Its been no secret that 2011 has been a difficult year. A year that can make you doubt everything you’ve ever learned, tested and retested our models countless times even on vacation. (I refuse to allow the glare of the sun on the beach disable my ability to read our strategy test results on my Ipad. I know, that’s pretty pathetic.)
It should be a given to any investor that no strategy works wonderfully all the time, 2011 is enough to prove that. Long term investing has more to do with perseverance and discipline to your strategy regardless of your emotions and the market environment. With persistence, in the long run you should do quite well.
I’ve never made it a secret that I’ve been a fan of James O’Shaughnessy and his book: “What works on Wall Street”. The RMHI investment model is based on Shaughnessy’s “Trending Value” model but interpreted for Socially Responsible Investors.
But more importantly what strategy has worked the best for the past 50 years?
Well, Shaughnessy has released a new paper on “Trending Value” and it has trounced every other model that I’m aware of for the past 50 years.
“Its annualized return of 20.58% through Sept. 30 crushes the All Stocks benchmark (an equally weighted benchmark of stocks with an inflation adjusted market cap great than $200 million), which has a return of 10.71%. Plus, the Trending Value approach achieves its return with a volatility of 17.69%, lower than the benchmark’s 18.26%.
“The strategy makes use of one of the main innovations from the book: the use of a composite value factor. In the original publication, we identified price-to-sales as the most effective value factor. In this latest edition of the book, we have learned that a composite that combines several different value factors delivers stronger returns and more consistency than any individual factor.
By spreading our bets and ensuring that a stock is cheap in a variety of ways, we believe we can identify better stocks. One version of the composite value factor combines the following measures of value:
• Price-to-Sales
• Price-to-Earnings
• Price-to-Book
• Price-to-Cash Flow
• EBITDA/Enterprise Value
• Shareholder yield (dividend yield + rate of share repurchases)”
Now this gets interesting since RMHI has been using a composite model since the beginning of our model based strategy. It would be fair to say that we were one step ahead of Mr. O’Shaughnessy but now the gap is closing and I find that confirmation of research affirming our strategy a major confidence boost in a difficult environment.
Significant differences remain between O’Shaughnessy’s model and our own. Its impossible to know what the weighting of each criteria are since they have not been provided. In addition, the O’Shaughnessy model focuses on only holding stocks ranked in the top 10% of their ranking system while we have found that holding the top 1% versus the top 10% over time sharply improves returns.
Chart courtesy of American Association of Individual Investors
It should be noted at this time that O’Shaughnessy does not have a public fund that exclusively advertises itself as “Trend Value” but many of the stocks highlighted on AAII as acceptable to the TV and included in his “Tiny Titans” screen are also stocks found in our portfolios in the recent past:
Material Sciences
Core Molding Technology
Datalink
Town Sports International – current RMHI long position
While its obvious to see that the volatility of the portfolio is greater than that of the S&P 500 the returns more than make up for it in the long run.
All the best,
Brad
Long CLUB
Right now the SP 500 is selling off hard to 1126 down 40 points on the day in response to Fed’s remarks yesterday. While they see the weakness in our economy and the growing risks in Europe they’re willing to do little at this point. I must admit to feeling much better hanging on to our SDS hedges and not getting sucked into the rally last week, as this is a moment I’ve anticipated.
The SP500 is near the bottom of its trading range of 1100 to 1230 and this morning I’ve sold our SDS hedge for $25.41.
While the economy is weak the consensus opinion is that the US is already in recession, but this may not be the case: The Conference Boards leading economic index (LEI) rose .3% for the fourth straight month, expectations were for a .1% gain. The Conference Board put the chances of a recession at less than 50% but also suggested risks were rising.
The Ned Davis Economic Timing index has dropped but still remains at a level consistent with modest economic growth.
In addition, the FHFA purchase only housing price index rose .8% in July and while it remains 3.3% below its reading of a year ago it could be showing early signs of stabilization since this is the highest reading of 2011.
Investor sentiment is dismal, no doubt there but one must keep an objective eye on the data. While many consider the Fed’s lack of action as a negative, in my opinion the ball is really in the court of our political leaders. Fiscal policies are likely to have a greater impact on our economy than monetary policy. Monetary policy in balance sheet deleveraging economies is essentially pushing on a string since there is little loan demand. Individuals and corporations are saving capital rather than spending, hence you could drive rates down to 1% across the board and still see little ripple effect.
Lastly, from a technical viewpoint the early August low saw over 1200 stocks on the NYSE make new annual lows. At present the number is 735 which is a positive divergence and an early sign that selling could be exhausting itself.
While this smells acts and trades like a Bear Market, the news is not completely awful, just partially disgusting. Hence, based on my short term trading models we’re at a short term extreme and a bounce should be expected. Till proven otherwise we remain in a 1230 to 1100 trading range.
Brad
No positions
We remain in preservation mode, of which Gold is a part of the plan. However Gold continues its parabolic move upward so we’re seeing modest growth despite market weakness. My estimation is that Gold and now Silver are rising in anticipation of Bernanke’s speech in Wyoming at the end of the week. I zero expectations that Bernanke will present anything other than the next form of Quantitative Easing which will likely fail again.
If you’re an investor who’s stymied to make a decision against all the noise I’ll try to boil it down in a simple to understand process:
1. If the economy does not erode much further and if the European banks do not suffer a major failure then the chances are good that we’ve seen the market low. Selling at this point could be pointless as we could grind higher to the end of the year.
2. If the economy in the US continues to erode and lead us into another recession then don’t wait for the analysts to inform you that the recession is here, do some selling into rallies. Bear markets act quite differently then Bull markets. Bears tend to have very sharp up moves which fail quickly so you must be alert and when you see a high volatility day on the upside, pare back your equity funds. In general, recessions cost S&P earnings on average of 22%. Based on the most recent peak this could put the recession earnings estimate at $75. Apply a 10x to 12x P/E to $75 and you have a downside target in the range of 750 to 900 on the S&P 500. That could mean another 35% to the downside.
3. A major European bank fails. Sell first, sell anything. Europe has their Lehman moment and the risk to US markets is the ripple effect of the need to access capital. Gold will likely take a short term hit in this scenario. Downside risk to equities, see 2.
As the wise man once said: “This too shall pass”. Its not the end of the world but you must keep your eyes open and be aggressive in preservation of capital.
1:33 pm mst Credit Suisse lowers 2012 eps estimate to $85. First major bank to do so.
Long GLD, SLV
After a major market pullback the natural reaction might be to just hang in their for the follow up rally, but not so fast. Market bottoms are a process not a point in time. What I mean is that we may have made a bottom in equities on Monday but the odds are very high that we’re going to have a period of at least a few months to finally exhaust all the sellers. Markets will likely be whipped around like a puppy’s chew toy and I’d rather keep volatility to a minimum.
In the meantime scenes we’re likely to see:
Failure of a major European bank – Its not like they’re going to give a heads up notice. When you start banning short selling you know you’re in a losing battle.
2012 US earnings estimates: They haven’t budged at all. They stand now at $111 for 2012. Despite a plethora of weak economic stats the numbers haven’t moved down at all. They must come down to reality before they can be trusted. The downward revision process will likely be painful if you’re heavily invested in equities.
Commencement of QE3: So far the QE process has been a complete bust. But thats about the only arrow the Fed has in its quiver to aid the economy and its a loser……unless you own precious metals and then its manna from heaven.
While risk at the moment may not be very large, the prospects for Intermediate term gains in equities isn’t rosy either. This is not the time to be excessively bullish or bearish for equities. In the meantime we have lots of cash on hand and in many accounts the long equities are balanced by Gold, Silver, Swiss Franc’s and the SDS.
Gold and Swiss Franc’s still too hot for new money and needs to cool off. Silver is frustrating but could rally.
Happy Friday
Long SDS, GLD, SLV, FXF
Stocks are trading down heavily this morning with the Dow currently down 330. Despite this we’re not having a bad day as our hedges remain in parabolic mode with rumors of a potential European bank failure.
GLD a new all time high of $174 corresponding to $1800 Gold. Laggard hedge SLV trading higher up $1.65 to $38 and the Swiss Franc ETF FXF trading dow $1.21 to $135 after hitting $140 yesterday.
We remain steadfast in holding a great deal of cash as I used yesterday’s bounce to trim more equity holdings. I have yet to deploy cash in any meaningful way towards equities, the timing just isn’t right yet.
If we had seen a strong opening in the US I likely would have added Inverse Exchanged Traded Funds “SDS”, but the weak opening does not make that a smart trade. Hence a better opportunity to play the downside will present itself eventually.
Market bottoms tend to be a process, not a specific point in time. Stocks will fall to a meaningful low then stage a significant bounce that could recapture 30% or 40% of the decline before selling off once more to retest the previous low. This process can repeat itself several times, in successful bottoming action each selloff has less and less intensity.
Buying the retest is a much better option than trying to be the hero and pick the bottom. Early rallies fail almost every time and its devastating to the psyche to think you may have bought the low only to find that a month or two later you’re right back where you started. In 2008 the climactic low was in November but the best investable low came months later in March 2009.
Brad
Long GLD, SLV and FXF
