Hedge Clippings | Friday 28 February, 2020

If reading this edition of Hedge Clippings has an element of déjà vu about it, it's probably because we wrote about the "unknown unknowns" of the coronavirus in Hedge Clippings just three weeks ago. At that stage we mentioned that the "outcome was unknown, not only from the medical perspective, but also an economic one".

As with everything to do with the coronavirus, the situation is constantly and rapidly changing  (so much so that they have even changed its name to COVID-19), although as we said at the time, the speed of progression is a known unknown.

What is becoming clear is that the economic effect is significant, and depending on how things unfold from here, it seems unlikely that China will record any growth, not only this quarter, but potentially the one beyond. Given Australia's economic dependence on China there is a strong possibility that our economy will follow suit.

Having seen markets power ahead over the past year or two based on FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) or TINA (There Is No Alternative), the markets are now gripped simply by the "F" word - FEAR.

Fear that has driven the yield on Australian government 10-year bonds to just 0.859%, down from an already low 1.37% at the beginning of the year.

Fear that has wiped out six months of All Ordinaries' gains.

Fear that is likely to keep consumers subdued, with their hands in their pockets (or out depending on your perspective) and retailers having difficulty in keeping their heads above water.

Fear that has people wearing facemasks in the streets of Melbourne and Sydney, in spite of the fact that as yet no one has actually contracted the virus within Australia, with all known cases here resulting from returning travellers.

In reality the fear is potentially more contagious than the virus that is spreading it.

However, there are some worrying realities. Chinese car sales fell 92% in the first two weeks of February. Australia is highly leveraged to China not only from tourism and education, but also for our exports of the raw materials that feed China's now stationary mills and factories.

As yet the US seems less affected, however there is a significant caveat on that given (as previously mentioned in Hedge Clippings) the significant number of so called "Zombie" companies in the US which, having been bloated by cheap and easily available debt, use their entire free cash flow paying the interest bill. That works whilst interest rates remain low (which we expect to continue) but it won't do so if there is any slowdown in economic activity or sales.

In the short term it's highly likely that there will be a further interest rate cut when the RBA next meets, although at current levels there's a limit to how much further rates can fall. Looking further forward a couple of months, and the chances of the much vaunted budget surplus evaporating would seem inevitable.

One might even say both are highly likely to be "known knowns".

Hedge Clippings | Friday 21 February, 2020

Hedge Clippings was interested to note (not sure if "miffed" or "pleased" is correct) that he was no longer (assuming he ever was) a member of the informed public according to the Edelman trust barometer released yesterday. Basically, that's because those the survey defines as the "informed public" are tertiary educated, have top quartile income, are 25-64 years old and are relatively high consumers of news. Sadly we fail on nearly all counts, the exception being the high consumer of news (and not the fake news either). Now many of you might have already guessed that we didn't qualify as "informed", but now it has been confirmed.

Apparently the informed public now increasingly share the negative sentiments of the mass public in Australia - or in other words, we presume, the UNinformed public. So be it. Hedge Clippings is always in line with the term "hedge", or at least generally conscious of the potential for the negative to occur, albeit that we would generally like to think of ourselves as positive. Anyway, enough about us!

This week we had the good fortune to host Chris Watling of Longview Economics who presented his overview and Latest Global Macro and Market Outlook. We have quoted Longview previously, and we would consider Chris to be one of the most well informed economists we have come across - and certainly one of the most interesting and entertaining. As testimony to this, last October Longview correctly predicted the outcome of the UK General Election - and not just the overall result, but the number of seats Bojo would win by. At that time the result was anything but certain, but their prediction of a 70-90 seat majority was smack on the money - except sadly we didn't put a cent on the trade.

We digress (again). One of Watling's slides reminded us that it was Warren Buffett who quoted Aesop who in 600 BC said, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush".  In other words, don't take excessive risks with your capital. Meanwhile, Watling's many charts went on to prove that while there are widespread concerns about earnings ("in the LONG term, it is all about earnings") in fact since 1930 there's been a strong correlation between the US S&P500 and EPS:

Equally, he showed that over the past 39 years there's been no correlation between Earnings and Returns on a one-year outlook, and that over the VERY long term, earnings mean revert:

While over the very short term (1, 3, 5 years) there's no correlation between Valuation and Returns.
 

Most interesting was his points on listening to those he terms the "Armageddonists" such as Jim Rogers who has repeatedly forecast the end of the boom each year between 2011 and 2017. For instance, in 2011 Rogers predicted a "100% chance of crisis, worse than 2008" and so on through to 2017 when it was "the worst crash in our lifetime". For the record, the S&P500 fell 7.7% in 2011 (at least he got the direction right) and in 2015 it was down 3.3%, but for every other year it rose. We note he stopped, or wasn't quoted, predicting after 2017.

That's the history. For Longview's opinion on the future you can contact them here.

Hedge Clippings | Friday 14 February, 2020

Being the old-time romantic type, Hedge Clippings duly (and thankfully) remembered that today marks St Valentine's day, but we'd guess there's not too much kissing aboard the Coronavirus stricken Diamond Princess in Yokahama. Before we're accused of being insensitive (have you ever heard of an insensitive romantic type?) the point we're getting to is whether isolating 4,000 passengers on a ship with known cases of a highly contagious and dangerous disease was the correct strategy.

We have to admit that we wouldn't have a clue WHAT the best strategy would have been, and hindsight is a wonderful view to have, but is there a chance that by keeping all the passengers on board it is just a matter of time before more and more become infected in a somewhat gruesome version of the domino theory?

Meanwhile as our government tries to limit further cases in Australia by extending travel bans from China for non-citizens, and as noted in last week's Hedge Clippings the economic ripple is continuing. The issue is not only affecting direct imports and exports to and from China, with reports that Korean vehicle manufacturers Kia and Hyundai have had to halt car production due to the shortage of some components manufactured in China.

Maybe we're being alarmist, but it would seem that the risks associated with a longer than expected duration of the crisis are considerable - and unknown.

Also in the media this week has been the court case involving the Goldsky Ponzi fund, the founders of which managed to misappropriate large sums of money from unwitting investors. Once again hindsight can be a wonderful thing, but in this case, just like most other Ponzi schemes before (Astarra in Australia, or Bernie Madoff for example), there are some tell-tale signs, and some simple rules to follow.

One is to beware of the marketing spin, but to be fair, smart marketing to gullible or even greedy investors is just what Ponzi operators survive and thrive on. There's an old saying that if "something sounds too good to be true, then maybe it is". Famous sportspeople and other household name "brand ambassadors" should not be relied on for so-called financial advice.

So as a rule of thumb, do some basic research and due diligence. Who is the scheme's administrator, custodian or trustee? Even this can be difficult, particularly for the unsuspecting, or unsophisticated investor chasing exceptional returns. In the case of Goldsky, they falsely claimed to use Citco, a well known global fund administrator for independent pricing of assets, and reporting of returns.

The implied endorsements of industry awards aren't foolproof. Awards are frequently there for the manager's marketing purposes - and have been known to be less than reliable as an indicator of future returns.

Even relying on financial advice or paid for research isn't foolproof, as shown in the case of Shawn Richard's Astarra, which way back pre 2010 cost investors over $100 million in spite of a positive research report written by a party who also consulted to Astarra (for a fee of course), shared office space, and sat on the investment committee of the advisory group (AIOFP) which just happened to be the main distribution channel for the fund.

For the whole sorry tale click here. Suffice to say Astarra was paying advisors high commissions, and lending money to the associated dealer groups. For the record (excuse the pun), Richards was sentenced to 3 years in the slammer.

While on the subject of advisors (and no connection with the above) an excellent and interesting piece of research from Mark Hoven's Adviser Ratings summarising the changes to the advisor landscape in 2019 entitled "Musical Chairs", the key findings of which showed adviser numbers fell 4,378 (-15.6%), three out of every five advisers are now privately licenced, 21% of the industry is now made up of "Micro-licensees" of 10 advisers or less, and that 30% of the entire industry has been on the move (ceased or switched) in some form or another in 2019.

(And finally, for the pedantic types who noticed the varied spelling of the word advisor/adviser, the dictionary allows both.)

Hedge Clippings | Friday 07 February, 2020

"Unknown unknowns"

The above (now famous) response by US Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, to a journalist's question way back in 2002 regarding the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq could well apply to the way the investment (and political) landscape has changed over the past 30 to 60 days given firstly the bushfires, and subsequently the outbreak of the coronavirus.

Some might argue that Australia's bushfires might not qualify as unknown unknowns, as there would have been some who predicted the extent and severity of the fires, without of course the benefit of hindsight which so many people seem to suddenly acquire when the opportunity arises.

The coronavirus, on the other hand, has not only come out of the blue, but the outcome at this stage is surely unknown, not only from a medical perspective, but also an economic one. Alternatively one could argue that the real "known known" is that the economic fallout is likely to be significant depending on the progression of the rate of infection.

And of course, the speed of progression is a "known unknown".

With a lockdown in China post lunar new year celebrations for the Year of the Rat (ironic that it was reportedly a live food market in China that was the source of the outbreak), Chinese industrial production is unknown, affecting both imports of raw materials and output of finished goods. Given that China has become the dominant supplier of so much of what the world consumes, how long before retailers' shelves are showing the signs?

What is better known is the damage to specific sectors in Australia - particularly tourism and education. Even then, the duration of the virus, or China's ability to control its spread, is a known unknown - as indicated by the now out of date statistics in Frazis Capital's insights article here, published earlier this week.

As is the effect on not only Australia's economy, and GDP, but that of the world at large.

Hedge Clippings | Friday 31 January, 2020

With scarcely a month gone in 2020, the year is shaping up to be tumultuous for all the wrong reasons - fossil fuels/climate change/global warming, widespread bushfires across the length and breadth of Australia, and now the World Health Organisation declares China's coronavirus a global health emergency. Retaining a positive outlook and a "glass half full" approach is becoming more difficult by the day, even before we've received another lecture from a disgruntled Scandinavian teenager.

Hedge Clippings had hoped that thanks to his advancing years, the days of having to endure the opinions of disgruntled teenagers over the breakfast or the dinner table were long gone, but apparently that's not to be. At least there's now the option of on/off, mute or volume switch, rather than packing them off to school in the morning or doing their homework while reaching for (another) glass of pinot.

But we digress...

One issue for us Aussies is that we've been used to being in the limelight on the world stage for all the right reasons for so long. Whether it has been for our natural resources such as sun-soaked beaches, wide-open spaces and unique and quirky wildlife, or our sporting prowess as demonstrated in the 2000 Olympics and elsewhere where we've always fought way above our weight. We were used to being envied and were justifiably proud of that. Instead this summer of bushfires, not yet over, has well and truly put us on the world stage for all the wrong reasons, and not only are we not used to it, but we're also not enjoying the experience.

Individually there's little, if anything, we can do to fix it. Collectively there's much more, but that involves a collective agreement, not only of the problem, but also the solution. Unfortunately, while we only hear the views of the noisy minority via both the traditional and social media, the alternative solutions being proposed don't get much of an airing.

Today the Federal and NSW Governments announced that they have agreed to a significant expansion of NSW's gas reserves to reduce the reliance on coal as a primary energy source, but the last time we checked gas was a still fossil fuel, so presumably still emits CO2, albeit possibly at a lower, or cleaner, rate than coal.

But there's still not a whisper in the media (at least not the in left-leaning ABC, Fairfax, or online via Crikey or The Guardian) even mentioning the potential for Small Scale Nuclear reactors. Looking at the website of the Union of Concerned Scientists, their only concern (apart from Donald Trump) is nuclear weapons (which most share) rather than any mention of using nuclear power to resolve the world's unhealthy dependence on coal and other fossil fuels.

Australia by the way, based on data available as at October 2019 as shown in the chart below, is only responsible for 1% of global CO2 emissions, way behind China (29%), the USA (16%) and India 7%.

Hedge Clippings | Friday 24 January, 2020

The summer bushfires of 2019-2020 will undoubtedly go down in history as the worst on record, and this at a point of time when we have yet to see the end of January, and therefore - barring an unexpected deluge - there's more of the same to come. The sheer geographic scale of the fires, covering every state and territory (with the possible exception of the Northern Territory) has been greater than anything previously experienced, bringing home the issue of global warming and/or climate change not only to Australia, but to the world.

What separates this season's bushfires would seem to be the geographic spread and their duration. Previous "worst" bushfires have focussed on losses to life, with Black Saturday (Victoria 2009 with 173 people killed) and Ash Wednesday (Victoria and South Australia 1983 with 75 deaths), each of which, as indicated, occurred on a single day.

Currently debate rages about the cause, but it seems pretty clear (if not simplistic) that the combination of higher temperatures and no or little rain have produced the ideal environment for the widespread fires. Arguments - or excuses - will long continue about who is or was responsible, and accusations will be made about the speed and extent of the response - often by those looking for someone to blame - and no doubt about how to reduce the cause and effect of global warming/climate change in the future.

Of all the comments in the media and elsewhere, there seems to have been little attention paid to the potential for small modular nuclear reactors (SMNR's) to replace fossil fuel power generation, and for those with time and interest over the long weekend this link gives further detail.

Hedge Clippings is neither sufficiently competent or qualified to grasp the technical details involved in SMNR's, but the lack of focus or debate would seem to be an issue, if, as many or most believe, coal and other fossil fuels are a primary cause of global warming and are therefore unsustainable. While solar and other renewable power sources, while environmentally attractive, cannot provide continuous industrial sources of electricity, SMNR's should be part of the debate, assuming the safety issue is addressed.

Meanwhile back to the present, or at least the immediate future: It is too early to tell the damage that the bushfires have inflicted on the economy. Consumer confidence and spending have certainly been affected, and we are yet to see the inflationary effect on food. What will be the final cost of repair, rebuilding and recovery? Tourism - both inbound and local - will have been significantly damaged, and the government's much-vaunted budget surplus would appear to be in danger of evaporating in the after-effects of the bushfire induced heat.

Overall though our thoughts should be, and are, with those most affected either through the loss of life, injury, or loss of property.

Hedge Clippings | Friday 17 January, 2020

Welcome back to a New Year, and depending on your level of pedantry, a new decade. We did notice a few grumbles in the media that technically we're not in the new decade yet, but as far as a simple-minded Hedge Clippings is concerned, we now write the date with a 20 in front (or behind) it, so a new decade it is.

We closed the last edition of Hedge Clippings with a summary of 2019, so it is only natural to open this year's effort with the picture ahead of us. Firstly, however, a thought for all those affected by Australia's bushfires which, for the time being at least, seem to have subsided. Although, there's a long way to go yet, not only for the remainder of this summer, but the years and decades beyond.

Much like 2019 we would expect 2020 to be dominated by geopolitics with a US election, the real Brexit, Putin and Xi all featuring heavily. Effectively, whilst we may think Australia is on the world stage, that means this year remains in the hands of four people of different persuasions, and different levels of political control domestically and globally.

Economically we wouldn't expect global interest rates to change much either way, although the US economy is showing signs of strength this may not translate into higher inflation - yet. Domestically, however, we're facing bushfire induced headwinds - both economically and politically.

From the perspective of investors and their advisors in managed funds, this year is once again going to be a challenge, met with varying levels of success by fund managers as always. 2019 was a stellar year, particularly for global equities (thanks to Donald and low interest rates) and in Australia the small to mid-cap sector. Short of a market shock, expect more of the same, and for the fund managers themselves, the same challenges.

In coming weeks once all funds have reported their December returns we will be providing data on the winners and losers from 2019. In the meantime, below is a roundup of reports received to date, and manager insights.

Hedge Clippings | Friday 20 December, 2019

This is the final edition of Hedge Clippings before we take a break to consider our New Year resolutions for 2020. Before doing that maybe there's time to take a look back on a year that was, by any accounts, eventful - dominated domestically by the Hayne Royal Commission and bankers behaving badly, along with the unexpected victory (except by ScoMo himself) by the Liberals in May's election.

Taking bankers behaving badly, one has to wonder what they were thinking. Did the various boards know what was going on at the branch, online and ATM level - and if so, one assumes they're open to prosecution. And if they did know, and assuming it wasn't deliberate, why didn't they address the issue(s)? Or were they just blissfully unaware and out of touch, in which case the reporting lines to and from management (assuming they knew) were so inadequate that they're simply guilty of incompetence?

As far as the big 4 banks are or were concerned, maybe it was a mixture of the two. Certainly in AMP's case (doesn't that seem a long time ago), it seems the board were well in the know about misleading ASIC, although we're not aware of any prosecutions to date.

Commissioner Hayne certainly consigned a large number of bankers' reputations to the scrap heap. The repercussions will be felt for years to come - probably until the next round of excess or poor behaviour comes to light.

Globally the news was dominated by continued low/slow economic growth, and ongoing rock bottom interest rates, which in turn buoyed equity markets - when politicians weren't getting in the way that is. The US/China tariff war threatened global growth and dominated economic issues, although it seems that political reality (or Donald's re-election) is necessitating a truce early in the New Year.

In the US, and on the global stage, Trump continued to dominate the headlines, and not always for the right reasons, albeit that someone standing up to China and its influence was, we think, long overdue. The Democrats are desperate to keep the pressure on via impeachment, in spite of the fact that (as we understand it) they won't succeed in the Republican-controlled Senate, where a two-thirds majority vote is required to remove him.

Expect the rhetoric to continue from both sides as the next US election draws closer.

And talking of elections, what about BoJo's stunning victory last week? Much of the credit for the Tories' win can be attributed to the blind determination of opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn to stick to an ideology that was clearly going to alienate the Labour party's traditional support base. Thrice married Corbyn looked like (and at 70 years old, probably is) a hangover from a 70's left-wing student movement. He had obviously learned nothing from his predecessor Michael Foot's loss to Maggie Thatcher in 1983, the year Corbyn himself was first elected to Westminster.

Much like our own election in May, where between them Shorten and Bowen shot themselves in both feet over changes to franking credits.

So, there it is for another year. We'll be back in January, raring to go and hopefully slimmer and sharper than before. Many thanks to all readers and recipients of Hedge Clippings over the past 12 months, and wishing you a Happy Holiday in whichever way you wish to celebrate it. May your New Year be full of promise and opportunity, but above all, health and happiness.

Hedge Clippings | Friday 13 December, 2019

As Hedge Clippings figuratively gets put to bed (if not to sleep) by around 2 PM on Friday afternoons it is too early to announce the winner of the UK election just yet, however we'll stick by our call from a few weeks ago - actually referencing our friends at Longview Economics in the UK - that Boris would win comfortably by 80-90 seats.

Based on the estimates of last night's exit polls - although notoriously unreliable as we know - the Sydney Morning Herald is reporting the Conservatives will increase their majority by 50 seats, whilst Labour, under 70's left-wing hangover, Jeremy Corbyn, are predicted to lose 71. The other winner, who could also affect the direction of UK politics going forward, is the Scottish Nationalist Party, expected to end up with 55 seats, a gain of 20.

Although they've yet to rival Australia's recent turnover of Prime Ministers, the British must be heartily sick of elections (3 in less than 3 years), Brexit, and politicians. Based on our own anecdotal evidence while visiting London recently, most of those we spoke with just wanted the endless arguments to end and to get on with it. However, elections in the UK are a lot simpler than ours.

Firstly, voting is voluntary and, for some historical reason we're not aware of, UK elections take place on a Thursday, so if you're busy, the weather's bad (as normal) or you're simply not interested, you don't have to bother. Secondly, you have a single choice to make on a single ballot paper and you can't vote for the upper house even if you wanted to, and you don't have State elections where you have to go through it all over again.

All jest aside, this is one of the more important elections simply because so much rests on it. There is clearly a fork in the road as Britain exits the EU after what many considered was a poor decision to join the then Common Market way back on January 1, 1973 under then PM Edward Heath. It is not often remembered there was an earlier referendum in June 1975 under Harold Wilson, when the "remain" vote was 67% - albeit on a national turnout of only 64%, but significantly higher than the leave vote of 52% under the most recent one.

One assumes that the UK won't be holding another referendum any time soon, given the chaos and division over the past 2 and a half years since David Cameron's ill-judged decision to hold the 2016 referendum which, as a "remainer", also lost him his job as PM.

The last word goes to Dianne Abbott, opposition frontbencher and Corbyn ally who said "It could be much worse.". One supposes that much worse must mean losing ALL their seats?

Hedge Clippings | Friday 06 December, 2019

Hedge Clippings' tends to alternate our weekly commentary between either what's happened in the past (e.g. poor behaviour from the banking sector) or trying to take a forward view on what might be on the horizon, or sometimes a combination of the two.

This week there's the less than surprising antics of Donald in Europe, in Watford of all places, as anyone who has ever been there would attest to, plus the less than surprising news that Australia's economy is holding its head above water, but only just.

As far as the economy goes it seems the average consumer is, either by design or necessity as a result of pressures on the household budget, keeping their hands firmly in their pocket rather than spending the savings from interest rate cuts, or the tax cut delivered a couple of months ago.

New car sales, usually a reliable barometer of consumer spending and confidence have been steadily falling for the past 12 months, and are down almost 10%, and while the Toyota Hi-Lux ute remains the top-selling vehicle, its sales have fallen by 21% over the same period, presumably indicating the pressure the building industry and the bush is under.

And talking of pressure, Australia has taken out a less than commendable silver medal by having the second-highest level of taxes on income and profits (58.8%), second only to Denmark at 63.3% and waa-aay ahead of the OECD average of 34%, or the UK at 35%. Thank goodness Scomo is taking to the public service, although to what extent that will really change things remains to be seen.

It could be worse - had Wee Willie Shorten been elected last time around we'd be heading for the top spot for sure. All jesting (and bias) aside, unless we're competitive, we can't compete (yes, I know that sounds obvious), and we need to be able to do so.

So, looking ahead and we have the UK's election next Thursday, as well as the Democrats' attempt to unseat (or should that be unsettle?) Donald Trump via an impeachment process - a process which we have to admit we don't fully understand. Something to do with politicians not being (or seen to be) dishonest.

Now there's a novel idea!