Showing posts with label Hedge fund. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hedge fund. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 03, 2014

Infographics: The Myth of the Successful Money Manager

Reversion to the mean, the knowledge problem and the natural limits to profits applies to fund management, even to Warren Buffett's flagship Berkshire Hathaway. 

The infographic below from the Visual Capitalist argues that Successful Money Managers are a myth.

Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist

Monday, January 21, 2013

Global Financial Markets Party on the Palm of Central Bankers

It’s has been a “Risk On” frenzy out there. And I’m not just talking about Philippine financial or risk assets, I’m alluding to global financial markets.

From the global stock market perspective, the bulls clearly have been in charge.

The Global Asset Rotation
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Most of this week’s modest gains virtually compounds on the advances of the last three weeks.

Among the majors, the US S&P 500 and the Japan’s Nikkei appeared to have assumed the leadership on a year-to-date return basis, which looks like a rotational process at work too.

Last year’s developed market leader, the German DAX which generated a 2012 return of about 29% has now underperformed relative to the US S&P 500 (11.52% in 2012) and the last minute or mid-December spike by the Nikkei (22.94% in 2012). The huge push on the Nikkei has been in response to the Bank of Japan’s (BoJ) increasingly aggressive stance to ease credit by expanding her balance sheet.

The BoJ is set to target 2% inflation and may follow the US Federal Reserve and the ECB’s unlimited option or commitment on the coming week[1]

For the ASEAN majors, the Philippine Phisix has taken the helm with a 5.62% return over the same period. The milestone or records highs have been reached following three successive weeks of phenomenal gains.

Yet ASEAN’s peripheral economies, Vietnam and Laos, have eclipsed the remarkable performance of the Phisix, with 9.77% and 15.91% in nominal currency returns covering the same period. Incidentally, the Laos Securities skyrocketed by 11.61% this week contributing to the gist of her 2013 returns.

It is important to point out that rotational process which is a manifestation of the inflationary boom has not just been a domestic episode but a global one too.

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First, my prediction that the domestic mining sector will lord over the Phisix in 2013 appears to have been reinforced this week. The mining sector has stretched its lead away from the pack, up by 13.65% in three weeks.

Last year’s other laggard, the service sector, also has taken the second spot.

So aside from some signs of rotation within the local stock market, there seems to be signs of an ongoing rotation dynamic operating among global equity markets.

This brings us to the next level
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The rotational process across asset markets: Specifically, there has been a meaningful shift in money flows towards equities.

Since the start of 2013, during the second week of the year, money flows into global equities has reached historic highs[2] (left window).

The yield chasing dynamic has essentially reversed investor sentiment on the equity markets. Investors have mostly shunned the stock markets and have flocked into bonds. This has been particularly evident with the US stock markets[3] since 2007.

Nonetheless despite the still robust flows towards fixed income, initial manifestations of the so-called “great rotation” exhibited the outperformance of global equities relative to global bonds[4], two weeks into 2013 (right window).

Yet such phenomenon has not been a stranger to us. I predicted a potential rotation from the bond markets into the stock market in October of last year[5].
We can either expect a shift out of bonds and into the stock markets or that the bond markets could be the trigger to the coming crisis.

In my view, the former is likely to happen first perhaps before the latter. To also add that triggers to crisis could come from exogenous forces.
It is important to realize that financial markets are essentially intertwined. For instance, stock markets have been closely tied to bond markets since many companies have used the bond markets to finance stock buybacks[6], as well as, to finance the property sector which has prompted for today’s booming assets.

In other words, the RISK ON environment prompted by monetary policies have made the asset rotational process a global dynamic.

Rotation Pumped Up by Releveraging

We are seeing massive systemic “releveraging” which has been inciting a speculative mania that is being greased by a credit boom.

Proof?

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In the US, Hedge funds have reportedly been upping the ante by the increasing use of leverage to increase stock market exposures. From Bloomberg[7] (chart from Zero Hedge[8] as of December 29th) [bold mine]
Hedge funds are borrowing more to buy equities just as loans by New York Stock Exchange brokers reach the highest in four years, signs of increasing confidence after professional investors trailed the market since 2008.

Leverage among managers who speculate on rising and falling shares climbed to the highest level to start any year since at least 2004, according to data compiled by Morgan Stanley. Margin debt at NYSE firms rose in November to the most since February 2008, data from NYSE Euronext show.
Traditional instruments of leverage haven’t been enough. Wall Street has essentially resurrected financing via securitization or the innovative pooled debt instruments called Collateralized Debt Obligations or CDOs, which played a pivotal role in the provision of finance to the previous housing bubble which resulted to a crisis.

From Bloomberg article[9], [bold mine]
What’s old is new again on Wall Street as banks tap into soaring demand for commercial real estate debt by selling collateralized debt obligations, securities not seen since the last boom.

Sales of CDOs linked to everything from hotels to offices and shopping malls are poised to climb to as much as $10 billion this year, about 10 times the level of 2012, according to Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc. (RBS) Lenders including Redwood Trust Inc. are offering the deals for the first time since transactions ground to a halt when skyrocketing residential loan defaults triggered a seizure across credit markets in 2008.

The rebirth of commercial property CDOs comes as investors wager on a real estate recovery and as the Federal Reserve pushes down borrowing costs, encouraging bond buyers to seek higher-yielding debt. The securities package loans such as those for buildings with high vacancy rates that are considered riskier than those found in traditional commercial-mortgage backed securities, where surging investor demand has driven spreads to the narrowest in more than five years.
The search for yield extrapolates to a search of alternative assets to speculate on. This is why investors have also been piling into state and municipal fixed income bonds. From Bloomberg[10]
Investors are pouring the most money since 2009 into U.S. municipal debt, putting the $3.7 trillion market on a pace for its longest rally versus Treasuries in three years.

Demand from individuals, who own about 70 percent of U.S. local debt, rose last week after Congress’s Jan. 1 deal to avert more than $600 billion in federal tax increases and spending cuts spared munis’ tax-exempt status. Investors added $1.6 billion to muni mutual funds in the week ended Jan. 9, the most since October 2009 and the first gain in four weeks, Lipper US Fund Flows data show.
Companies have once again commenced to tap unsecured short term fixed income security commercial markets usually meant to finance payroll and rent. 

From Bloomberg [11]
The market for corporate borrowing through commercial paper expanded for a 12th week as non- financial short-term IOUs rose to the highest level in four years.

The seasonally adjusted amount of U.S. commercial paper advanced $27.8 billion to $1.133 trillion outstanding in the week ended yesterday, the Federal Reserve said today on its website. That’s the longest stretch of increases since the period ended July 25, 2007, and the most since the market touched $1.147 trillion on Aug. 17, 2011.
This hasn’t just been a US dynamic, but a global one.

For instance, China has been exhibiting the same credit driven pathology too, as local governments go into a borrowing binge.

From the Wall Street Journal[12]
Bonds issued by local-government-controlled financing vehicles totaled 636.8 billion yuan ($102 billion) in 2012, surging 148% from 2011, the central bank-backed China Central Depository & Clearing Co. said in a report published earlier this month.
Moreover, lending from China’s non-banking institutions Trust companies, which is said to be the backbone of the ($2 trillion) Shadow Banking system—via loans to higher risks entities as property developers and local government investment vehicles—have likewise zoomed.

From Bloomberg[13],
A seven-fold jump in last month’s lending by China’s trust companies is setting off alarm bells for regulators to guard against the risk of default.

So-called trust loans rose 679 percent to 264 billion yuan ($42 billion) from a year earlier, central bank data showed on Jan. 15. That accounted for 16 percent of aggregate financing, which includes bond and stock sales. The amount of loans in China due to mature within 12 months doubled in four years to 24.8 trillion yuan, equivalent to more than half of gross domestic product in 2011, and the People’s Bank of China has set itself a new goal of limiting risks in the financial system.
Reports of the credit boom appears to have jolted China’s Shanghai index to soar by 3.3% this week. This brings China’s benchmark into the positive territory up 2.7% year-to-date. In 2012, the Chinese benchmark eked out only 3.17%, most of the recovery came from December which erased the yearlong losses.

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In India, soaring loan growth by the banking system, (chart from tradingeconomics.com[14]) now at almost 80% of the economy, has prompted the IMF to raise the alarm flag citing risks of “a deterioration in bank assets and a lack of capital as the economy slowed”[15]

India’s major stock market index, the BSE 30, seems on the verge of a record breakout. Also, India purportedly has a property bubble[16].

The Brazilian government’s directives to improve on credit accessibility have likewise led to a surge in lending.

From Bloomberg/groupomachina.com[17]
President Dilma Rousseff's insistence that Banco do Brasil SA boost lending is helping the state-controlled bank almost double its bond underwriting, giving the government a record share of the market.

International debt sales managed by the bank surged to 10 percent of offerings last year from 5.6 percent in 2011, the biggest jump in the country. With Brazilian issuers leading emerging markets by selling a record $51.1 billion in bonds, Banco do Brasil advanced six positions to become the third- largest underwriter, overtaking Bank of America Corp., Banco Santander SA and Itau Unibanco Holding SA, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Banco do Brasil, Latin America's largest bank by assets, is profiting from the government's push to expand credit as policy makers cut interest rates to revive an economy that had its slowest two-year stretch of growth in a decade. The bank's total lending, which includes loans, bonds on its books and other guarantees to companies, surged 21 percent in the year through Sept. 30 to 523 billion reais ($257 billion) as it piggybacked off existing relationships and bolstered a team of bankers dedicated to pitching borrowers on debt sales.
Following last year’s 7.4% gain, the Bovespa has been up by a modest 1.65%. Like almost everywhere, there have been concerns over the growing risk of a bubble bust[18] in Brazil.

The point is that all these synchronized and cumulative push to create “demand” via massive credit expansion has been driving leverage money into a speculative splurge that has elevated asset markets relatively via the rotational process.

Asset Bubbles and the Mania Phase

The impact of asset inflation has been different in terms of time and scale but nonetheless most assets generally rise overtime. Of course, such will need to be supported by greater inflationism which central banks have obliged.

Eventually all these will spillover to the real economy either via higher input prices or via higher consumer prices that will entail higher rates that may reverse current environment.

Even FED officials have raised concerns anew that “record-low interest rates are overheating markets for assets from farmland to junk bonds, which could heighten risks when they reverse their unprecedented bond purchases.”[19]

Of course, the problem is HOW to reverse without materially affecting prices of financial assets deeply DEPENDENT on the US Federal Reserves and or global central bank easing policies.

The likelihood is that each time market pressures or downside volatility resurfaces, policymakers will resort to even more easing. Threats to withdraw such policies have merely been symbolical.

And a further point is that while overextended runs usually tend to usher in a natural correction or profit taking phase, a blowoff phase may yield little correction. Instead, any transition to a manic phase of a bubble cycle will generally mean strong continuity of the upside.

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We have seen this happen in 1993 when the Phisix posted an astounding 154% yearly return.

Moreover, the 1986-2003 era basically epitomized the full bubble cycle in motion as shown by the bubble cycle diagram (left) and the Phisix chart (right).

I am not saying that this manic phase is imminent, but rather a possibility considering the current behavior of global and the domestic financial markets.

And I would like to reiterate, I believe that the returns of the Phisix will depend on the expected direction of, and actual actions by policymakers on, interest rates.

If the current boom will not yet impel for a higher rates soon, then such inflationary boom may continue. The Phisix I believe will remains strong, at least until the first quarter of this year.

All these goes to show that financial markets essentially have been dancing on the palm of the central bankers.





[3] Mike Burnick When to Consider Going Against the Grain with Your Investments, money andmarkets.com January 17, 2013









[12] Wall Street Journal, China's Local Governments Boost Borrowing, January 14, 2012





[17] Bloomberg.com Rousseff's Bond Business Booms After Lending Push: Brazil Credit, groupomachina.com January 16, 2013


Saturday, December 29, 2012

Quote of the Day: The Illusion of Stock-Picking Skill

Professional investors, including fund managers, fail a basic test of skill: persistent achievement. The diagnostic for the existence of any skills is the consistency of individual differences in achievement. The logic is simple: if any individual differences in any one year are entirely due to luck, the ranking of investors and funds will vary erratically and the year-to-year correlation will be zero. Where there is skill, however, the rankings will be more stable…

There is general agreement among researchers that nearly all stock pickers, whether they know it or not—and a few of them do—are playing a game of chance. The subjective experience of traders is that they are making sensible educated guesses in a situation of great uncertainty. In highly efficient markets, however, educated guesses are no more accurate than blind guesses.
This excerpt is from 2002 Nobel laureate psychologist and professor Daniel Kahneman in his insightful book Thinking, Fast and Slow p.214

Well Mr. Kahneman’s thesis seems to have been recently validated as passive long term investment funds (via equity bond index) has trumped active fund management represented by hedge funds 

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The Economist notes,
The S&P 500 has now outperformed its hedge-fund rival for ten straight years, with the exception of 2008 when both fell sharply. A simple-minded investment portfolio—60% of it in shares and the rest in sovereign bonds—has delivered returns of more than 90% over the past decade, compared with a meagre 17% after fees for hedge funds...
The widening disparity means that randomness or providence or lady luck has increasingly played a bigger role in determining the performances of the fast expanding hedge fund industry. 

The same Economist article subliminally acknowledges this,
The average hedge fund is a lousy bet, and predicting which will thrive and which will disappoint is a task that would tax even a Nobel prizewinner.
Yet in the finance industry where many of the participants believe that they possess presumptuous knowledge which in reality exhibits inflated egos, the role played by luck/randomness exists in a vacuum. 

Why? As Mr. Kahneman from the same book p 216 explains,
The illusion of skill is not only an individual aberration; it is deeply ingrained in the culture of the industry. Facts that challenge such basic assumptions—and thereby threaten livelihoods and self esteem—are simply not absorbed. The mind does not digest them. This is particularly true of statistical studies  of performance, which provide base-rate information that people generally ignore when it clashes with their personal impressions from experience.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Are Falling Gold Mining Stocks Signaling Deflation?

Gold mining stocks in the US seems to have diverged from prices of gold.

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There have been suggestions that such divergence could be indicative of “deflation”. For some of the hardcore devotees of the Keynesian religion, any price declines (be it consumer, equities, commodities) represents “deflation”. The definitional context of the term has been lost out of the desperation to prove the merits of their case.

However it’s really not just gold, but the same underperformance can be seen in prices of oil stocks.

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Charts above from US Global Funds

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Commodities, in general seem to have foundered since March whether in Agriculture (GKX), Energy (DJAEN) or Industrial metals (DJAIN) [chart from stockcharts.com]

And feebleness in commodity prices may get reflected on consumer prices.

Yet the current price weakness in commodities seems coincidental with the price declines of the Spain’s equity market via the Madrid General Index…

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…along with China’s Shanghai index, both of which saw significant slumps in March.

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Nevertheless global equity markets, overall, remains buoyant in spite of the reemergence of the euro debt crisis and of concerns over China’s economic slowdown.

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Yet current conditions suggest that following the strong surge from the start of the year, global equity markets may be in a natural consolidation phase, perhaps awaiting for the next round of central bank actions. You see, no trend goes in a straight line.

And lower CPI prices will likely motivate central bankers to go for more credit easing measures.

So the above exhibits the divergences playing out between stocks and commodities.

Does this signal "deflation" in the monetary sense? Obviously not.

What we are seeing instead has been the relative effects of money on asset prices. While commodity and commodity related stocks have generally underperformed (perhaps partly due to China or the Euro crisis) much of the money from easing policies of major central banks have been flowing into equity and other financial “credit” assets. In short, central bank policies have produced more asset (price) inflation than commodity (price) inflation

Proof of this is of the record flows of investor money into hedge funds.

From Reuters,

Investors poured billions of dollars into hedge funds in the first quarter, helping to send total industry assets into record territory, data released Thursday shows.

Investors allocated a net $16 billion to hedge funds in the first three months of the year, according to Hedge Fund Research, which tracks industry flows and performance.

With the new capital, as well as average gains of about 5 percent for hedge funds in the first quarter, total industry assets reached $2.13 trillion, HFR found. An earlier record was set halfway through 2011, when total capital invested with hedge fund managers hit $2.04 trillion.

In one of its worst annual performances in history, hedge funds lost about 5 percent in 2011. However, the industry seemed to get its groove back in the beginning of 2012 as global equity and credit markets rallied, and managers recorded the best first quarter of performance in five years.

Thus the weakness in the commodity sector may have filtered into oil and gold stocks which have caused their divergences with the prices of gold and oil. Such anomaly will likely be resolved soon as gold and oil prices should move higher.

Outside the policymaking actions, seasonal factors could also be a factor

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Chart from US Global Investors

But I won’t give so much weight on this

And finally falling commodities, which may translate to lower consumer price inflation, does not translate to the absence of a brewing boom-bust cycle.

The great Murray Rothbard explained that consumer prices had not been a factor in 1920 recession or boom bust cycle (America’s Great Depression p.169-170) [bold emphasis mine]

Actually, bank credit expansion creates its mischievous effects by distorting price relations and by raising and altering prices compared to what they would have been without the expansion. Statistically, therefore, we can only identify the increase in money supply, a simple fact. We cannot prove inflation by pointing to price increases. We can only approximate explanations of complex price movements by engaging in a comprehensive economic history of an era—a task which is beyond the scope of this study. Suffice it to say here that the stability of wholesale prices in the 1920s was the result of monetary inflation offset by increased productivity, which lowered costs of production and increased the supply of goods. But this “offset” was only statistical; it did not eliminate the boom–bust cycle, it only obscured it. The economists who emphasized the importance of a stable price level were thus especially deceived, for they should have concentrated on what was happening to the supply of money. Consequently, the economists who raised an alarm over inflation in the 1920s were largely the qualitativists. They were written off as hopelessly old-fashioned by the “newer” economists who realized the overriding importance of the quantitative in monetary affairs. The trouble did not lie with particular credit on particular markets (such as stock or real estate); the boom in the stock and real estate markets reflected Mises’s trade cycle: a disproportionate boom in the prices of titles to capital goods, caused by the increase in money supply attendant upon bank credit expansion.

For as long as central bankers remain on a monetary expansionary mode or continues to adapt rampant inflationism, my expectations is that current weakness represents a temporary and natural outcome of the relative effects of money.

Sunday, June 07, 2009

Our Mises Moment Answers Mainstream’s Conundrum of Market-Fundamental Disconnect

``But on the other hand inflation cannot continue indefinitely. As soon as the public realizes that the government does not intend to stop inflation, that the quantity of money will continue to increase with no end in sight, and that consequently the money prices of all goods and services will continue to soar with no possibility of stopping them, everybody will tend to buy as much as possible and to keep his ready cash at a minimum. The keeping of cash under such conditions involves not only the costs usually called interest, but also considerable losses due to the decrease in the money’s purchasing power. The advantages of holding cash must be bought at sacrifices which appear so high that everybody restricts more and more his ready cash. During the great inflations of World War I, this development was termed “a flight to commodities” and the “crack-up boom.” The monetary system is then bound to collapse; a panic ensues; it ends in a complete devaluation of money Barter is substituted or a new kind of money is resorted to. Examples are the Continental Currency in 1781, the French Assignats in 1796, and the German Mark in 1923.”-Ludwig von Mises, Interventionism: An Economic Analysis, Inflation and Credit Expansion

The mainstream is obviously very perplexed.

They can’t seem to figure what’s going on with market prices that can’t seem to match “fundamentals”.

Take this as an example. ``With oil inventories high and demand down year on year, yet prices surging, "fundamentalists" are puzzled” observes Liam Denning of the Wall street Journal.

Skeptical of the fundamental –market disconnect, the unconvinced Mr. Denning concludes his article with, `` Ultimately, however, the danger for China, and commodities bulls, is that Beijing's efforts fail to fully offset the harsh realities afflicting the world economy as a whole.” (bold highlight mine)

Figure 6: Wall Street Journal: China Watch The Body Language

Many have attributed the rise in oil or iron ore prices primarily to China see figure 6. But the unpleasant fact is that this isn’t just about oil or iron ore or China.

It’s about policy induced inflation whose growing influences are being ventilated on markets and which has been percolating and distorting the real economy.

And the primary mechanism for such release valve has been the US dollar.

As we wrote in last week’s Mainstream Denials And The Greenshoots of Inflation, a broadening category of the commodities have been experiencing price gains. So it’s not only oil or iron ore or gold but a whole range of commodities which includes food prices.

In addition, it isn’t just China or Sovereign Wealth Funds, but a broader spectrum of participants have joined the bandwagon as buyers of commodities. As we noted in Hedge Funds Pile Into Commodities, hedge funds have been growing exposure to commodities.

Even life insurance outfit as Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. ``has bought gold for the first time the company’s 152-year history to hedge against further asset declines” (Bloomberg) could be signs of possible major reconfigurations of investments flows towards commodities.

My recent post which surprisingly turned out with a high number of hits, deals with Hedge Fund Ace John Paulson who made an amazing allotment of 46% of his portfolio into gold and gold related investments [see Hedge Fund Wizard John Paulson Loads Up On Gold]! He didn’t say why, but the message was loud and clear! What a statement.

Aside, Bond King and regulatory arbitrageur Bill Gross recently wrote to warn the public to diversify away from US dollar before ``central banks and sovereign wealth funds ultimately do the same amid concern about surging deficits” (Bloomberg)

He thinks that the US has reached a “point of no return”, again from the same Bloomberg article, ``“I think he’ll fail at pulling a balanced rabbit out of a hat,” Gross said from Pimco’s headquarters in Newport Beach, California. “They are talking about -- once the economy in the U.S. renormalizes -- the move back toward balance or much less of a deficit. I suspect that will be hard to do.”

Moreover, a public gold fever (not swine flu) appears to have infected ordinary Chinese sparked by the revelation of massive gold accumulations by the China’s government. According to the China Daily, ``Inspired by the increase in the government gold reserves, the more savvy investors are also buying shares of Chinese gold producers on the Shanghai Stock Exchange and the smaller Shenzhen Stock Exchange.”

Furthermore, drug trades have reportedly been reducing transactions based in the US dollar and could have possibly been replaced by trades in gold bullion (telegraph).

This Dollar based concerns won’t be complete without Russia’s continued outspoken campaign to replace the US dollar as the world’s international reserve currency, which apparently not only got support from major Emerging Markets as China and Brazil, but even the IMF has reportedly jumped on the bandwagon saying that replacing the US dollar is possible.

This from Bloomberg, ``The IMF’s so-called special drawing rights could be used as the basis for a new currency, First Deputy Managing Director John Lipsky told a panel discussing reserve currencies at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum today.

``“There are many, many attractions in the long run to such an outcome,” Lipsky told a panel discussing reserve currencies at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum today. “But this is not a quick, short or easy decision,” he said, adding that it would be “quite revolutionary.” (bold highlight mine)

And worst of all, US dollar as a safehaven status has been scoffed at by Chinese students! Incredible.

This from Reuters, ``"Chinese assets are very safe," Geithner said in response to a question after a speech at Peking University, where he studied Chinese as a student in the 1980s.

``His answer drew loud laughter from his student audience, reflecting skepticism in China about the wisdom of a developing country accumulating a vast stockpile of foreign reserves instead of spending the money to raise living standards at home.” (bold highlight mine)

It’s obviously a question of what degree of the Chinese population has been represented by the adverse reactions of Chinese students on Mr. Geithner’s statement. If these students account for a majority of China’s sentiment, then it is quite obvious that the public will likely be shunning the US dollar as mode of payment or as transactional currency or as medium of exchange (sooner than later) despite the Chinese policymakers’ avowed insistence to buy US dollar assets (but on a short term basis) which is no less than politically premised, as previously discussed here and here.

All these account for votes of displeasure over policies governing the US as reflected on its currency the US dollar, which mainstream can’t seem to comprehend.

As I wrote in my March outlook Expect A Different Inflationary Environment (emphasis added), ``This leads us to surmise that most of global stock markets (especially EM economies which we expect to rise faster in relative terms) could rise to absorb the collective inflationary actions led by the US Federal Reserve but on a much divergent scale. Currency destruction measures will also possibly support OECD prices but could underperform, as the onus from the tug-of-war will probably remain as a hefty drag in their financial markets.

``And this also suggests that commodity prices will also likely rise faster (although not equally in relative terms) than the previous experience which would eventually filter into consumer prices.

``In other words, the evolution of the opening up of about 3 billion people into the global markets, a more integrated global economy and the increased sophistication of the financial markets have successfully imbued the inflationary actions by central banks over the past few years. But this isn’t going to be the case this time around-unless economies which have low leverage level (mostly in the EM economies) will manage to sop up much of the slack.”

So far everything that we have said has turned out to be quite accurate.

But we seem to be transitioning to the next level.

This brings us to the question why the public seems to be gravitating towards commodities?

Ludwig von Mises has an explicit answer which I unearthed in Stabilization of the Monetary Unit? From the Viewpoint of Theory,

``If people are buying unnecessary commodities, or at least commodities not needed at the moment, because they do not want to hold on to their paper notes, then the process which forces the notes out of use as a generally acceptable medium of exchange has already begun. This is the beginning of the “demonetization” of the notes. The panicky quality inherent in the operation must speed up the process. It may be possible to calm the excited masses once, twice, perhaps even three or four times. However, matters must finally come to an end. Then there is no going back. Once the depreciation makes such rapid strides that sellers are fearful of suffering heavy losses, even if they buy again with the greatest possible speed, there is no longer any chance of rescuing the currency. In every country in which inflation has proceeded at a rapid pace, it has been discovered that the depreciation of the money has eventually proceeded faster than the increase in its quantity.”

So let us break these down into stages:

First, the loss of the currency’s purchasing power.

Second, is the loss of a currency’s function as medium of exchange or the “demonetization process”.

Third, is the accelerating feedback loop between the first two stages which brings upon the irreversibility of the process and

Finally, the total collapse of the currency.

So there you have it. The public’s increasing exposure to commodities is fundamentally a question of the viability of the present monetary standards.

So far the political path and market responses have been behaving exactly as described by Prof. von Mises.

Hence, I call this the Mises Moment.


Friday, June 05, 2009

Hedge Fund Wizard John Paulson Loads Up On Gold

Interesting trivia on Hedge fund manager John Paulson.

According to Casey Research,

``Not familiar with Paulson & Company, or founder John Paulson? You should be, and here’s why:

Picture from Businessinsider.com

• Paulson’s bet on the subprime mortgage debacle earned $3.7 billion in 2007.

• The company made an estimated £606 million profit selling short British bank stocks in September 2008.

• John Paulson ranked #2 on Alpha’s Highest-Earning Hedge Fund Managers of 2008.

• Two of Paulson & Co.’s funds ranked #1 and #4 on Barron’s Top 100 Hedge Funds 2009 list."

So what has the top notch been loading up lately?


The answer is gold and gold mining stocks.

Again Casey Research, ``The privately owned hedge fund sponsor Paulson & Co. added over $3.7 billion in new gold positions during the first quarter of 2009, increasing its total investment to $4.3 billion. About 46% of the equity portfolio is now allocated towards gold and gold stocks."

Why?

Telegraph's Ambrose Pritchard thinks this has been due to reflation.

``The world's top hedge fund manager John Paulson has built a gold position of at least $5.5bn, the biggest such move since George Soros and Sir James Goldsmith bet on Newmont Mining in 1993...

``Paulson & Co has bought $2.9bn in SPDR Gold Trust, the biggest of the gold exchange traded funds (ETFs), which now holds 1106 tonnes − three times the Brown-gutted reserves of the United Kingdom.

``Mr Paulson has also built up a $2.3bn holding of Anglo Ashanti, Goldfields, Kinross Gold, and Market Vectors Gold Miners. The fact that he is launching a "Paulson Real Estate Recovery Fund", reversing the bet against sub-prime securities that made him rich, tells us all we need to know about his thinking. This is a liquidity-reflation play."

On the contrary having 46% of one's portfolio in gold suggests that it isn't just a liquidity reflation play, since reflation suggests of an economic recovery which should translate to a more diversified portfolio.

Instead it does seem to look more like a "super" or "hyper" inflation play.

Friday, May 29, 2009

Hedge Funds Pile Into Commodities

According to Bloomberg, ``Hedge funds are making the biggest bet in nine months that commodity prices will rise as the global economy rebounds from its steepest slump since World War II.


Adds the Bloomberg article, ``The CHART OF THE DAY shows an index of the net long position in U.S. commodity futures, or bets prices will rise, held by hedge funds and other large speculators. The index, consisting of 20 raw materials monitored by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, rose to its highest since August.

``The gain “indicates further willingness for investors to take on asset classes which they were earlier cautious of,” said Kevin Norrish, an analyst at Barclays Capital in London. The index plunged from a peak of 1.37 million in February last year to as little as 86,220 in December.

``Sugar and corn had the largest net-long positions by the week ended May 19, while investors held the largest net-short positions in natural gas and copper.

``“Agricultural products are not going to be as vulnerable to the current economic retrenchment as things like metals or oil,” Norrish said.

``The Reuters/Jefferies CRB index of 19 raw materials rose 6.3 percent this year, after a 36 percent decline in 2008.

My take: So it's not just China but also international Hedge Funds piling into commodities backed by so many rationalizations.

This is no less than a manifestation of shifting preference to hold "hard assets" over rapidly depreciating paper money.

Monetary forces are indeed gaining traction.


Friday, May 08, 2009

Hedge Fund Manager Refutes President Obama


After the hedge fund industry got slammed by US President Obama, Hedge Fund manager Clifford S. Asness makes a stirring rebuttal...

From New York Times Deal Book (all bold highlight mine)

Unafraid In Greenwich Connecticut
Clifford S. Asness
Managing and Founding Principal
AQR Capital Management, LLC

The President has just harshly castigated hedge fund managers for being unwilling to take his administration’s bid for their Chrysler bonds. He called them “speculators” who were “refusing to sacrifice like everyone else” and who wanted “to hold out for the prospect of an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout.”

The responses of hedge fund managers have been, appropriately, outrage, but generally have been anonymous for fear of going on the record against a powerful President (an exception, though still in the form of a “group letter,” was the superb note from “The Committee of Chrysler Non-TARP Lenders,” some of the points of which I echo here, and a relatively few firms, like Oppenheimer, that have publicly defended themselves). Furthermore, one by one the managers and banks are said to be caving to the President’s wishes out of justifiable fear.

I run an approximately twenty billion dollar money management firm that offers hedge funds as well as public mutual funds and unhedged traditional investments. My company is not involved in the Chrysler situation, but I am still aghast at the President’s comments (of course, these are my own views, not those of my company). Furthermore, for some reason I was not born with the common sense to keep it to myself, though my title should more accurately be called “Not Afraid Enough” as I am indeed fearful writing this… It’s really a bad idea to speak out.

Angering the President is a mistake, and my views will annoy half my clients. I hope my clients will understand that I’m entitled to my voice and to speak it loudly, just as they are in this great country. I hope they will also like that I do not think I have the right to intentionally “sacrifice” their money without their permission.

Here’s a shock. When hedge funds, pension funds, mutual funds, and individuals, including very sweet grandmothers, lend their money they expect to get it back. However, they know, or should know, they take the risk of not being paid back. But if such a bad event happens, it usually does not result in a complete loss. A firm in bankruptcy still has assets. It’s not always a pretty process. Bankruptcy court is about figuring out how to most fairly divvy up the remaining assets based on who is owed what and whose contracts come first.

The process already has built-in partial protections for employees and pensions, and can set lenders’ contracts aside in order to help the company survive, all of which are the rules of the game lenders know before they lend. But, without this recovery process nobody would lend to risky borrowers. Essentially, lenders accept less than shareholders (means bonds return less than stocks) in good times only because they get more than shareholders in bad times.

The above is how it works in America, or how it’s supposed to work. The President and his team sought to avoid having Chrysler go through this process, proposing their own plan for reorganizing the company and partially paying off Chrysler’s creditors. Some bondholders thought this plan unfair. Specifically, they thought it unfairly favored the United Auto Workers, and unfairly paid bondholders less than they would get in bankruptcy court. So, they said no to the plan and decided, as is their right, to take their chances in the bankruptcy process. But, as his quotes above show, the President thought they were being unpatriotic or worse.

Let’s be clear, it is the job and obligation of all investment managers, including hedge fund managers, to get their clients the most return they can. They are allowed to be charitable with their own money, and many are spectacularly so, but if they give away their clients’ money to share in the “sacrifice,” they are stealing. Clients of hedge funds include, among others, pension funds of all kinds of workers, unionized and not.

The managers have a fiduciary obligation to look after their clients’ money as best they can, not to support the President, nor to oppose him, nor otherwise advance their personal political views. That’s how the system works. If you hired an investment professional and he could preserve more of your money in a financial disaster, but instead he decided to spend it on the UAW so you could “share in the sacrifice,” you would not be happy.

Let’s quickly review a few side issues.

The President’s attempted diktat takes money from bondholders and gives it to a labor union that delivers money and votes for him. Why is he not calling on his party to “sacrifice” some campaign contributions, and votes, for the greater good? Shaking down lenders for the benefit of political donors is recycled corruption and abuse of power.

Let’s also mention only in passing the irony of this same President begging hedge funds to borrow more to purchase other troubled securities. That he expects them to do so when he has already shown what happens if they ask for their money to be repaid fairly would be amusing if not so dangerous. That hedge funds might not participate in these programs because of fear of getting sucked into some toxic demagoguery that ends in arbitrary punishment for trying to work with the Treasury is distressing. Some useful programs, like those designed to help finance consumer loans, won’t work because of this irresponsible hectoring.

Last but not least, the President screaming that the hedge funds are looking for an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout is the big lie writ large. Find me a hedge fund that has been bailed out. Find me a hedge fund, even a failed one, that has asked for one. In fact, it was only because hedge funds have not taken government funds that they could stand up to this bullying.

The TARP recipients had no choice but to go along. The hedge funds were singled out only because they are unpopular, not because they behaved any differently from any other ethical manager of other people’s money. The President’s comments here are backwards and libelous. Yet, somehow I don’t think the hedge funds will be following ACORN’s lead and trucking in a bunch of paid professional protesters soon. Hedge funds really need a community organizer.

This is America. We have a free enterprise system that has worked spectacularly for us for two hundred-plus years. When it fails it fixes itself. Most importantly, it is not an owned lackey of the Oval Office to be scolded for disobedience by the President.

I am ready for my “personalized” tax rate now.