Thursday, June 27, 2013

Thematic Thursdays: Don't Blame the CEO

Shareholder value - the force that drives the self preservation instinct as well as the animal spirits in virtually every corporate leader - is the scheme by which corporate chieftains and activist "investors" can extract lots of money via the stock market under the guise of improving corporate performance (mainly profitability)*. The structure of the scheme is fairly straightforward: an activist "investor" targets an underperforming (usually) publicly-traded company and threatens to upset the sleepy apple cart primarily via cost cutting, which usually involves lots of firings, benefits reductions, facility closures, outsourcing, and, (uh oh) often includes firing existing senior management**.

Now, one doesn't need the activist investor to actually take action to bring about the desired result. Merely the possibility of such action is often enough to get existing corporate management to toe the shareholder value line. Then there's the pressure on (and from) traditional institutional investors who, while not necessarily soiling their hands by directly engaging in corporate activism (wink wink), are well aware of shareholder value's attributes and advocate for its outcomes. After all, higher market values is the name of their game, too.

Of course, for those more enlightened CEO's and other senior managers, higher stock market values and the ability to reap the enormous benefits via virtually risk-free stock options (with price resets, if needed) is an personal finance aphrodisiac too powerful to resist. And in the process, the longer term suffers for the short term. For the reality is that in today's capital markets shortermism is the name of the game.

So, where is the governor, the moderator, the protector of society at-large and the working man and woman (who just happen to be consumers in all this)? Where's the bigger picture perspective, one that takes into consideration the larger socioeconomic effects of higher unemployment rates, worker displacements, and stagnant real incomes that shareholder value facilitates? Well, that would be none other than our trusty elected officials. But when a system is constructed whereby the levers of power can (almost) only be achieved by spending large sums of money, then those who rise to positions of executive, legislative, and regulatory power are logically beholden NOT to those who pulled the voting machine levers BUT to those who helped persuade those who pulled the voting machine levers. Hence, the money game in politics. A political Svengali act if there ever was one.

Is this a Scalia-like rant, a rage against the machine? Nope. It's merely a dispassionate assessment of how things are - not how they should be, for that would require a whole new socioeconomic compact, something that a tiny handful of individuals and institutions dream will one day become a reality. And while dreams can come true, the reality is that we live in a world where a famous dead idealist who once said "I have a dream" has morphed into a world where a self preservation politician now says "I have a drone".

Investment Strategy Implications

New England Patriots' head coach, Bill Belichik, is famous for his expression "Do your job", exhorting his players to focus on the task at hand. And doing their job is exactly what today's CEO and other senior corporate management staff do when it comes to what and how they run their businesses. Self preservation melds with self interests in the act of maximizing corporate profitability which begets an increased shareholder value which begets mucho dinaro for some.

Oh, sure there are lots of flowery Obamaesque language about being a solid corporate citizen with token gestures made to that imagery. But the reality is that (a) all such efforts are done with the thought as to what it means to the top and bottom lines of a business, as a good image is almost always good for business (unless you're a bottom feeding, Madonna Ciccone/Lady Gogo/Keith Richards/being skanky-is-my-style type) and (b) it's largely inconsequential in the total scheme of things ("the scraps from Longshanks table", says William Wallace).

This is a complicated, tangled web of factors that will not be reversed until such time when the scheme runs its course and pushes the global economy over the edge. And when that day occurs, then an extreme response will likely be the successor. Until then, don't blame the CEO. He/she is just doing their job.

*It is also a scheme by which pubic policy is impacted (tax policy, for example), a topic that would be far too extensive to be covered here.

**The justification for the scheme is straightforward, too: the financial markets are efficient and, therefore, represent the true risk and reward of a company's business. Accordingly, any improvement in the financial circumstances of a publicly-traded company will be reflected in its stock price. Ipso facto. Of course, this neglects the facto that a publicly-traded company's stock price is impacted by a myriad of factos, many of which have nothing to do with or under the direct control of corporate management. By why let a few pesky factos get in the way of a fantastical money making scheme.

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Thematic Thursdays is a product of Blue Marble Research Advisory and focuses on important global trends and themes impacting the global economy and markets and an integral part of the three-legged stool approach of Blue Marble Research.

On average, thematic issues are longer term in nature, transcending the business cycle in time and economic sector categorizations. However, many shorter term players in the financial markets use trends and themes as a staple of their investment strategy. Understanding how to incorporate thematic analysis - along with fundamental and technical analyses - is an integral part of the process that forms the three-legged stool of the analytical approach employed by Blue Marble Research Advisory.

To learn more about Blue Marble Research Advisory and its integrated approach to investment strategy and decision-making, click here!

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Technical Tuesdays: One Thing Chartists Are Definitely Salivating Over

Anyone who knows my work in the technical analysis/market intel area is well aware of the fact that I am not a big fan of pattern recognition*. I have never been able to produce a reasonably (let alone highly) predictive model of future price action based on price patterns. For those who can do this, I have two words: "God bless".

There are, however, many who do believe in such stuff and will act on them and, thereby, influence the price of an individual issue and/or the market overall. Therefore, let's look at something that I am certain just about every chartist worth his/her salt is salivating over: a head and shoulders top in the making in the emerging markets area.

As the accompanying chart** makes quite clear, just such a pattern is on the verge of occurring with roughly a $35 number being the neckline. Now, according to the principles of this pattern, the measured move is from the top of the head to the neckline, which is roughly 15 points. And 15 more points to the downside would drop this index right into the zone of its previous bottom area made in the winter of 2008/09, which is in the low 20s. (Funny how these things seem to work out.)

Now, for those who mesh the fundamental with the technical, a plunge to the low 20s would bring with it a plunge in the P/E ratio to just under 6 - assuming, of course, earnings remain right around where they currently are and not, as logic would dictate, accompany the market price plunge with an earnings plunge.

Investment Strategy Implications

Just because one cannot or does not employ a particular analytical discipline is no reason to ignore the reality that others will act based on that analytical discipline. But it must be noted that when it comes to pattern recognition there is one essential dictum: never anticipate the move. Or to rephrase Orson Welles from a wine commercial of decades away: "We will sell no asset before its time". Therefore, the advisable course of action is to set aside the bib and restrain the saliva glands as the pattern you see is one that has not completed itself. And that means anticipatory action is taken at one's one risk (or is it wish?).

*The ability to identify future price action based on past chart formations such as head and shoulders tops and bottoms, wedges, flags, pennants, etc.
**click image to enlarge.

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Technical Tuesdays is a product of Blue Marble Research Advisory and illustrates selected elements of market intelligence analysis. Market intelligence analysis - along with fundamental and thematic analyses - form the three-legged stool of the analytical approach employed by Blue Marble Research Advisory.

To learn more about Blue Marble Research Advisory services and its integrated approach to investment strategy and decision-making, click here.

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Technical Tuesdays: Grinding Down


The bull market's summer swoon is starting pretty much right on schedule as price slips and slides sideways producing a grinding down of momentum. As the accompanying chart illustrates*, two key momentum indicators - MACD and Rate of Change (second and third lines) - portray the grinding down process with the MACD lines on the verge of a crossover while the Rate of Change has gone flat for some time. The bullish saving grace is the fact that no Mega Trend reversal (top lines) are in place. So, what lies ahead is your garden variety summer pause that either (a) refreshes or (b) sets the stage for a trend reversal (in this case, from bull to bear).

Investment Strategy Implications

The Rate of Change is the first alert that something different is about to happen. The MACD crossover is the confirming signal. Seasonal factors (see prior posts below) suggest such a crossover is very likely to happen. The net result, however, cannot be assumed to be more than a pullback (approx. 5%) or correction (>10%). That said, however, such outcomes fit perfectly into the rolling top that bull markets form. But that's a story for another day. Until then, the best investment advice seems to be: pick out a good book, go to the beach, and (for the most part) see you in September.

*click image to enlarge.

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Technical Tuesdays is a product of Blue Marble Research Advisory and illustrates selected elements of market intelligence analysis. Market intelligence analysis - along with fundamental and thematic analyses - form the three-legged stool of the analytical approach employed by Blue Marble Research Advisory.

To learn more about Blue Marble Research Advisory services and its integrated approach to investment strategy and decision-making, click here.

Thursday, June 6, 2013

Thematic Thursdays: Slow Speed Ostriches in a High Speed World


What do the subprime mortgage crisis in the US, the Arab spring, the Occupy movement, the Turkish protests, the Internet, and social media have to do with the investment decision-making process? More than you might suspect.

We live in an age where virtually everyone is connected and has access to the global network to share their experiences, views, opinions, etc. As a result, any one group can light a match that generates a spark that gets transmitted throughout the global community with the potential to alter the status quo. And all this can happen at a rate of speed unprecedented in the history of the world. Accordingly, such power can - and often does - result in change, sometimes in a highly disruptive manner. However, traditional investors using traditional tools have a dual problem with all this.

To begin, it doesn't compute. That is to say the ability to quantify a high speed transmission event into a discounted cash flow model using the traditional methodology does not exist. And considering the fact that it is not the job of a traditional investor to reconfigure the valuation models conceived decades ago, why would or could such an individual or organization make such an alteration? Then there is issue of monitoring and measuring the high speed transmission event. Boots on the ground and kicking the tires of something that is often ephemeral but is, from time to time, highly significant are simply not part of the capabilities of the traditional investor toolbox. Which brings us to the second problem, bottom-up analytics and investing.

Many traditional investors are bottom-up oriented. Company specific investing. Warren Buffett is the living and breathing model of this approach. Yet, can such an approach factor in broader, more macro thematic issues into a financial and then valuation model of, say, a US domestic railroad company? The answer is quite clearly no. Yet, in a changed global economic and financial markets environment, such factors have occurred with increased frequency over the past several decades. (Fat tails, anyone?) Perhaps, this explains in part the underperformance of Berkshire since the US stock market low of March 2009 (see accompanying chart*).

Investment Strategy Implications

The economic and financial markets' landscape has changed. It's not your grandfather's economy or stock market anymore. The social networking aspect of all this has been the latest development as an enabler of this high speed interconnectedness. And while the investment implications may not be apparent, they are real. Forces festering beneath the surface can erupt with remarkable force and speed potentially rendering what is to what was.

This means that risk and reward are amped up and should be accounted for by investors in their valuation models. It may be hard to quantify but it is a reality that can be best accounted for through an adjustment in the risk input to the valuation models used. The alternative - the ostrich approach - is hardly the prudent way to go.

*click image to enlarge

***

Thematic Thursdays is a product of Blue Marble Research Advisory and focuses on important global trends and themes impacting the global economy and markets and an integral part of the three-legged stool approach of Blue Marble Research.

On average, thematic issues are longer term in nature, transcending the business cycle in time and economic sector categorizations. However, many shorter term players in the financial markets use trends and themes as a staple of their investment strategy. Understanding how to incorporate thematic analysis - along with fundamental and technical analyses - is an integral part of the process that forms the three-legged stool of the analytical approach employed by Blue Marble Research Advisory.

To learn more about Blue Marble Research Advisory and its integrated approach to investment strategy and decision-making, click here!

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Technical Tuesdays: Sector Scan


Breaking the broad market down to its component areas is a useful exercise - one that can provide a predictive insight into the overall trend in place, whether that trend is intact, in transition, or in reversal, and which areas might be more or less attractive than another. The accompanying table (click image to enlarge) provides information regarding the overall US equity market and it current and prospective trend.

As the table shows rather clearly, there are very few signs of trend change, which is to say that the trend in place is intact. If a trend reversal were somewhere close to the horizon, more than a few individual US economic sectors would have begun to show signs of a divergence*. What the table shows is no such divergence exists - not even for the recent weak Utilities sector.

Investment Strategy Implications

Drilling down is one way to gain a deeper reading on the state of the market. Another is to compare and contrast one market to another. This posting illustrates that within the US markets and from a US economic sector perspective**, there is little in the way of a meaningful warning sign that the trend in place (which is bullish) is near a reversal. Sideways for a while? Most likely. Pullback or correction? Yes, that, too. Trend reversal (from bull to bear)? Nope.

Next week's Technical Tuesdays posting will look at how markets measure up one to another.

*See Divergence Principles posting for an introduction.

**Size and style analysis is the other intra market approach. Unfortunately, at this time the value in this area of analysis is limited as synchronicity between and among the groupings provides virtually no useful information. Which is another way of saying size and style sectors match very closely the broad market thereby providing little to no predictive insights.

***

Technical Tuesdays is a product of Blue Marble Research Advisory and illustrates selected elements of market intelligence analysis. Market intelligence analysis - along with fundamental and thematic analyses - form the three-legged stool of the analytical approach employed by Blue Marble Research Advisory.

To learn more about Blue Marble Research Advisory services and its integrated approach to investment strategy and decision-making, click here.