising and potentially corrosive rate of inflation due to excessive money creation and the historic inability of the Fed to properly time the reversal of that monetary policy.’
                       
            The pluses:

(1) our improving energy picture.  The US is awash in cheap, clean burning natural gas.... In addition to making home heating more affordable, low cost, abundant energy serves to draw those manufacturers back to the US who are facing rising foreign labor costs and relying on energy resources that carry negative political risks. 
                       
(2) an improving Chinese economy. The data out of China was once again disappointing this week: lousy PMI and poor trade numbers.  Another two to three weeks of this news flow and I will remove this as a positive factor.

       The negatives:

(1) a vulnerable global banking system.  This week’s edition [as an aside, isn’t it amazing that virtually every week we get more evidence of bankster malfeasance?] comes from a report on how the Italian bank, Monti dei Paschi got into such deep trouble [this is a must read]:

And this study from the Royal Bank of Scotland on central bank purchases of equities.  Also a must read:

Finally, a look at the health of the Italian banking system (medium):

‘My concern here is that: [a] investors ultimately lose confidence in our financial institutions and refuse to invest in America and [b] the recent scandals are simply signs that our banks are not as sound and well managed as we have been led to believe and, hence, are highly vulnerable to future shocks, particularly a collapse of the EU financial system.’

(2)   fiscal policy.  Over the last month or so, I have been somewhat upbeat because our elected representatives managed to negotiate some short term solutions to remove a government shutdown as a risk.  Well, politicians will be politicians.  Being so, Obama elected to utilize the sequester to shutdown some of the most economically/politically sensitive government functions in hopes of getting the GOP to back off the cuts and/or agree to new taxes. 

The poster child for this policy was the furloughing of air traffic controllers which in the past week was causing considerable pain.  Fortunately congress  acted to bring some sanity to the budgeting process and addressed the air traffic controller issue in a way that gets them back to work without impacting the spending cuts in sequestration.    

So there is good news [congress acts fiscally responsible] and bad news [Obama again shows His ideological spots and seems intent on making a compromise as difficult as possible].

That leaves me somewhat ambivalent.  I am encouraged by the congress [especially the senate] move to compromise; but I am shocked/amazed/concerned [?] by Obama’s willingness to inflict pain on the electorate [delays in flying] and the economy [lost revenues to airlines, travel related businesses plus added costs to consumers and businesses] to achieve a political goal---which suggests that entitlement cuts/tax reforms may be more difficult to achieve than I had hoped.

My bottom line remains unchanged: if our ruling class can implement meaningful tax reform and reduce government spending and the deficit, that could help get our economy moving back toward its long term secular growth rate.  If that happens, fiscal policy would become a positive. However, if the Administration is willing to sacrifice the economy to forward its political agenda the odds of achieving meaningful fiscal reform may have diminished.

I am also worried about...... the potential rise in interest rates and  its impact on the fiscal budget.  As I have noted previously, the US government’s debt has grown to such a size that its interest cost is now a major budget line item---and that is with rates at/near historic lows.  Moreover, government debt continues to increase and the lion’s share of this new debt is being bought by the Fed. 

So the risk here is two fold: [a] to the Fed---its balance sheet is levered to the point that Lehman Bros. looks like it was an AAA credit.  So if interest rates go up {and prices go down}, the very thin equity piece of the balance sheet would disappear.  The Fed would then be technically bankrupt. and [b] to the Treasury---it must pay the interest charges.  Hence, if rates go up, the interest costs to the government go up; and if they go up a lot, then this budget line item will explode and make all the more difficult any vow to reduce government spending as a percent of GDP.....

(3)   rising inflation:

[a] the potential negative impact of central bank money printing.    The ECB meets next week and investors seem hopeful that there will be some sort of monetary policy easing.

As you know, I don’t believe that the current massive injection of liquidity is not going to end well; and the more players that join in and the longer it goes on, the worse that outcome will be.

Of the twin evils {recession, inflation} that come with the irresponsible expansion of monetary policy, my bet is that tightening won’t happen soon enough; so the US economy will sooner or later face rising inflation  [a] Bernanke has already said {too many times to count} that when it comes to balancing the twin mandates of inflation versus employment, he would err on the side of unemployment {that is, he won’t stop pumping until he is sure unemployment is headed down}.  That can only mean that the fires of inflation will already be well stoked before the Fed starts tightening and [b] history clearly shows that the Fed has proven inept at slowing money growth to dampen inflationary impulses---on every occasion that it tried.
     
      Granted, the prospect of higher inflation seems out of place in the current environment.  But the stated intent of all this central bank easing is to gun inflation.  I have no idea if they will be successful if ever.  But I can add; and I know that bank reserves [money supply in waiting] are growing daily at an historically rapid pace.

Sooner or later, those bank reserves have to be withdrawn.  It may be in a day, a month, a year, two years or five years.  But whenever that happens, the Fed will have the same problem that it has had every time it has transitioned from easy to tight money; only this time the magnitude of the transition will be exponentially higher than at any time in the past.

The more immediate problem, aside from the fact that this massive injection of liquidity has not accomplished the central bankers’ goal, is that [a] our banks have used this largess for speculative purposes, increasing trading activities and funding the growth of auto and student loan bubbles---and now perhaps a new mortgage bubble and [b] any  new infusion of global liquidity {Japan and perhaps the EU} will likely only exacerbate this problem.

      A corollary concern is that all this money printing increases the potential for a currency war.  ‘ an overly easy monetary policy generally results in the depreciation of the currency of that bank’s country which in turn improves that country’s trade balance and strengthens its economy.  That is great unless its trading partners get pissed and commence their own ‘easy money/currency depreciation’ effort.  At that point, you got yourself a currency war; and that seems to be the direction that the major economic powers are headed in.’ 
     
[b] a blow up in the Middle EastSyria returned this week as the regional flashpoint as Obama began rattling His sword.  My worry is that if violence erupts, it may in turn lead to a disruption in either the production or transportation of Middle East oil, pushing energy prices higher.
                       
(4)   finally, the sovereign and bank debt crisis in Europe remains a major risk  to our forecast.  This week, the evidence continued to come in pointing to a further weakening in the EU economy: record unemployment, reports of wide spread hunger in Greece, losses at Italian banks. 

The problem with a weakening EU economy is that lower economic activity means lower tax receipts which  means wider deficits which means [a] more bail out money is required and [b] the riskier all that sovereign debt on bank balance sheets becomes.  Additionally, lurking in the background is the fallout from the Cyprus crisis, i.e. the introduction of uncertainties about the sanctity of deposit insurance and the imposition of capital controls and along with them the fear that the eurocrats could make another hubris inspired policy mistake but find themselves unable to reverse it as they did in Cyprus.

Germany’s virtuous circle (medium):

The ECB offered a ray of sunshine [?] this week when multiple officials suggested that the EU ditch austerity and join the US and Japan in trying to print their way to prosperity.  To be sure, if that happens, it would likely cement our ‘muddle through’ scenario at least for another year or two.  But as I noted a couple of weeks ago, the EU sovereign economies have survived what seems like the worst of austerity and are healing.  By that I mean their economies are adjusting to smaller governments, reduced cradle to grave social welfare programs, deeply entrenched unions that stifle productivity and less overall government spending.     

So while the ECB switching to an easy money policy has the entire ‘don’t fight the Fed’ world absolutely giddy, I am not sure it is the best policy for the long economic health of the EU.

I include this article less for its market forecast and more for the discussion of      what could be going on in Europe (medium):

   And new poll shows declining support for the EU (medium): 

  Bottom line:  the US economy remains a positive for Your Money, though it appears to be entering a slower growth environment---hopefully only temporarily.  While this could be the precursor to a recession, it is far too early to tell. 

Fiscal policy remains uncertain as Obama appears to have not given up on an ideologically driven political agenda in which He seems prepared to forgo economic growth to achieve it.

Irresponsible Fed policy is being made worse by the triple down, all in, balls to wall Japanese monetary expansion.  Plus this duo may be joined by yet another major central bank---the ECB.  Regrettably,  I am not smart enough to know when Markets will cease to tolerate this irresponsible behavior by the central banks or what the magnitude of the fall out will be when they do.  My guess is that it won’t be pretty and I will likely have to alter our Model.

This week’s data:

(1)                                  housing: weekly mortgage and purchase applications were up; March existing and new home sales advanced but less so than anticipated,

(2)                                  consumer: weekly retail sales were up; weekly jobless claims were quite positive, the final reading of the April University of Michigan index of consumer sentiment was up more than forecast,

(3)                                  industry: March durable goods orders were well below estimates as were the March Chicago Fed National Activity Index and the April Richmond and Kansas City Fed manufacturing indices,      

(4)                                  macroeconomic: the initial first quarter GDP reading was solid though not as strong as expected..


The Market-Disciplined Investing
           
  Technical

The indices (DJIA 14700, S&P 1585) ended the week on an up note, closing  within all major uptrends: short term (14142-14850, 1550-1624), intermediate term (13792-18792, 1459-2053) and long term  (4783-17500, 688-1750). However, they remain out of sync on surmounting their all time highs---at least for one more trading day. 

In the past week, the S&P has gone from challenging the lower boundary of its short term uptrend to being on the verge breaking to a new all time high.  Clearly, the bulls are in control and the question as to whether the recent sideways move is a sign that the Market is rolling over or building a base for another leg up is about to be answered.

As I noted in Friday’s Morning Call, assuming the S&P breaks out to the upside, I think that the next most likely resistance occurs at the upper boundaries of the Averages long term uptrends.  Further, I think that these levels will be show stoppers.  That leaves us with an upside of circa 10% following an over 100% run to date.  Playing for that last 10% is something some traders can do with great skill.  I am not one of those guys/gals.  I am quite happy to forego what is left of the upside in order to have my principal protected against any sudden move to the downside.  As always, if one of our stocks hits its Sell Half Range, I will likely act.

Volume on Friday was down---again sustaining the pattern of higher prices on lower volume; breadth was not good.  The VIX fell slightly, finishing within its short and intermediate term downtrends---still a positive for stocks.

GLD was down though it had a pretty good week.  It managed to bounce above the lower boundary of a newly re-set intermediate term downtrend but remained below the lower boundary of its short term downtrend.  I will be watching any new move to the downside to see if the prior low or the lower boundary of its long term uptrend can be held.  If so, our Portfolios will likely start re-building their positions.

            Bottom line:

(1)   the indices are trading within their short term uptrends [14144-14850, 1550-1624] and intermediate term uptrends [13792-18792, 1459-2053]. The S&P appears poised to confirm the DJIA’s breakout above its all time high.

(2) long term, the Averages are in a very long term [80 years] uptrend defined by the 4873-17500, 688-1750. 
           
   Fundamental-A Dividend Growth Investment Strategy

The DJIA (14700) finished this week about 28.9% above Fair Value (11400) while the S&P (1585) closed 12.2% overvalued (1412).  Incorporated in that ‘Fair Value’ judgment is some sort of half assed attempt at getting fiscal policy under control, continued money printing, a historically low long term secular growth rate of the economy and a ‘muddle through’ scenario in Europe.

The economy along with first quarter earnings season is tracking with our forecast; although as I noted above, it has been a bit more sluggish in the last three weeks.  We have seen brief patches of weakness in this recovery before; so for the moment, this won’t impact the assumptions our Valuation Model.  Nevertheless, the amber light is flashing. 

Fiscal policy developments this week focused on the politics of sequestration; and it did nothing to encourage me that a responsible budget compromise could be reached.  Nonetheless, I remain open to the notion that some sort of negotiated budget settlement could be reached that would in turn change this factor from a negative to a positive in both our Economic and Valuation Models.  That said, the proof of the pudding is in the eating; and we are not there yet. 

Global monetary policy just gets scarier and more confusing by the day.  It now looks like the ECB could join the money printing extravaganza next week.  We are in the midst of a grand, though I fear very dangerous, experiment.  It is very difficult to make assumptions in our Models when we are going where we have never gone before. 

Moving on to Europe, its economy is worsening but a new easy money policy could produce some short term positive effects and would likely assure that our ‘muddle through’ scenario will be given new life.

My investment conclusion:  the economic assumptions in our Valuation Model are unchanged, though we must remain cognizant of the recent deterioration in the data flow.  The fiscal policy assumptions are also unchanged and Obama is doing nothing to help improve this factor.  The monetary policy assumptions are also unaltered.  However, that is a function of not knowing how to model the current, unprecedented explosive growth in global money supply and not because I have confidence in my assumptions.

         The EU recession/financial debt problems keep getting worse; but the ECB is floating a trial balloon that it believes will fix this problem---easy money.  This would increase our ‘muddle through’ forecast’s half life, though I fear it will simply prolong the agony.
     
            There isn’t anything that makes me want to chase stock prices further into overvalued territory.  I remain unconcerned by our Portfolios’ above average cash positions.

         This week, our Portfolios Sold two holdings (SCHW, CME) that failed to meet their periodic quality check for inclusion in our Universe. 

       Bottom line:

(1)                             our Portfolios will carry a high cash balance,

(2)                                we continue to include gold and foreign ETF’s in our asset mix because we continue to believe that inflation is a major long term risk [which is now under review].  An investment in gold is an inflation hedge and holdings in other countries provide exposure to better growth opportunities. 

(3)                                defense is still important.

DJIA                                                    S&P

Current 2013 Year End Fair Value*                11600                                            1440
Fair Value as of 4/30/13                                   11400                                                  1412
Close this week                                                14700                                                  1585

Over Valuation vs. 4/30 Close
              5% overvalued                                 11970                                                    1482
            10% overvalued                                 12540                                                   1553 
            15% overvalued                             13110                                                      1623
            20% overvalued                                 13680                                                    1694   
            25% overvalued                                   14250                                                  1765   
            30% overvalued                                   14820                                                  1835
           
Under Valuation vs.4/30 Close
            5% undervalued                             10830                                                      1341
10%undervalued                                  10260                                                  1271   
15%undervalued                             9690                                                    1200

* Just a reminder that the Year End Fair Value number is based on the long term secular growth of the earning power of productive capacity of the US economy not the near term   cyclical influences.  The model is now accounting for somewhat below average secular growth for the next 3 to 5 years with somewhat higher inflation. 

The Portfolios and Buy Lists are up to date.


Steve Cook received his education in investments from Harvard, where he earned an MBA, New York University, where he did post graduate work in economics and financial analysis and the CFA Institute, where he earned the Chartered Financial Analysts designation in 1973.  His 40 years of investment experience includes institutional portfolio management at Scudder. Stevens and Clark and Bear Stearns,  managing a risk arbitrage hedge fund and an investment banking boutique specializing in funding second stage private companies.  Through his involvement with Strategic Stock Investments, Steve hopes that his experience can help other investors build their wealth while avoiding tough lessons that he learned the hard way.







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