Posts filed under ‘Profiles’
S.T.I.N.K. – Deja Vu All Over Again
Yogi Berra is a Baseball Hall of Fame catcher and manager who played 18 out of 19 seasons with the New York Yankees. Besides his incredible baseball skills, Berra was also known for his humorous and witty quotes, which were called “Yogi-isms.” Reportedly, one of Berra’s most famous Yogi-isms occurred after he observed fellow teammates, Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, continually hitting back-to-back home runs:
“It’s déjà vu all over again.”
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines déjà vu as “a feeling that one has seen or heard something before.” I experienced the same sense last month as I was bombarded with ominous news headlines. Some of you may recall the panic attack over the PIIGS regions during the 2010 – 2012 timeframe (Solving Europe & Deadbeat Cousin). I’m obviously not referring to the pork product, but rather Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain, which rocked financial markets due to investor fears that Greece’s fiscal irresponsibility may force the country to leave the eurozone and drag the rest of Europe into financial ruin.
Suffice it to say, the imploding Greece/Europe disaster scenario did not happen. If you fast forward to today, the fear has returned again, however with a different acronym spin. Rather than speak about PIIGS, today the talking heads are fretting over S.T.I.N.K. – Spain, Tariffs, Italy, and North Korea.
*Worth noting, the letter “I” in S.T.I.N.K. could also be sustained or replaced by the word Iran, given the Trump administration’s desire to exit the Iran Nuclear Deal. The move comes despite support by our country’s tight NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) allies who want the U.S. to remain in the agreement.
An overview of S.T.I.N.K. unease is summarized here:
Spain: After a reign of six years, Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is on the verge of being ousted to socialist opposition leader, Pedro Sanchez. Corruption convictions involving former members in Rajoy’s conservative Popular Party only increases the probability that the imminent no-confidence vote in the Spanish parliament will lead to Rajoy’s exit.
Tariffs: President Trump is lifting the temporary steel and aluminum tariff exemptions provided to many of our allies, including Canada, Mexico, and the European Union. Recent breakdowns in trade discussions with allies like Mexico and Canada are likely to make the renegotiation of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) even more challenging. Handicapping President Trump’s global trade rhetoric can be difficult, especially given the periodic inconsistency in Trump’s actions relative to his words. Time will tell whether Trump’s tough trade talk is merely a negotiating tool designed to gain better trade terms for the U.S., or whether this strategy backfires, and trading partner allies choose to retaliate with tariffs of their own. For example, the EU has threatened to impose import taxes on bourbon; Mexico has warned about levying taxes on American farm products; and Canada is focused on the same steel and aluminum tariffs that Trump has been referencing.
Italy: Pandemonium temporarily set in when Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella essentially vetoed the finance minister selection by Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. Initially, Italian bond prices plummeted and interest rates spiked as fears of an Italian exit from the euro currency, but after the rejection of the original finance chief, the populist Five Star and League coalition parties agreed to institute a more moderate finance minister and bond prices/rates stabilized.
North Korea: The on-again-off-again denuclearization summit between the U.S. and North Korea may actually take place in Singapore on June 12th. In recent days, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has held face-to-face meetings with North Korean General Kim Yong Chol in New York. The senior North Korean leader is also planning to hand deliver a letter from Korean leader Kim Jong Un to President Trump in preparation for the nuclear summit. The U.S. is attempting to incentivize North Korea with economic relief in return for North Korea giving up their nuclear capabilities.
Thanks to S.T.I.N.K., volatility has risen, but the downdrafts have been relatively muted as evidenced by the moves in the stock averages this month. More specifically, the S&P 500 index rose +2.2% last month, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq index catapulted +5.3%. Nevertheless, not all indexes are created equally as witnessed by the Dow Jones Industrial Index, which climbed a more muted +1.1% for the month. For the year, the Dow is down -1.2%, while the S&P and Nasdaq indexes are higher by +1.2% and +7.8%, respectively.
Ever since the 2008-2009 financial crisis, observers have incessantly and anxiously waited for the return of a “stinky” economic and/or geopolitical catastrophe that will wreck the American economy. Unfortunately for the pessimists, stock prices have more than quadrupled in value since early-2009. Yogi Berra may have been correct when he said, “It’s déjà vu all over again,” but just like PIIGS concerns failed to cause global economic contagion, STINK concerns are unlikely to cause significant economic damage either. Over the last year, the only “stink” occurring has been the stink of cool, hard cash.
Wade W. Slome, CFA, CFP®
Plan. Invest. Prosper.
This article is an excerpt from a previously released Sidoxia Capital Management complimentary newsletter (June 1, 2018). Subscribe on the right side of the page for the complete text.
DISCLOSURE: Sidoxia Capital Management (SCM) and some of its clients hold positions in certain exchange traded funds (ETFs), but at the time of publishing had no direct position in any other security referenced in this article. No information accessed through the Investing Caffeine (IC) website constitutes investment, financial, legal, tax or other advice nor is to be relied on in making an investment or other decision. Please read disclosure language on IC Contact page.
A Recipe for Disaster
Justice does not always get served in the stock market because financial markets are not always efficient in the short-run (see Black-Eyes to Classic Economists). However, over the long-run, financial markets usually get it right. And when the laws of economics and physics are functioning properly, I must admit it, I do find it especially refreshing.
There can be numerous reasons for stocks to plummet in price, but common attributes to stock price declines often include profit losses and/or disproportionately high valuations (a.k.a. “bubbles”). Normally, your garden variety, recipe for disaster consists of one part highly valued company and one part money-losing operation (or deteriorating financials). The reverse holds true for a winning stock recipe. Flavorful results usually involve cheaply valued stocks paired with improving financial results.
Unfortunately, just because you have the proper recipe of investment ingredients, doesn’t mean you will immediately get to enjoy a satisfying feast. In other words, there isn’t a dinner bell rung to signal the timing of a crash or spike – sometimes there is a conspicuous catalyst and sometimes there is not. Frequently, investments require a longer expected bake time before the anticipated output is produced.
As I alluded to at the beginning of my post, justice is not always served immediately, but for some high profile IPOs, low-quality ingredients have indeed produced low-quality results.
Snap Inc. (SNAP): Let’s first start with the high-flying social media darling Snap, which priced its IPO at $17 per share in March, earlier this year. How can a beloved social media company that generates $515 million in annual revenue (up +286% in the recent quarter) see its stock plummet -48% from its high of $29.44 to $15.27 in just four short months? Well, one way of achieving these dismal results is to burn through more cash than you’re generating in revenue. Snap actually scorched through more than -$745 million dollars over the last year, as the company reported accounting losses of -$618 million (excluding -$2 billion of stock-based compensation expenses). We’ll find out if the financial bleeding will eventually stop, but even after this year’s stock price crash, investors are still giving the company the benefit of the doubt by valuing the company at $18 billion today.
Source: Barchart.com
Blue Apron Holdings Inc. (APRN): Online meal delivery favorite, Blue Apron, is another company suffering from the post-IPO blues. After initially targeting an opening IPO price of $15-$17 per share a few weeks ago, tepid demand forced Blue Apron executives to cut the price to $10. Fast forward to today, and the stock closed at $7.36, down -26% from the IPO price, and -57% below the high-end of the originally planned range. Although the company isn’t hemorrhaging losses at the same absolute level of Snap, it’s not a pretty picture. Blue Apron has still managed to burn -$83 million of cash on $795 million in annual sales. Unlike Snap (high margin advertising revenues), Blue Apron will become a low-profit margin business, even if the company has the fortune of reaching high volume scale. Even after considering Blue Apron’s $1 billion annual revenue run rate, which is 50% greater than Snap’s $600 million run-rate, Blue Apron’s $1.4 billion market value is sadly less than 10% of Snap’s market value.
Source: Barchart.com
Groupon Inc. (GRPN): Unlike Snap and Blue Apron, Groupon also has the flattering distinction of reporting an accounting profit, albeit a small one. However, on a cash-based analysis, Groupon looks a little better than the previous two companies mentioned, if you consider an annual -$7 million cash burn “better”. Competition in the online discounting space has been fierce, and as such, Groupon has experienced a competitive haircut in its share price. Groupon’s original IPO price was $20 in January 2011 before briefly spiking to $31. Today, the stock has languished to $4 (-87% from the 2011 peak).
Source: Barchart.com
Stock Market Recipe?
Similar ingredients (i.e., valuations and profit trajectory) that apply to stock performance also apply to stock market performance. Despite record corporate profits (growing double digits), low unemployment, low inflation, low-interest rates, and a recovering global economy, bears and even rational observers have been worried about a looming market crash. Not only have the broader masses been worried today, yesterday, last week, last month, and last year, but they have also been worried for the last nine years. As I have documented repeatedly (see also Market Champagne Sits on Ice), the market has more than tripled to new record highs since early 2009, despite the strong under-current of endless cynicism.
Historically market tops have been marked by a period of excesses, including excessive emotions (i.e., euphoria). It has been a long time since the last recession, but economic downturns are also often marked with excessive leverage (e.g., housing in the mid-2000s), excessive capital (e.g., technology IPOs [Initial Public Offerings] in the late-1990s), and excessive investment (e.g., construction / manufacturing in early-1990s).
To date, we have seen little evidence of these markers. Certainly there have been pockets of excesses, including overpriced billion dollar tech unicorns (see Dying Unicorns), exorbitant commercial real estate prices, and a bubble in global sovereign debt, but on a broad basis, I have consistently said stocks are reasonably priced in light of record-low interest rates, a view also held by Warren Buffett.
The key lessons to learn, whether you are investing in individual stocks or the stock market more broadly, are that prices will follow the direction of earnings over the long-run. This helps explain why stock prices always go down in recessions (and are volatile in anticipation of recessions).
If you are looking for a recipe for disaster, just find an overpriced investment with money-losing (or deteriorating) characteristics. Avoiding these investments and identifying investments with cheap growth qualities is much easier said than done. However, by mixing an objective, quantitative framework with more artistic fundamental analysis, you will be in a position of enjoying tastier returns.
Wade W. Slome, CFA, CFP®
Plan. Invest. Prosper.
DISCLOSURE: Sidoxia Capital Management (SCM) and some of its clients hold positions in certain exchange traded funds (ETFs), but at the time of publishing, SCM had no direct position in SNAP, APRN, GRPN, or any other security referenced in this article. No information accessed through the Investing Caffeine (IC) website constitutes investment, financial, legal, tax or other advice nor is the information to be relied on in making an investment or other decision. Please read disclosure language on IC Contact page.
Hot Dogs, Political Fireworks, and Our Nation’s Birthday
This article is an excerpt from a previously released Sidoxia Capital Management complimentary newsletter (July 3, 2017). Subscribe on the right side of the page for the complete text.
The 4th of July has arrived once again as we celebrate our country’s 241st birthday of independence. Besides being a time to binge on hot dogs, apple pie, fireworks, and baseball, this national holiday allows Americans to also reflect on the greatness created by our nation’s separation from the British Empire.
As our Founding Fathers fought for freedom and believed in a more prosperous future, I’m not sure if the signers of our Declaration of Independence (Below [left to right]: Roger Sherman, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Robert Livingston) envisioned a world with tweeting Presidents, driverless Uber taxis, internet dating, biotechnology medical breakthroughs, cloud storage, and countless other innovations that have raised the standard of living for billions of people around the world.
(These Founding Fathers may use different pictures for their Facebook profile, if they were alive today.)
I tend to agree with the wealthiest billionaire investor on the planet, Warren Buffett, that being born in the United States is the equivalent of winning the “Ovarian Lottery.” The opportunities for finding success are exponentially higher, if you were born in America vs. Bangladesh, for example. Surprisingly, the U.S. only accounts for about 4% of the global population (325 million out of 7.5 billion world total). However, even though we Americans make up such a small portion of the of the people on the planet, we still manage to generate over $18 trillion in goods and services, which makes us the world’s largest economy. As the #1 economy, we account for almost 25% of the world’s total economic output (see table & graphic below).
| Rank | Country | GDP (Nominal, 2015) | Share of Global Economy (%) |
| #1 | United States | $18.0 trillion | 24.3% |
| #2 | China | $11.0 trillion | 14.8% |
| #3 | Japan | $4.4 trillion | 5.9% |
| #4 | Germany | $3.4 trillion | 4.5% |
| #5 | United Kingdom | $2.9 trillion | 3.9% |
Source: Visual Capitalist
How do we create six times the output of our population (i.e., 4% of world’s population producing 25% of the world’s output)? Despite the nasty, imperfect, mudslinging politics we live through daily, the U.S. has perfected the art of capitalism, which has landed us on top of the economic Mt. Everest. Although, there is always room for improvement, culturally, the winning “entrepreneurial” strain is born into our American DNA. The recent merger announcement between Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) and Whole Foods (WFM), the leading natural and organic foods supermarket, is evidence of this entrepreneurial strain. Amazon has come a long way and gained significant steam since its founding in July 1994 by CEO Jeff Bezos. Consequently, the momentum of this internet giant has it steamrolling the entire retail industry, which has led to a flood of store closings, including department store chains, Macy’s, J.C. Penney, Sears and Kmart. The Amazon-Whole Foods merger announcement was not a huge surprise to my family because we actually order more than half of our groceries from AmazonFresh (Amazon’s food delivery program). What’s more, since I despise shopping, I continually find myself taking advantage of Amazon’s “Prime Now” 2-hour delivery option to my office, which is free to all Prime subscribers. It won’t be long before Amazon’s multi-channel strategy will allow me to make same-day orders for groceries, electronics, and general merchandise from my office, then pick up those items on my way home from work at the local Whole Foods store.
Leading the Pack
Replicating this competitive advantage around the world is a challenge for competing countries, and our nation remains leap years ahead of others, regardless of their efforts. However, the United States does not have a monopoly on capitalism. We are slowly exporting our entrepreneurial secret sauce abroad with the help of technology and globalization. Just consider these three Chinese companies alone are valued at almost $1 trillion (Alibaba Group $360B [BABA]; Tencent Holdings $340B [TCEHY]; and China Mobile $220B [CHL]), and the largest expected IPO (Initial Public Offering) in the world could be a Saudi Arabian company valued at $2 trillion (Saudi Aramco). When 96% of the world’s population lies outside of the U.S., this reality helps explain why exporting our advancements should not be considered a bad thing. In fact, a growing international pie means more American jobs and more dollars will flow back to the U.S., as we export more value-added products and services abroad.
Even if other countries are narrowing the entrepreneurial competitive gap with the United States, we still remain a beacon of light for others to follow. Despite what you may read in the newspaper or hear on the TV, Americans are dramatically better off financially over the last 20 years. Not only has net worth increased spectacularly, but consumers have also responsibly reduced debt leverage ratios (see chart below).
Source: Calafia Beach Pundit
If you were a bright CEO working for an innovative new start-up company, would you choose to launch your company in a closed, censored society like China? How about a fractured Britain that is pushing to break away from the European Union? Better yet, how about Japan with its exploding debt levels, a declining population, and a stock market that is about half the level it peaked at 28 years ago? Do emerging markets like Brazil with widespread corruption scandals blanketing a new president (after a recently impeached president) seem like the best location for a hot new venture? The answer to all these questions is a resounding “no”, even when compared to the warts and flaws that come with our durable democracy.
Political Pyrotechnics
Besides the bombs bursting in air during the 4th of July celebration, there were plenty of political fireworks blasting in our nation’s capital last month. No matter what side of the political fence you stand on, last month was explosive. Consider ousted FBI Director Jim Comey’s impassioned testimony relating to his firing by President Donald Trump; the contentious Attorney General Jeff Sessions Senate Intelligence Committee interview; the politically driven Republican baseball shooting; and the Special Counsel leader Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference and potential Trump administration collusion into the 2016 elections.
Despite the combative atmosphere in Washington D.C., the stock market managed to notch another record high last month, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average index advancing another 340.98 points (+1.6%) for the month, and +8.0% for the first half of 2017. As I have written numerous times, the scary headlines accumulating since 2009 have prevented investors, strategists, economists, and even professionals from adequately participating in the almost quadrupling in stock prices since early 2009. Unfortunately, to the detriment of many, large swaths of investors who were burned by the 2008-2009 Financial Crisis have been scarred to almost permanent risk aversion. The fact of the matter is stock prices care more about economic factors than political / news headlines (see Moving on Beyond Politics).
The bitter, vitriolic political discourse is unlikely to disappear anytime soon, so do yourself a favor, and focus on the more important factors driving financial markets to new record highs – mainly corporate profits, interest rates, valuations, and sentiment (see Don’t Be a Fool). During this year’s 4th of July, partaking in hot dogs, apple pie, fireworks, and baseball are wholly encouraged, but please also take the time to celebrate and acknowledge the magnitude of our country’s greatness. That’s a birthday wish, I think we can all agree upon.
Wade W. Slome, CFA, CFP®
Plan. Invest. Prosper.
DISCLOSURE: Sidoxia Capital Management (SCM) and some of its clients hold positions in AMZN and certain exchange traded funds (ETFs), but at the time of publishing had no direct position in WFM, BABA, TCEHY, CHL, or any other security referenced in this article. No information accessed through the Investing Caffeine (IC) website constitutes investment, financial, legal, tax or other advice nor is to be relied on in making an investment or other decision. Please read disclosure language on IC Contact page.
Munger: Buffett’s Wingman & the Art of Stock Picking
Simon had Garfunkel, Batman had Robin, Hall had Oates, Dr. Evil had Mini Me, Sonny had Cher, and Malone had Stockton. In the investing world, Buffett has Munger. Charlie Munger is one of the most successful and famous wingmen of all-time – evidenced by Berkshire Hathaway Corporation’s (BRKA/B) outperformance of the S&P 500 index by approximately +624% from 1977 – 2009, according to MarketWatch. Munger not only provides critical insights to his legendary billionaire boss, Warren Buffett, but he was also Chairman of Berkshire’s insurance subsidiary, Wesco Financial Corporation from 1984 until 2011. The magic of this dynamic duo began when they met at a dinner party 58 years ago (1959).
In an article he published in 2006, the magnificent Munger describes the “Art of Stock Picking” in a thorough review about the secrets of equity investing. We’ll now explore some of the 93-year-old’s sage advice and wisdom.
Model Building
Charlie Munger believes an individual needs a solid general education before becoming a successful investor, and in order to do that one needs to study and understand multiple “models.”
“You’ve got to have models in your head. And you’ve got to array your experience both vicarious and direct on this latticework of models. You may have noticed students who just try to remember and pound back what is remembered. Well, they fail in school and in life. You’ve got to hang experience on a latticework of models in your head.”
Although Munger indicates there are 80 or 90 important models, the examples he provides include mathematics, accounting, biology, physiology, psychology, and microeconomics.
Advantages of Scale
Great businesses in many cases enjoy the benefits of scale, and Munger devotes a good amount of time to this subject. Scale advantages can be realized through advertising, information, psychological “social proofing,” and structural factors.
The newspaper industry is an example of a structural scale business in which a “winner takes all” phenomenon applies. Munger aptly points out, “There’s practically no city left in the U.S., aside from a few very big ones, where there’s more than one daily newspaper.”
General Electric Co. (GE) is another example of a company that uses scale to its advantage. Jack Welch, the former General Electric CEO, learned an early lesson. If the GE division is not large enough to be a leader in a particular industry, then they should exit. Or as Welch put it, “To hell with it. We’re either going to be # 1 or #2 in every field we’re in or we’re going to be out. I don’t care how many people I have to fire and what I have to sell. We’re going to be #1 or #2 or out.”
Bigger Not Always Better
Scale comes with its advantages, but if not managed correctly, size can weigh on a company like an anchor. Munger highlights the tendency of large corporations to become “big, fat, dumb, unmotivated bureaucracies.” An implicit corruption also leads to “layers of management and associated costs that nobody needs. Then, while people are justifying all these layers, it takes forever to get anything done. They’re too slow to make decisions and nimbler people run circles around them.”
Becoming too large can also create group-think, or what Munger calls “Pavlovian Association.” Munger goes onto add, “If people tell you what you really don’t want to hear what’s unpleasant there’s an almost automatic reaction of antipathy…You can get severe malfunction in the high ranks of business. And of course, if you’re investing, it can make a lot of difference.”
Technology: Benefit or Burden?
Munger recognizes that technology lowers costs for companies, but the important question that many managers fail to ask themselves is whether the benefits from technology investments accrue to the company or to the customer? Munger summed it up here:
“There are all kinds of wonderful new inventions that give you nothing as owners except the opportunity to spend a lot more money in a business that’s still going to be lousy. The money still won’t come to you. All of the advantages from great improvements are going to flow through to the customers.”
Buffett and Munger realized this lesson early on when productivity improvements gained from technology investments in the textile business all went to the buyers.
Surfing the Wave
When looking for good businesses, Munger and Buffett are looking to “surf” waves or trends that will generate healthy returns for an extended period of time. “When a surfer gets up and catches the wave and just stays there, he can go a long, long time. But if he gets off the wave, he becomes mired in shallows,” states Munger. He notes that it’s the “early bird,” or company that identifies a big trend before others that enjoys the spoils. Examples Munger uses to illustrate this point are Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Intel Corp. (INTC), and National Cash Register from the old days.
Large profits will be collected by those investors that can identify and surf those rare large waves. Unfortunately, taking advantage of these rare circumstances becomes tougher and tougher for larger investors like Berkshire. If you’re an elephant trying to surf a wave, you need to find larger and larger waves, and even then, due to your size, you will be unable to surf as long as small investors.
Circle of Competence
Circle of competence is not a new subject discussed by Buffett and Munger, but it is always worth reviewing. Here’s how Munger describes the concept:
“You have to figure out what your own aptitudes are. If you play games where other people have the aptitudes and you don’t, you’re going to lose. And that’s as close to certain as any prediction that you can make. You have to figure out where you’ve got an edge. And you’ve got to play within your own circle of competence.”
For Munger and Buffett, sticking to their circle of competence means staying away from high-technology companies, although more recently they have expanded this view to include International Business Machines (IBM), which they are now a large investor.
Market Efficiency or Lack Thereof
Munger acknowledges that financial markets are quite difficult to beat. Since the markets are “partly efficient and partly inefficient,” he believes there is a minority of individuals who can outperform the markets. To expand on this idea, he compares stock investing to the pari-mutuel system at the racetrack, which despite the odds stacked against the bettor (17% in fees going to the racetrack), there are a few individuals who can still make decent money.
The transactional costs are much lower for stocks, but success for an investor still requires discipline and patience. As Munger declares, “The way to win is to work, work, work, work and hope to have a few insights.”
Winning the Game – 10 Insights / 20 Punches
As the previous section implies, outperformance requires patience and a discriminating eye, which has allowed Berkshire to create the bulk of its wealth from a relatively small number of investment insights. Here’s Munger’s explanation on this matter:
“How many insights do you need? Well, I’d argue: that you don’t need many in a lifetime. If you look at Berkshire Hathaway and all of its accumulated billions, the top ten insights account for most of it….I don’t mean to say that [Warren] only had ten insights. I’m just saying, that most of the money came from ten insights.”
Chasing performance, trading too much, being too timid, and paying too high a price are not recipes for success. Independent thought accompanied with selective, bold decisions is the way to go. Munger’s solution to these problems is to provide investors with a Buffett 20-punch ticket:
“I could improve your ultimate financial welfare by giving you a ticket with only 20 slots in it so that you had 20 punches ‑ representing all the investments that you got to make in a lifetime. And once you’d punched through the card, you couldn’t make any more investments at all.”
The great thing about Munger and Buffett’s advice is that it is digestible by the masses. Like dieting, investing can be very simple to understand, but difficult to execute, and legends like these always remind us of the important investing basics. Even though Charlie Munger may be slowing down a tad at 93-years-old, Warren Buffett and investors everywhere are blessed to have this wingman around spreading his knowledge about investing and the art of stock picking.
Wade W. Slome, CFA, CFP®
Plan. Invest. Prosper.
DISCLOSURE: Sidoxia Capital Management (SCM) and some of its clients own certain exchange traded funds, BRKA/B, GE, MSFT, INTC, IBM but at the time of this 3/12/17 updated publishing, SCM had no direct position in National Cash Register, or any other security referenced in this article. No information accessed through the Investing Caffeine (IC) website constitutes investment, financial, legal, tax or other advice nor is to be relied on in making an investment or other decision. Please read disclosure language on IC “Contact” page.
Brain or Machine? Investing Holy Grail
Source: Photobucket
Paul Meehl was a versatile academic who held numerous faculty positions, covering the diverse disciplines of psychology, law, psychiatry, neurology, and yes, even philosophy. The crux of his research was focused on how well clinical analysis fared versus statistical analysis. Or in other words, he looked to answer the controversial question, “What is a better predictor of outcomes, a brain or an equation?” His conclusion was straightforward – mechanical methods using quantitative measures are much more efficient than the professional judgments of humans in coming to more accurate predictions.
Those who have read my book, How I Managed $20,000,000,000.00 by Age 32 know where I stand on this topic – I firmly believe successful investing requires a healthy balance between both art and science (i.e., “brain and equation”). A trader who only relies on intuition and his gut to make all of his/her decisions is likely to fall on their face. On the other hand, a quantitative engineer’s sole dependence on a robotic multi-factor model to make trades is likely to fail too. My skepticism is adequately outlined in my Butter in Bangladesh article, which describes how irrational statistical games can be misleading and overused.
As much as I would like to attribute all of my investment success to my brain, the emotion-controlling power of numbers has played an important role in my investment accomplishments as well. The power of numbers simply cannot be ignored. More than 50 years after Paul Meehl’s seminal research was published, about two hundred studies comparing brain power versus statistical power have shown that machines beat brains in predictive accuracy in the majority of cases. Even when expert judgments have won over formulas, human consistency and reliability have muddied the accuracy of predictions.
Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize winner in Economics, highlights another important decision making researcher, Robyn Dawes. What Dawes discovers in her research is that the fancy and complex multiple regression methods used in conventional software adds little to no value in the predictive decision-making process. Kahneman describes Dawes’s findings more specifically here:
“A formula that combines these predictors with equal weights is likely to be just as accurate in predicting new cases as the multiple-regression formula…Formulas that assign equal weights to all the predictors are often superior, because they are not affected by accidents of sampling…It is possible to develop useful algorithms without any prior statistical research. Simple equally weighted formulas based on existing statistics or on common sense are often very good predictors of significant outcomes.”
The results of Dawes’s classic research have significant application to the field of stock picking. As a matter of fact, this type of research has had a significant impact on Sidoxia’s stock selection process.
How Sweet It Is!
In the emotional roller-coaster equity markets we’ve experienced over the last decade or two, overreliance on gut-driven sentiments in the investment process has left masses of casualties in the wake of losses. If you doubt the destructive after-effects on investors’ psyches, then I urge you to check out my Fund Flow Paradox article that shows the debilitating effects of volatility on investors’ behavior.
In order to more objectively exploit investment opportunities, the Sidoxia Capital Management investment team has successfully formed and utilized our own proprietary quantitative tool. The results were so sweet, we decided to call it SHGR (pronounced “S-U-G-A-R”), or Sidoxia Holy Grail Ranking.
My close to two decades of experience at William O’Neil & Co., Nicholas Applegate, American Century Investments, and now Sidoxia Capital Management has allowed me to build a firm foundation of growth investing competency – however understanding growth alone is not sufficient to succeed. In fact, growth investing can be hazardous to your investment health if not kept properly in check with other key factors.
Here are some of the key factors in our Sidoxia SHGR ranking system:
Valuation:
- Free cash flow yield
- Price/earnings ratio
- PEG ratio
- Dividend yield
Quality:
- Financials: Profit margin trends; balance sheet leverage
- Management Team: Track record; capital stewardship
- Market Share: Industry position; runway for growth
Contrarian Sentiment Indicators:
- Analyst ratings
- Short interest
Growth:
- Earnings growth
- Sales growth
Our proprietary SHGR ranking system not only allows us to prioritize our asset allocation on existing stock holdings, but it also serves as an efficient tool to screen new ideas for client portfolio additions. Most importantly, having a quantitative model like Sidoxia’s Holy Grail Ranking system allows investors to objectively implement a disciplined investment process, whether there is a presidential election, Fiscal Cliff, international fiscal crisis, slowing growth in China, and/or uncertain tax legislation. At Sidoxia we have managed to create a Holy Grail machine, but like other quantitative tools it cannot replace the artistic powers of the brain.
Wade W. Slome, CFA, CFP®
Plan. Invest. Prosper.
DISCLOSURE: Sidoxia Capital Management (SCM) and some of its clients own certain exchange traded funds, but at the time of publishing SCM had no direct position in any other security referenced in this article. No information accessed through the Investing Caffeine (IC) website constitutes investment, financial, legal, tax or other advice nor is to be relied on in making an investment or other decision. Please read disclosure language on IC “Contact” page.
Rise of the Robots
We’re losing our jobs to robots, and they will destroy our economy. It makes for a great news soundbite, but has no factual basis in reality, if you look at the actual trajectory of automation and technology innovations throughout history. The global economy did not collapse when the steam engine replaced the oar; the automobile supplanted the horse; the computer became a substitute for the abacus; and the combine killed off the farmer. The same notion holds true today as robots become more ubiquitous in our daily commercial and personal lives.
From the early, post-revolutionary birth of our country in the 18th century, the agrarian economy accounted for upwards of 90% of jobs and financial activity…until farming technology evolved (see chart below). As new agricultural advancements were introduced, like the cotton gin, plow, scythe, chemical fertilizers, tractors, combine harvesters, and genetically engineered seeds, human capital (jobs) were redeployed into other growth sectors of the economy (e.g., factories, aerospace, semiconductors, medicine, etc.).
Source: Carpe Diem
Given that human labor accounts for about 2/3 of an average company’s expense structure, it should come as no surprise that corporations are looking to reduce costs by introducing more robotics and automation into their processes. The advantages to robotics adoption are numerous and I describe many of the reasons in my article, Chainsaw Replaces Paul Bunyan:
A robot won’t ask for a raise; it always shows up on time; you don’t have to pay for its healthcare; it can work 24/7/365 days per year; it doesn’t belong to a union; dependable quality consistency is a given; it produces products near your customers; and it won’t sue for discrimination or sexual harassment.
At Sidoxia Capital Management we opportunistically identified this growing trend quite early as evidenced by our initial 2012 investment in KUKA AG (Ticker: KUKAF), a German manufacturer of industrial robots. KUKA has recently made headlines due to a bid received from Chinese home-appliance company (Midea Group: Ticker – 000333.SZ) that values the dominant German robotics leader at $5 billion. Despite KUKA’s +273% share price appreciation from the end of 2012, not many people have heard of the company. While KUKA may not have caught the attention of many U.S. investors, the company has captured a bevy of blue-chip global customers, including Daimler, Airbus Group, Volkswagen, Fiat, Boeing, and Tesla.
Rather than sitting on its hands, KUKA has done its part to develop a higher profile. In fact, President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently received a robotics demonstration from KUKA’s CEO Till Reuter at the world’s largest industrial technology trade fair in Hannover, Germany this April (picture below)
Source: Bloomberg
The recent multi-billion dollar bid by Midea Group has turned some onlookers’ heads, but what the potential deal really signals is the vast opportunity for robotics expansion in Asia. Rising labor costs in China, coupled with the enormous efficiency benefits of automation, have pushed China to become the largest purchasing country of robots in the world, ahead of the U.S., Japan, Korea and Germany (see chart below). However, according to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), in 2015, Japan remained the country with the largest number of installed robots. IFR does not expect Japan to remain the “king” of the installed robotics hill forever. Actually, IFR estimates China will leapfrog Japan over the next few years to become both the largest purchaser of robots, along with maintaining the largest installed base of robots.
Source: Financial Times
In the coming months and years, there will be a steady stream of sensationalist headlines talking about the rise of the robots, and the destruction of jobs. We’ve repeatedly seen this movie before throughout history. Rather than a scary bloodbath ending, over the long-run we’ll likely see another happy ending. Any potential job losses will likely be outweighed by productivity gains, coupled with the benefits associated with more efficiently deployed labor to new growth sectors of the economy.
Even KUKA realizes the automation dynamics of the 21st century will serve as a net labor enhancer not detractor. If you don’t believe me, just ask Timo Boll, world champion table tennis player, who tested this theory vs. a KUKA robot (see video below). Ultimately, the rise of robots will lead to the rise of global growth and productivity.
Wade W. Slome, CFA, CFP®
Plan. Invest. Prosper.
DISCLOSURE: Sidoxia Capital Management (SCM) and some of its clients hold positions in certain exchange traded funds (ETFs), KUKAF, BA, and TSLA, but at the time of publishing had no direct position in Daimler, Airbus Group, Volkswagen, Fiat Chrysler, or any other security referenced in this article. No information accessed through the Investing Caffeine (IC) website constitutes investment, financial, legal, tax or other advice nor is to be relied on in making an investment or other decision. Please read disclosure language on IC Contact page.
Flat Pancakes & Dividends
Over the last 18 months, stock prices have been flat as a pancake. Absent a few brief China and recessionary scares, the Dow Jones Industrial Average index has spent most of 2015 and 2016 trading between the relatively tight levels of 17,000 – 18,000. Record corporate profits and faster growth than other developed and developing markets have created a tug-of-war with countervailing factors. A strong dollar, reversal in monetary policy, geopolitical turmoil, and volatile commodity markets have produced a neutralizing struggle among corporate executives with deep financial pockets and short arms. In this environment, share buybacks, stable profit margins, and growing dividends have taken precedence over accelerated capital investments and expensive new-hires.
With flat stock prices and interest rates at unprecedented low levels, it’s during times like these that stock investors really appreciate the appetizing flavor of stable, growing dividends. To this day, I still find it almost impossible to fathom how investors are burning money by irrationally speculating in $7 trillion in negative interest rate bonds (see Retire at Age 90).
Historically there are very few periods in which stock dividend yields have exceeded bond yields (2.1% S&P yield vs. 1.8% 10-Year Treasury yield). As I showed in my Dividend Floodgates article, for roughly 50 years (1960 – 2010), the yield on the 10-Year Treasury Notes have exceeded the dividend yield on stocks (S&P 500) – that longstanding trend does not hold today.
In the face of the competitive stock market, several trends are contributing to the upward trajectory in dividend payments (see chart below).
#1.) Corporate profits (ex-Energy) are growing and at/near record levels. Earnings are critical in providing fertile ground for dividend growth.
#2.) Demographics, plain and simple. As 76 million Baby Boomers transition into retirement, their income needs escalate. These shareholders whine and complain to corporate executives to share the spoils and increase dividends.
#3.) Low interest rates and disinflation are shrinking the available pool of income generating assets. As I pointed out above, when trillions of dollars are getting thrown into negative yielding investments, many investors are flocking to alternative income-generating assets…like dividend paying stocks.
Source: FactSet
The Power of Dividends (Case Studies)
Most people don’t realize it, but over the last 100 years, dividends have accounted for approximately 40% of stocks’ total return as measured by the S&P 500. In other words, using history as a guide, if you initially invested in a stock XYZ at $100 that appreciated in value to $160 (+60%) 10 years later, that stock on average would have supplied an incremental $40 in dividends (40%) over that period, creating a total return of 100%.
Rather than using a hypothetical example, here are a few stock specific illustrations that highlight the amazing power of compounding dividend growth rates. Here are two “Dividend Aristocrats” (stocks that have increased dividends for at least 25 consecutive years):
- PepsiCo Inc (PEP): PepsiCo has increased its dividend for an astonishing 44 consecutive years. Today, the dividend yield is 2.9% based on the current share price. But had you purchased the stock in June 1972 for $1.60 per share (split-adjusted), you would currently be earning a +188% dividend yield ($3.01 dividend / $1.60 purchase price), which doesn’t even account for the +6,460% increase in the share price ($104.96 per share today from $1.60 in 1972). Over that 44 year period, the split-adjusted dividend has increased from about $0.02 per share to an annualized $3.01 dividend per share today, which equates to a mind-blowing +16,153% increase. On top of the $103 price appreciation, assuming a conservative 5% dividend reinvestment rate, my estimates show investors would have received more than $60 in reinvested dividends, making the total return that much more gargantuan.
- Emerson Electric Co (EMR): Emerson Electric too has had an even more incredible streak of dividend increases, which has now extended for 59 consecutive years. Emerson currently yields a respectable 3.6% rate, but if you purchased the stock in June 1972 for $3.73 per share (split-adjusted), you would currently be earning a +51% dividend yield ($1.92 dividend / $3.73 purchase price), which doesn’t even consider the +1,423% increase in the share price ($53.31 per share today from $3.73 in 1972).
There is never a shortage of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt), which has kept stock prices flat as a pancake over the last couple of years, but market leading franchise companies with stable/increasing dividends do not disappear during challenging times. Record profits (ex-energy), demographics, and a scarcity of income-generating investment alternatives are all contributing factors to the increased appetite for dividends. If you want to sweeten those flat pancakes, do yourself a favor and pour some quality dividend syrup over your investment portfolio.
Wade W. Slome, CFA, CFP®
Plan. Invest. Prosper.
DISCLOSURE: Sidoxia Capital Management (SCM) and some of its clients hold positions in certain exchange traded funds (ETFs) and PEP, but at the time of publishing had no direct position in EMR or any other security referenced in this article. No information accessed through the Investing Caffeine (IC) website constitutes investment, financial, legal, tax or other advice nor is to be relied on in making an investment or other decision. Please read disclosure language on IC Contact page.
Cutting Losses with Fisher’s 3 Golden Sell Rules
Returning readers to Investing Caffeine understand this is a location to cover a wide assortment of investing topics, ranging from electric cars and professional poker to taxes and globalization. Investing Caffeine is also a location that profiles great investors and their associated investment lessons.
Today we are going to revisit investing giant Phil Fisher, but rather than rehashing his accomplishments and overall philosophy, we will dig deeper into his selling discipline. For most investors, selling securities is much more difficult than buying them. The average investor often lacks emotional self-control and is unable to be honest with himself. Since most investors hate being wrong, their egos prevent taking losses on positions, even if it is the proper, rational decision. Often the end result is an inability to sell deteriorating stocks until capitulating near price bottoms.
Selling may be more difficult for most, but Fisher actually has a simpler and crisper number of sell rules as compared to his buy rules (3 vs. 15). Here are Fisher’s three sell rules:
1) Wrong Facts: There are times after a security is purchased that the investor realizes the facts do not support the supposed rosy reasons of the original purchase. If the purchase thesis was initially built on a shaky foundation, then the shares should be sold.
2) Changing Facts: The facts of the original purchase may have been deemed correct, but facts can change negatively over the passage of time. Management deterioration and/or the exhaustion of growth opportunities are a few reasons why a security should be sold according to Fisher.
3) Scarcity of Cash: If there is a shortage of cash available, and if a unique opportunity presents itself, then Fisher advises the sale of other securities to fund the purchase.
Reasons Not to Sell
Prognostications or gut feelings about a potential market decline are not reasons to sell in Fisher’s eyes. Selling out of fear generally is a poor and costly idea. Fisher explains:
“When a bear market has come, I have not seen one time in ten when the investor actually got back into the same shares before they had gone up above his selling price.”
In Fisher’s mind, another reason not to sell stocks is solely based on valuation. Longer-term earnings power and comparable company ratios should be considered before spontaneous sales. What appears expensive today may look cheap tomorrow.
There are many reasons to buy and sell a stock, but like most good long –term investors, Fisher has managed to explain his three-point sale plan in simplistic terms the masses can understand. If you are committed to cutting investment losses, I advise you to follow investment legend Phil Fisher – cutting losses will actually help prevent your portfolio from splitting apart.
Wade W. Slome, CFA, CFP®
Plan. Invest. Prosper.
DISCLOSURE: Sidoxia Capital Management (SCM) and some of its clients own certain exchange traded funds, but at the time of publishing SCM had no direct position in any other security referenced in this article. No information accessed through the Investing Caffeine (IC) website constitutes investment, financial, legal, tax or other advice nor is to be relied on in making an investment or other decision. Please read disclosure language on IC “Contact” page.
The Traitorous 8 and Birth of Silicon Valley
Over my 25 year investment career, I’ve made quite a few technology investments and visited dozens of Silicon Valley companies. I heard bits and pieces about the story of the Traitorous 8, but I never fully comprehended the technology revolution they started. Out of intellectual curiosity, I decided to delve a little deeper into the topic.
At the heart of this topic is a small device about the size of a fingernail. This object has several different names and can be quite confusing. The official name is an integrated circuit or IC, but usually it’s referred to as a chip, microchip, or semiconductor. These chips have become ubiquitous, scattered invisibly throughout our daily lives in our cars, computers, TVs, cell phones, appliances, and remote controls (an average household is home to about 1,000 of these semiconductors). Despite most people taking the microchip for granted, this diminutive piece of silicon created from our beach’s sand has contributed the largest burst of wealth creation in human history.
Before gaining a true understanding into the birth of Silicon Valley, we have to better understand the historical context in which the global technology capital was created – this takes us back to the early twentieth century when the vacuum tube was invented in 1904. Before Al Gore invented the Internet, we needed computers, and before we had personal computers, we needed integrated circuits, and before we had integrated circuits we had vacuum tubes (see chart below). Vacuum tubes were the electronic circuitry components required to make telephones, radios and televisions work in the early 1900s.
Tech History & the Vacuum Tube
The vacuum tube was invented in 1904 by an English physicist named John Ambrose Fleming. Like semiconductors, the main function of a vacuum tube is to control the flow of electric current. More specifically, a vacuum tube controls the current transferred between cathode and anode to make a circuit. Vacuum tubes were used for amazing applications, but in modern society this technology has been largely replaced by semiconductors, primarily because of cost, scalability and reliability factors.
The first all-electronic digital computer title is usually awarded to the ENIAC computer, which stood for Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator. ENIAC was built at the University of Pennsylvania between 1943 and 1945 by two professors, John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert. World War II, the Soviet Union Cold War, and the space race kicked off by the Sputnik launch all pushed the vacuum tube technology to its limits. To give you an idea of how costly and inefficient vacuum tubes were relative to today’s microchips consider some of the ENIAC statistics. ENIAC filled a 20 x 40 foot room; weighed 30 tons; used more than 18,000 vacuum tubes; and only operated 50% of the time because operators were continuously replacing burned out vacuum tubes. In fact, the ENIAC vacuum tubes generated so much heat, the temperature in the computer room often reached 120 degrees.
Shockley – The Godfather of the Transistor
Something had to change to improve vacuum tube technology, and it did…thanks in large part to a physicist named William Shockley, the so-called “Godfather of the Transistor.” Shockley received his Bachelor of Science degree from Caltech in 1932 and earned his Ph.D. degree from MIT in 1936. After graduation, Shockley left the famous Bell Labs research center, which was a research division of AT&T at the time (now owned by Nokia). As part of Shockley’s work at Bell Labs in the late 1940s, he contributed to the invention of the transistor with experimentalist Walter Brattain and quantum theorist John Bardeen. Fundamentally, the transistor is a switch, which over time has shrunk down to the size of a virus. The transistor is what ultimately replaced the vacuum tubes because it is smaller, more efficient, more reliable, more durable, and cheaper than vacuum tubes. Transistors switch and amplify the flow of electronic signals to create digital ones and zeros that instruct electronic applications. Without the benefits of shrinking transistors, today’s computer servers would be three stories high.
How small have transistors become? Take the iPhone 6 for example – it uses the A8 chip, which is made up of a whopping two billion transistors. To accomplish this feat, engineers are now creating transistors at the atomic level. Large semiconductor manufacturers like Intel Corp (INTC) are now developing transistors at the 10 nanometer level. To put this scale into perspective, consider a sheet of paper is approximately 100,000 nanometers thick. So in order to create a 10 nanometer sheet of paper, one would have to slice a single sheet 10,000 times thinner to reach 10 nanometers…mind-boggling.
Building atomic sized transistor technology is very cool, but also very expensive. Only a handful of semiconductor manufacturers have enough capital to build these new state-of-the art facilities. Case in point is Intel’s D1X fabrication facility in Hillsboro, Oregon, which is estimated to have cost $6 billion. Like seeing the pyramids – it’s difficult to understand the enormity of the structure without visiting it, which I was fortunate to do in 2014. It’s very ironic that in order to build these microscopic transistors and integrated circuits, multi-billion dollar manufacturing facilities the size of 38 football fields (~2.2 million square feet) are required. Another example of a next-generation manufacturing facility is Taiwan Semiconductor’s – Fab 15 (TSM), which was estimated to cost $9.3 billion.
These mega-transistor manufacturing facilities would not have been possible without Shockley’s contributions. Having helped invent the transistor largely replace the dominant computing technology of the last half century (i.e., vacuum tube), Shockley mustered up the courage to leave Bell Labs and start his own company, but he needed some cash to make it happen. He contacted Arnold Beckman, CEO of Beckman Coulter and his old professor at Caltech. Over a boat ride in Newport Beach, California, Shockley asked Beckman for $1 million to start his own lab. Silicon Valley potentially could have started in Southern California, but Shockley explained his aging mother lived in Palo Alto and convinced Beckman to start Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Mountain View, California during 1956.
After Shockley Semiconductor began operations, everything appeared to be going according to plan. Shortly after opening shop and recruiting the best and brightest engineers across the country, Shockley and his former Bell Labs colleagues Walter Brattain and John Bardeen were notified they all had won the Nobel Prize in physics (see photo below).
After the Nobel Prize celebrations, everything went downhill quickly. Shockley was known as a brilliant engineer but a horrific manager. He put his employees through a battery of tests including psychological tests, intelligence tests, and even lie detector tests. Shockley also posted employee salaries publicly and recorded phone calls. He was a paranoid individual who believed his workers were stealing trade secrets and sabotaging projects, so therefore he wouldn’t share findings with his research staff. Adding insult to injury, Shockley was a racist, who believed blacks were genetically inferior with subpar IQs, so they shouldn’t have kids.
Here is a video link summarizing William Shockley’s leadership:
The Traitorous 8 Surface
In 1957, the year after Shockley Semiconductor Labs started up, the division reached 30 employees. Eight of the employees, Sheldon Roberts, Eugene Kleiner, Victor Grinich, Jay Last, Julius Blank, Jean Hoerni, Robert Noyce, and Gordon Moore finally said, enough-is-enough and decided mutiny was their best option.
The disgruntled group ended up contacting a 30-year-old, snot-nosed, Harvard MBA graduate named Arthur Rock, the individual who eventually coined the phrase “venture capitalist.” In 1957, Rock was a New York banker working at Hayden Stone & Co. Rock believed the group of eight engineers (six of which had Ph.Ds) deserved attention, given their experience working with a Nobel Prize winner. The Traitorous 8 simply wanted to find an employer that would hire them as a group, but Rock advised them to start their own company – a novel idea during the 1950s.
After making a list and calling about 40 blue chip companies from the Wall Street Journal for funding, Rock almost gave up until they received a lead to contact Sherman Fairchild. Fairchild was a wealthy entrepreneur and playboy who hung out at the El Morocco in New York with Howard Hughes. Rock convinced Fairchild, the CEO of Fairchild Camera & Instrument, to invest $1.5 million into a Traitorous 8 startup.
The rest is history. The Traitorous 8 set up shop as Fairchild Semiconductor (FCS) in Mountain View, about twelve blocks from Shockley’s operations. Over the next 10 years, Fairchild Semiconductor grew from twelve employees to twelve thousand employees, and raked in some $130 million in annual revenues. Of the original Traitorous 8, two have become historical figures – Robert “Bob” Noyce and Gordon Moore. All good things come to an end, and Noyce and Moore increasingly got frustrated with Fairchild’s mismanagement of the semiconductor division.
After Fairchild passed over Noyce for a CEO promotion in 1968, Noyce told Moore, “I’m going to leave, are you interested?” Moore agreed, so he and Noyce contacted Arthur Rock again for his assistance. Rock quickly helped them raise $2.5 million, and Intel Corporation (short for “Integrated Electronics”) was born. Three years later in 1971, Intel launched its IPO at $23.50 per share ($.02 split-adjusted). An investment of $10,000 back then would be worth about $12,000,000 today –about a +120,000% return.
Here’s a video summarizing the creation of Intel:
Thomas Edison of Silicon Valley
Nowadays, Noyce is hailed by many as the “Thomas Edison of Silicon Valley.” Noyce received his Ph.D. from MIT and is most known for his invention of the integrated circuit. During the late 1950s, other engineers also worked on the IC, including Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments, but Noyce received the first patent in 1961. Unlike Kilby, who created his IC from germanium, Noyce created his IC from silicon, the semiconductor of choice still today. After a decade of litigation, Noyce and Kilby settled their differences and decided to cross-license their patents. Unfortunately, the Nobel Foundation doesn’t issue Nobel Prizes posthumously, so when the Nobel Prize was issued for the invention of the integrated circuit in the year 2000 (10 years after Noyce’s death), only Kilby was recognized. To Kilby’s credit, he acknowledged the contributions of Noyce and others in his Nobel speech with a story of a rabbit and beaver looking up at the Hoover Dam, “No, I didn’t build it myself. But it’s based on an idea of mine!”
Moore’s Law Established
Arguably, Moore was just as influential as Noyce, but due to his quiet leadership style, Moore is often overlooked. Moore was a year younger than Noyce and earned his chemistry degree from Berkeley and Ph.D. from Caltech. Unlike Noyce, who grew up in the Midwest (Iowa), Moore was raised near Palo Alto, which made recruiting Moore by William Shockley quite easy. Moore’s largest contribution is considered to “Moore’s Law,” which generally states the number of transistors (i.e., a chip’s computing power) will double every 1-2 years. During the 1980s, Noyce described the implications of Moore’s Law by comparing Moore’s Law to the airline industry. If the airline industry progressed at the trajectory of the semiconductor industry over the last 20 years, then the 767 airplane would cost $500 and travel around the world in 20 minutes on five gallons of gas. Regrettably, not many industries advance at the pace of semiconductors.
Moore came up with “Moore’s Law” when her wrote a seminal article for Electronics magazine in 1965 and in the article he properly predicted that the number of transistors that could be squeezed onto a microchip (around 60 at the time) would increase 1,000-fold to 60,000 transistors by 1975. It would take decades for his projections to come true, but Moore very presciently predicted the explosion of home computers, cell phones (which he called “portable communications equipment”), electronic wrist-watches, digital cars, and a host of other electronic devices and applications. A half century later, Moore’s Law holds true, but the pace of transistor growth admittedly is slowing. The physics behind semiconductor manufacturing is running into serious limitations of quantum mechanics, cost, and heat. Microchips are becoming so dense and fast that the internal components in many cases are melting the chips in research labs.
Here is a video link summarizing Moore’s Law:
While Moore’s Law is approaching diminishing returns, the costs of microchips keep declining, power keeps increasing, and efficiency keeps improving. Despite the slowing in Moore’s Law, as you can see below, the adoption of transistors via microchips is not plateauing. According to Intel, we are now consuming an estimated sextillion transistors!
Source: Intel Corporation
Politics, economics, terrorism, and social issues may dominate the daily headlines, but behind the scenes there are daily miracles occurring due to technology advancements. Driving much of that innovation is the microchip, and without the Traitorous 8, the world would look a lot different and there would be no Silicon Valley as we know it today. Had Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore miserably resigned themselves to remain at Shockley Semiconductor, perhaps mankind would not have achieved the giant strides in global standards of living (see chart below). Thankfully, their contributions live on today and ensure a bright future for our kids, grandchildren, and the world at large.
Source: FRED
Wade W. Slome, CFA, CFP®
Plan. Invest. Prosper.
DISCLOSURE: Sidoxia Capital Management (SCM) and some of its clients hold positions in certain exchange traded funds (ETFs) and in INTC (non-discretionary), TXN (non-discretionary), T (non-discretionary), but at the time of publishing had no direct position in TSM, NOK, FCS, or any other security referenced in this article. No information accessed through the Investing Caffeine (IC) website constitutes investment, financial, legal, tax or other advice nor is to be relied on in making an investment or other decision. Please read disclosure language on IC Contact page.
Winning the Loser’s Game
During periods of heightened volatility like those recently experienced, it’s easy to get caught up in the emotional heat of the moment. I find time is better spent returning to essential investing fundamentals, like the ones I read in the investment classic by Charles Ellis, Winning the Loser’s Game – “WTLG”. To put my enthusiasm in perspective, WTLG has even achieved the elite and privileged distinction of making the distinguished “Recommended Reading” list of Investing Caffeine (located along the right-side of the page). Wow…now I know you are really impressed.
The Man, The Myth, the Ellis
For those not familiar with Charley Ellis, he has a long, storied investment career. Not only has he authored 12 books, including compilations on Goldman Sachs (GS) and Capital Group, but his professional career dates back prior to 1972, when he founded institutional consulting firm Greenwich Associates. Besides earning a college degree from Yale University, and an MBA from Harvard Business School, he also garnered a PhD from New York University. Ellis also is a director at the Vanguard Group and served as Investment Committee chair at Yale University along investment great David Swensen (read also Super Swensen) from 1992 – 2008.
With this tremendous investment experience come tremendous insights. The original book, which was published in 1998, is already worth its weight in gold (even at $1,384 per ounce), but the fifth edition of WTLG is even more valuable because it has been updated with Ellis’s perspectives on the 2008-2009 financial crisis.
Because the breadth of topics covered is so vast and indispensable, I will break the WTLG review into a few parts for digestibility. I will start off with the these hand-picked nuggets:
Defining the “Loser’s Game”
Here is how Charles Ellis describes the investment “loser’s game”:
“For professional investors, “the ‘money game’ we call investment management evolved in recent decades from a winner’s game to a loser’s game because a basic change has occurred in the investment environment: The market came to be dominated in the 1970s and 1980s by the very institutions that were striving to win by outperforming the market. No longer is the active investment manager competing with cautious custodians or amateurs who are out of touch with the market. Now he or she competes with other hardworking investment experts in a loser’s game where the secret to winning is to lose less than others lose.”
Underperformance by Active Managers
Readers that have followed Investing Caffeine for a while understand how I feel about passive (low-cost do-nothing strategy) and active management (portfolio managers constantly buying and selling) – read Darts, Monkeys & Pros. Ellis’s views are not a whole lot different than mine – here is what he has to say while not holding back any punches:
“The basic assumption that most institutional investors can outperform the market is false. The institutions are the market. They cannot, as a group, outperform themselves. In fact, given the cost of active management – fees, commissions, market impact of big transactions, and so forth-85 percent of investment managers have and will continue over the long term to underperform the overall market.”
He goes on to say individuals do even worse, especially those that day trade, which he calls a “sucker’s game.”
Exceptions to the Rule
Ellis’s bias towards passive management is clear because “over the long term 85 percent of active managers fall short of the market. And it’s nearly impossible to figure out ahead of time which managers will make it into the top 15 percent.” He does, however, acknowledge there is a minority of professionals that can beat the market by making fewer mistakes or taking advantage of others’ mistakes. Ellis advocates a slow approach to investing, which bases “decisions on research with a long-term focus that will catch other investors obsessing about the short term and cavitating – producing bubbles.” This is the strategy and approach I aim to achieve.
Gaining an Unfair Competitive Advantage
According to Ellis, there are four ways to gain an unfair competitive advantage in the investment world:
1) Physical Approach: Beat others by carrying heavier brief cases and working longer hours.
2) Intellectual Approach: Outperform by thinking more deeply and further out in the future.
3) Calm-Rational Approach: Ellis describes this path to success as “benign neglect” – a method that beats the others by ignoring both favorable and adverse market conditions, which may lead to suboptimal decisions.
4) Join ‘em Approach: The easiest way to beat active managers is to invest through index funds. If you can’t beat index funds, then join ‘em.
The Case for Stocks
Investor time horizon plays a large role on asset allocation, but time is on investors’ side for long-term equity investors:
“That’s why in the long term, the risks are clearly lowest for stocks, but in the short term, the risks are just as clearly highest for stocks.”
Expanding on that point, Ellis points out the following:
“Any funds that will stay invested for 10 years or longer should be in stocks. Any funds that will be invested for less than two to three years should be in “cash” or money market instruments.”
While many people may feel stock investing is dead, but Ellis points out that equities should return more in the long-run:
“There must be a higher rate of return on stocks to persuade investors to accept risks of equity investing.”
The Power of Regression to the Mean
Investors do more damage to performance by chasing winners and punishing losers because they lose the powerful benefits of “regression to the mean.” Ellis describes this tendency for behavior to move toward an average as “a persistently powerful phenomenon in physics and sociology – and in investing.” He goes on to add, good investors know “that the farther current events are away from the mean at the center of the bell curve, the stronger the forces of reversion, or regression, to the mean, are pulling the current data toward the center.”
The Power of Compounding
For a 75 year period (roughly 1925 – 2000) analyzed by Ellis, he determines $1 invested in stocks would have grown to $105.96, if dividends were not reinvested. If, however, dividends are reinvested, the power of compounding kicks in significantly. For the same 75 year period, the equivalent $1 would have grown to $2,591.79 – almost 25x’s more than the other method (see also Penny Saved is Billion Earned).
Ellis throws in another compounding example:
“Remember that if investments increase by 7 percent per annum after income tax, they will double every 10 years, so $1 million can become $1 billion in 100 years (before adjusting for inflation).”
The Lessons of History
As philosopher George Santayana stated – “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Details of every market are different, but as Ellis notes, “The major characteristics of markets are remarkably similar over time.”
Ellis appreciates the importance of history plays in analyzing the markets:
“The more you study market history, the better; the more you know about how securities markets have behaved in the past, the more you’ll understand their true nature and how they probably will behave in the future. Such an understanding enables us to live rationally with markets that would otherwise seem wholly irrational.”
Home Sweet International Home
Although Ellis’s recommendation to diversify internationally is not controversial, his allocation recommendation regarding “full diversification” is a bit more provocative:
“For Americans, this would mean about half our portfolios would be invested outside the United States.”
This seems high by traditional standards, but considering our country’s shrinking share of global GDP (Gross Domestic Product), along with our relatively small share of the globe’s population (about 5% of the world’s total), the 50% percentage doesn’t seem as high at first blush.
Beware the Broker
This is not new territory for me (see Financial Sharks, Fees/Exploitation, and Credential Shell Game), and Ellis warns investors on industry sales practices:
“Those oh so caring and helpful salespeople make their money by convincing you to change funds. Friendly as they may be, they may be no friend to your long-term investment success.”
Unlike a lot of other investing books, which cover a few aspects to investing, Winning the Loser’s Game covers a gamut of crucial investment lessons in a straightforward, understandable fashion. A lot of people play the investing game, but as Charles Ellis details, many more investors and speculators lose than win. For any investor, from amateur to professional, reading Ellis’s Winning the Loser’s Game and following his philosophy will not only help increase the odds of your portfolio winning, but will also limit your losses in sleep hours.
Wade W. Slome, CFA, CFP®
Plan. Invest. Prosper.
DISCLOSURE: Sidoxia Capital Management (SCM) and some of its clients own certain exchange traded funds, but at the time of publishing SCM had no direct position in GS, or any other security referenced in this article. No information accessed through the Investing Caffeine (IC) website constitutes investment, financial, legal, tax or other advice nor is to be relied on in making an investment or other decision. Please read disclosure language on IC “Contact” page.
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