Financial Commentary – Public

“Sell in May and Go Away” is the common wisdom of equity traders, and after 36 Summers in this industry, I agree that for traders, this is useful advice. My desire is to emulate the success of value investors who are nearly all long term position holders, so selling in May, just because the Summer is often challenging for stock valuations, does not carry much weight with me.  This year was a little different. Oil prices have been rocketing, the dollar collapsing and the political climate in Washington is unlikely to tolerate further monetary stimulus by our Federal Reserve bank.  So beginning about a month ago, I became less tolerant of client equity holdings that failed to hold important technical support (yes, I use charts too).  We reduced a long time holding of a forest products company and a major player in software, thus raising client cash from a level of virtually zero to about 6% of portfolio values.

Year End Roundup

The quarter ending December 31, 2010 was a blowout for stocks and commodities, so it may be difficult to recall that stocks suffered a mid-year bear market - a loss of 16% between April and August. This was spawned by a few factors, fears about a financial collapse of European banks and even nations the most prominent. Sentiment was not helped by the Administration’s coordinated attacks on a prominent Wall Street bank, part of a transparent effort to garner support for sweeping financial regulatory reform struggling in Congress. Then there were the incessant calls for a “double dip” recession from perennially bearish economists, who it seems were dead wrong. Your performance since inception has exceeded that of most asset classes, especially stock, which suffered two mammoth bear markets over the past decade: a decline of about 45% during the Tech Wreck a (2000 to 2002) plus another plunge over 50% during the Banking Crisis of 2007 to 2009.

Even if the Recession is Over, the Recovery will not Cure Structural Weaknesses in the US’ Economy 

December 10,2010 

 Reproduced below is part of the December 2010 Commentary issued by PIMCO’s Bill Gross. I’m sharing this
as it expresses, in trenchant terms the reality of the financial challenge facing a generation of
Americans here and now.  […]

How Can Being Wrong Feel So Right? 

November 1, 2010

It is beginning to appear that our decision to unload some stocks in August was...less than brilliant. Oh well, those we retained are doing well and our clients' high exposure to income producing assets has kept portfolio values firm. Let's address equities, first:  As clients know, and anyone who cares to read previous postings can see, I became frightened of the "double dip" this past Summer, and given some false technical signals, sold off a few stocks.  We are long term value investors, so selling is nearly as difficult a decision as buying for us, and in this case, the decision appears to have been overly cautious.  We've spent much of the past four weeks re-entering equities, with good results so far, although our cash position remains above normal.  Seasonal trends are for a strong stock market in the next few months. Further, earnings for virtually all our holdings  have at least met, if not exceeded expectations.  Our decision to increase exposure to gold (via a gold Exchange traded fund) has been most rewarding as well.  Still, I derive a lot of satisfaction from our clients' cash cows.....

"California taxpayers are paying pensions that exceed $100,000 a year to over 12,000 former state and local
government workers, including more than 9,000 state and local employees covered by the California Public
Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and over 3,000 former school administrators or teachers covered under the
California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS)."

 "California taxpayers pay 85 percent of the health care premiums for most active state workers, 100 percent of the
health care costs for most state retirees and 90 percent of health care costs for their families."

Excerpt from "How California's Public Pension System Broke and How to Fix It"

August 13, 2010

When a friend told me, a couple of years ago, that his brother had retired as fire chief of a northern California city at age 55, with a $240,000 a year pension, plus medical and dental benefits, I had my first inkling of what is going on in the Golden State.  Just a couple of months ago, I read a book called As America Aged by Roger Lowenstein, a financial writer who created the definitive portrait of Warren Buffet in the early '90's.  I decided it would be my mission to alert everyone I know to the raiding of the public treasury that is going on via gold plated retirement benefits for public employees. But I got buried with other things, and then the Bell, California pay scandal hit national media about three weeks ago.  There is a growing awareness among the civilian population, stripped of their pensions decades ago, lucky to have their employer fund a 401K, or lucky to have a job, that they've been had. 

Retirement Living may soon be challenged by Rising Inflation
Friday, July 16, 2010, saw the release of the consumer price index and as noted by Goldman Sachs analysts, while the index was actually down .14 percent in June and up only 1.1 percent for the past 12 months, "core inflation" was a bit stronger than the analysts had expected.  Of particular note was a rental index that rose .1 percent in the past month with "lodging away from home" up 1.3 percent.  This confirms what I have heard anecdotally that people are vacationing and travelling again and obviously willing to pay up for this privilege for the first time in a couple of years. A small piece of additional evidence entered my world this past weekend. When I called to cancel a reservation at the Cedar Lodge just outside Yosemite, they told me they were going to charge a $7.50 cancellation fee! This is a first for a hotel (rather a 2-3 star motel) in my experience, given they had a week's notice.  The travel industry rivals bankers in their assertion of garbage fees, and apparently they now feel confident in getting away this nonsense-witness the bag charges imposed recently by most major airlines!

MORE EVIDENCE THAT THE ECONOMY IS COMING BACK

 In an email to clients on May 25, I included a link to some graphs provided by the Value Line Statistical Service, which show that many widely followed financial indicators have been trending upward for months.  Now comes evidence from so-called “below-the-radar” indicators that confirm that a recovery is underway.  Bloomberg Business Week on June 15 reports that a number of oddball indicators show that the economy’s heartbeat is strengthening:

Here is an interview that does a good job of expressing my thoughts regarding the current state of investment opportunities. In a nutshell it reminds us to take the daily financial headline, both bearish and bullish in stride.

Who to blame for the mess we appear to be in? Greedy Wall Street bankers? Fatuous Europeans who expect to retire at age 55 after a lifetime of loafing? Inept oil drillers fouling America’s southern coastline? When times are tough you can count on politicians to score points by blaming everyone in sight, rarely noticing that many of our problems today are the results of legislation enacted by previous Congresses. No one seems to want to accept individual responsibility-it's always the Other Guy's fault. I'm convinced that this nation's greatest enemy are those who insist on seeing the glass as half empty, whatever their political persuasion.