Tuesday, October 22, 2013

China’s Property Bubbles Intensifies

So the ‘silent stimulus’ recently implemented by the Chinese government (including the hiding, editing censoring of statistics) aimed at attaining statistical growth goals has only been further inflating property bubbles. 

China’s credit fueled property bubbles may have entered a blowoff phase, notes the Bloomberg:
Home prices in China’s four major cities rose the most since January 2011 last month, raising concerns that a lack of new property curbs is allowing a bubble to form.

New home prices climbed in 69 of the 70 cities the government tracked in September from a year earlier, led by 20 percent increases in the southern business hubs of Shenzhen and Guangzhou, the National Bureau of Statistics said in a statement today. Prices in Beijing rose 16 percent and advanced 17 percent in Shanghai, the biggest gains since the government changed its methodology for the home data in 2011.

Premier Li Keqiang has come up with no additional measures to rein in property prices since his predecessor Wen Jiabao stepped up a three-year campaign in March to cool the housing market, ordering the central bank to raise down-payment requirements for second mortgages in cities with excessive cost gains. Some Chinese cities are facing increasing pressure to meet annual home-price targets they set earlier this year and to cap gains at the growth rate of local disposable incomes.
Bubbles are a function of inflationism, and in China’s case, compounded by financial repression, viz keeping capital markets underdeveloped or limiting options for the citizenry to invest their savings in order for the government to tacitly capture them.

Previous property curbs has failed and will continue to fail because of the political incentives driving China’s politics.

Political careers of local government officials have been mainly dependent on the goals set by the national government. Thus, for local government to meet such statistical ‘growth’ targets, they resort to circumventing these regulatory hurdles by using local government financing units (LGFU) through the private sector, who partly bankroll these property projects via the shadow banking industry.The national government has accused many local governments of statistical manipulation. Yet if the LGUs indulge in them why not the national government?

Add to these the barrage of stimulus employed unannounced by the national government.

More signs of credit expansion fueling China’s bubbles, from the same article…
Domestic loans to developers jumped 50 percent last month from a year earlier, according to Shanghai-based advisory firm CEBM Group, which calculated government data.

A residential land parcel in Beijing sold at a record price 73,000 yuan ($11,980) per square meter (10.76 square feet) on Sept. 4, according to Centaline Property Agency Ltd. Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd. (16), Hong Kong’s biggest developer by market value, bought a site in Shanghai for 21.8 billion yuan in an auction the next day, a record price in that city, Centaline said.

“Developers have been able to access cheaper liquidity, which financed their land acquisitions,” ANZ’s Liu said. “Homebuyers dashed into the market fearing that home prices will rise further given the high land prices.”

For the fifth month in a row, the eastern city of Wenzhou was the only one to post a decline, with prices dropping 1.7 percent from last year.

Existing home prices rose 18 percent in Beijing last month from a year earlier, leading the gains, followed by a 14 percent increase in Shenzhen and 12 percent in Shanghai, according to the data.
The Chinese government recently surpassed their statistical objective growth threshold of 7.5% with a 7.8% 'growth' for the third quarter. 

Curiously the pace of growth in the broad sector has been nearly ‘identical’ to their reference points.

This from another Bloomberg article 
Gross domestic product rose 7.8 percent in the July-September period from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said today in Beijing, matching the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey. Industrial production advanced in September by 10.2 percent, in line with projections, while retail sales gained 13.3 percent…

Industrial output growth compared with August’s 10.4 percent.Retail sales compared with a median estimate of 13.5 percent expansion and 13.4 percent in August.

Fixed-asset investment excluding rural households, a key force behind growth, grew 20.2 percent in the first nine months of the year, compared with the median estimate of 20.3 percent from analysts and a 20.3 percent pace in the January-August period
Let see: Industrial output 10.2 vis-à-vis 10.4. Retail 13.5 relative to 13.4. Fixed asset 20.2 against 20.2. Given the booming and highly volatile property sector, in my view, I’d smell something fishy with the seemingly placid numbers which assumes that general economy has been growing at steady pace.

image

Yet more credit inspired statistical economic growth from Financial Times
A surge in lending by banks and other financial institutions at the start of this year is one of the main explanations for the upturn in Chinese growth. Total social financing – China’s widest measure of credit – rose 52 per cent year-on-year in the first five months of 2013, an astonishingly fast pace.
So whether in the US, Japan, Europe or China or elsewhere, governments have been pushing debts to their critical limits in order to attain temporal statistical growth. 

Along with the momentum or yield chasing inspired private sector, governments have been funneling resources into speculative-capital consuming activities.

Yet every action has a consequence. Spurious or artificial growth financed by unsustainable will eventually face a day of reckoning. The $64 gazillion question is: when?

And another thing… as China’s bubbles intensify, Hong Kong and Singapore’s luxury rental market has shown signs of a slowdown: are these signs of a reprieve before the next leg up or are these initial signs of a coming reversal?

Ray Kurzweil: Bridge to Bridge System Towards an Everlasting Life

Futurist Ray Kurzweil of the Singularity fame and now a director of Google says that immortality may be near

From Daily Mail (hat tip EPJ)
Google engineering director and futurist Ray Kurzweil believes we are close to realizing everlasting life and is dead-set on getting us there.

The inventor and noted author believes the key to such a scientific breakthrough is a system of 'bridges' that enable the body to move from strength to strength over time.

The youthful 65-year-old currently takes 150 supplements a day, which he argues if the first bridge.

The idea is to build enough bridges to ensure the body holds out long enough for life-lengthening technology to come into its own.

He has likened the biology of the body to computer software and believes we are all 'out of date'.

In an interview with Canadian magazine Maclean's, Kurzweil says he hopes the supplements will keep him healthy enough to reach the 'nanotech revolution'.

'I can never say, “I’ve done it, I’ve lived forever,” because it’s never forever,' he said.

'We’re really talking about being on a path that will get us to the next point.

'Bridge one: Stay as healthy as possible with diet and exercise and current medicine.

'The goal is to get to bridge two.

'Bridge two (is) the biotechnology revolution, where we can reprogram biology away from disease.

'And that is not the end-all either.

'Bridge three is to go beyond biology, to the nanotechnology revolution.

'At that point we can have little robots, sometimes called nanobots, that augment your immune system.

'We can create an immune system that recognizes all disease, and if a new disease emerged, it could be reprogrammed to deal with new pathogens.'

Such robots, according to Kurzweil, will help fight diseases, improve health and allow people to remain active for longer.
Read the rest here.

In my view, if Mr. Kurzweil is right, then the coming generation will benefit from this.

US Fed’s Coming Centennial Anniversary of Failures and Inflationism

The US Federal Reserve will be observing its 100 years of existence in December 23, 2013. Unfortunately it has been 100 years of volatility, turbulence and boom bust cycles.

Sovereign Man’s Simon Black enumerates the failures of the FED
As we’re coming up on the 100th anniversary of the establishment of Federal Reserve, one thing has become abundantly clear– these guys are horrible at their jobs.

According to the popular lie, the Federal Reserve was supposed to have been established to smooth out the economic cycle, thus preventing booms, busts, recessions, and depressions.

It hasn’t really worked out that way.

In the 100 years prior to the establishment of the Federal Reserve, there were 18 distinct recessions or depressions:

1815, 1822, 1825, 1828, 1833, 1836, 1839, 1845, 1847, 1853, 1860, 1865, 1869, 1873, 1887, 1890, 1899, and 1902.

Since the establishment of the Federal Reserve, there have been 18 recessions or depressions:

1918, 1920, 1923, 1926, 1929, 1937, 1945, 1949, 1953, 1958, 1960, 1969, 1973, 1980, 1981, 1990, 2001, 2008.

So in other words, the economy experienced just as many recessions with the ‘expert’ management of the Federal Reserve as without it.

And this doesn’t even begin to capture all the absurd panics (the S&L scare), bailouts (Long-Term Capital Management), and ridiculous asset bubbles that they’ve created.
image

I’d like to add that since the introduction of the FED, the US dollar’s purchasing power has immensely shrunk.

Based on the US Department of Labor’s CPI Inflation calculator, as of this writing, $100 in 1913 is worth only $4.23 today! The US dollar has lost over 95% of its purchasing power since the Fed’s birth! What an accomplishment by the FED.

Purchasing Power of the U.S. Dollar 1913 to 2013
Explore more infographics like this one on the web's largest information design community - Visually.

Here is a chart of the US dollar courtesy of visual.ly

Even John Maynard Keynes knew of the insidious effects of monetary debasement on societies.  

From Chapter VI, Europe after the Treaty from “The Economic Consequences of the Peace” [1920] (source The Online Library of Liberty) [italics original; bold mine]
Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the Capitalist System was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security, but at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth. Those to whom the system brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even beyond their expectations or desires, become "profiteers," who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished, not less than of the proletariat. As the inflation proceeds and the real value of the currency fluctuates wildly from month to month, all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless; and the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery. [very much the yield chasing phenomenon today--Benson]

Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.
The Fed certainly did get one thing right: they have been unwaveringly abiding by Lenin’s prescriptions towards the undoing of a capitalist society for 100 years. And expect more to come.

Monday, October 21, 2013

Phisix: US Debt Ceiling Deal and UNTaper Spurs a Global Melt UP

Melt Up!

Melt UP!

Suddenly stock markets metastasize into a frenetic melt-up mode.

In the US, the S&P 500, the S&P 400 Mid-caps and the small cap Russell 2000 set new record highs. 

The German Dax and the French CAC also carved fresh landmark highs. 

In Asia, Australia’s S&P ASX, and India’s Sensex shared a similar feat. Ironically just a few months back the Indian economy seemed as staring into the abyss—to borrow from German Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche[1]. How confidence changes overnight


Media explains the melt up as a function of the debt ceiling deal and extended US Federal Reserve ‘credit easing’ stimulus. From Bloomberg, “U.S. stocks rose, sending the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to a record, as speculation grew that the Federal Reserve will maintain the pace of stimulus after Congress ended the budget standoff.”[2]

Thus the common denominator in explaining the melt-up has been the market’s worship of debt expressed via the orgy of the speculative hunt for yields in the asset markets, particularly the stock markets.

Will the global melt-up influence the Phisix, the likely answer is yes. But….

How the FED Alters the Priorities of US Corporations

Goldman Sach's chief US equity strategist, David Kostin has been quoted as attributing the current US stock market surge on P/E multiple expansion, “The S&P 500 has returned 22% YTD driven almost entirely by P/E multiple expansion rather than higher earnings.”[3]
 
This means record US stocks has hardly been about earnings growth but of the aggressive bidding up of the equities.

More signs of the yield chasing frenzy.
clip_image002


In addition, as pointed out above by Blackstone Group’s Byron Wien[4], S&P 500’s net income has been on a decline since 2010. This decline has been accompanied by a slowing of earning per share growth (y-o-y).

Yet, the modest gains in the growth rate of the S&P’s EPS have mainly been bolstered by share buybacks. 

And as previously pointed out[5], a substantial portion of corporate share buybacks has been financed by bonds which remains a present dynamic[6]

In other words, the FED’s easy money policies, including the “UNTaper” have been prompting many publicly listed companies to shore up or ‘squeeze’ earnings growth via debt-financed corporate buybacks meant to raise prices of their underlying stocks.

Share buybacks has essentially substituted the capital or investment based expansion or the organic earnings growth paradigm. Said differently, publicly listed corporations have joined the herd in the feverish speculation on stocks rather than investing in the real economy.

This also means that the yield chasing mentality has infected the corporate board rooms, where corporate models appear to have been reconfigured to focus on the immediate attainment of higher share prices. 

And a recent research paper has underscored such changes. Stern School of Business John Asker, Harvard’s Joan Farre-Mensa and Stern School of Business Alexander Ljungqvist finds[7], (bold mine)
Listed firms invest substantially less and are less responsive to changes in investment opportunities compared to matched private firms, even during the recent financial crisis. These differences do not reflect observable economic differences between public and private firms (such as lifecycle differences) and instead appear to be driven by a propensity for public firms to suffer greater agency costs. Evidence showing that investment behavior diverges most strongly in industries in which stock prices are particularly sensitive to current earnings suggests public firms may suffer from managerial myopia.
So short-termism, mainly brought about by the Fed’s policies, has afflicted many of the publicly listed firm’s priorities. Many executive officers and shareowners have presently elected to use the unsustainable speculative financing model of boosting earnings that yields temporal benefits for them.

This essentially defies Ben Graham’s 1st rule of margin of safety where companies should stick to what they know or ‘know your business’ and to avoid to making ““business profits” out of securities—that is, returns in excess of normal and dividend income” as I showed last week[8].

Yet all these will depend on the persistence of easy money regime, the suppression of the bond vigilantes and the sustainability of debt financed buyback model.

So while most publicly listed US companies have yet to immerse themselves into Ponzi financing, sustained easy money policies have been motivating them towards such direction.

A Dot.com Bubble Déjà vu? Google as Symptom?

The scrapping for yields has impelled many to jump on the IPO bandwagon despite poor track record of newly listed companies. 

According to the Wall Street Journal, 19 out of 28 or 68% of the technology issues which debuted this year has been unprofitable over the last fiscal year or during the past 12 months, which has been the highest percentage since 2007 and 2001. Yet punters wildly piled on them.

The same article notes of intensifying signs of mania “The excitement over companies’ potential rather than their present results is the latest sign in the stock markets of a rising tolerance for risk. The U.S. IPO market, often seen as a gauge of risk appetite because the stocks don’t have a track record, is on pace to produce the most deals since 2007, according to Dealogic”[9]

And Art Cashin UBS Financial Services director of floor operations at a recent CNBC interview expressed worries over a remake of the dotcom bubble, “The way people are treating technology companies, it's starting to feel a bit too much like 1999 and 2000”[10]

1999, 2000 and 2007 signifies as the zenith of the dotcom (1999-2000) bubble and the US housing bubble (2007)

Has Google been leading the way?
clip_image003

Google’s [GOOG] stock breached past the US$ 1,000 levels (particularly $1,011.41) with a breath-taking 13.8% gap up spike last Friday.

At market cap of over $335 billion, Google surpassed Microsoft [MSFT] and is now the third largest company after Apple [APPL] and Exxon Mobile [XOM][11].

Since Google is a member of the S&P 500[12], Friday’s quantum leap materially contributed to the new record of the major S&P bellwether (SPX). 

And as shown in the same chart, the S&P 400 mid cap and the small cap Russell 2000 flew to the firmament last week.

clip_image004

Three of the 5 largest S&P companies are from the information technology. In addition, technology comprises the largest sectoral weighting at 17.7% on the S&P, followed closely by financials 16.5%, and from a distance, Healthcare 13.2%, consumer discretionary 12.3% and the others. 

Should the technology mania persist, this will be reflected on the relative strength of sector, as well as, through a bigger share of the same sector in the S&P 500’s sectoral weighting.

Surprise 3rd quarter revenue growth of 23% from advertising part of which came from the mobile platform and Wall Street “emotion” has been attributed to Google’s spectacular price spike.

This Yahoo article[13] says that part of adrenaline rush on Google’s share prices has been to due low exposure on stocks by institutional investors (bold mine)
Google is higher today because it reported strong numbers, but it's not a 10% better company today than it was 24 hours ago. Wall Street is in a manic phase at the moment. For all the terrific things about Google's third-quarter, the best thing about the report was that it came on a day when institutional investors are feeling like they have far too little exposure to stocks. The average hedge fund was up less than 10% through September and there weren't many people expecting this race to new highs on the S&P500 (^GSPC) on the heels of debt ceiling debacle.
In short, more signs of frantic yield chasing.

Google’s reported 3rd quarter earnings of $10.74 per share[14], which came ahead of consensus estimates of $10.34.

While I am a fan of Google’s products, I hardly see value in Google’s stocks. 

Yahoo data[15] shows that Google has a trailing PE (ttm or trailing twelve months intraday) at 27.52, forward PE (fye or fiscal year end: December 2014) at 19.42, Price/book (mrq or most recent quarter) 3.75 and enterprise multiple of enterprise/ebitda (ttm or trailing twelve months) at 16.14.

The above multiples exhibit how richly priced GOOG has been

The same applies to the general stock market

Based on the prospects of continued declining earnings growth rate and based on the trailing PE[16], as of Friday’s close, the Dow Industrials has a ratio of 17.24, from last year’s 14.47, the S&P 500 at 18.32 from 17.03 a year ago and the Nasdaq 100 at 20.88 from last year’s 15.24. 

Most shockingly, the small cap Russell 2000 has a PE ratio of 86.58 from 32.69 a year ago! The Russell PE ratio more than doubled this year. Wow.

clip_image005

While I have not encountered GOOG resorting to share buybacks yet, GOOG’s increasing recourse to debt to finance[17] her operations has hardly been an attraction.

What perhaps may justify GOOG’s current prices is the prospect of success from its upcoming products such as the driverless cars, Google Glass and the cloud based planning applications called the “Genie” targeted at the construction industry[18].

But this would be audacious speculation.

And overconfidence has become a dominant feature.

Aside from stock market bulls brazenly hectoring and scoffing at the bears, market participants have been conditioned to see stock markets as a one way street.

For instance, record stocks which brought about the biggest single-day decline in U.S. equity volatility since 2011 rewarded the bullish option traders who aggressively doubled down on bets that the bull market in stocks would survive the default deadline[19].

The consensus has been hardwired to see any stock market decline as opportunity to “double down”.

For the bulls, risks have vanished. The stock market’s only designated direction seems up, up and away.

Yet the bullish consensus seems oblivious to the reality of the deepening dependence the stock market (and even housing) has been to the Fed’s credit easing measures. They are ignoring the fact that corporate business models have been evolving towards speculation, rather than to productive investments. Expanding price multiples, declining net income and EPS growth rate, increasing dependence on buybacks and debt financing for speculation are symptoms of such transition.

Aside from corporations, the convictions of bullish market participants are being reinforced by evidences of more aggressive actions.

While I don’t expect the FED to take the proverbial punch bowl away, everything depends on the actions of the bond vigilantes. For now, the bond vigilantes have been in a retreat. The hiatus by the bond vigilantes provides room for the bulls to magnify on their advances. Question is for how long?

If QE 3.0 in September of 2012 pushed backed the bond vigilantes for only 3 months, will the euphoric effects of the UNtaper, Yellen as Fed Chairwoman, debt ceiling deal last longer?

The French Disconnect

As I pointed out above, the UNtaper-debt ceiling deal has incited many markets to a melt-up mode which media rationalizes as “recovery”.

clip_image006

The French stock market, which is also at record highs, serves as an example.

The CAC 40 has been rising since the last quarter of 2011. Yet during 2012-2013, as the CAC rose, the French economy vacillated in and out of negative growth rates or recessions. While economic growth statistics reveal of a recent recovery, sustainability of the recovery is unclear.

French industrial production was down 1.6% in August[20], Unemployment rate is at the highest level since 1998 at 10.9% at the second quarter[21]. August loans to the private sector have been trending downwards since May[22]. Fitch downgraded France last July[23]. [note to the aficionados of credit rating agencies, French downgrade coincided with higher stocks]

Yet the CAC continues to trek to new highs. What gives?

Notes on the Debt Ceiling Deal

Furloughed Federal employees will receive a back pay[24]. This means government shutdown for furloughed employees extrapolates to a paid vacation.

The bi-partisan horse trading resulted to insertions of various goodies (Pork) for politicians. This includes $174,000 death benefit for Sen. Frank Lautenberg’s widow[25]

The US treasury will be authorized to suspend the debt ceiling as I earlier posted[26]. A limitless borrowing window will be extended until February 7, 2014[27].

This marks the second time when the debt ceiling has been unilaterally suspended. The first occurred this year from February 4, 2013 to May 18, 2013[28].

What seems as an increasing frequency of the suspension of the debt ceiling (twice this year) may presage a permanent one.

clip_image007

A day past the US debt ceiling deal, US debt soared by a record $328 billion. This has shattered the previous high of $238 billion set two years ago as the US government reportedly replenished its stock of “extraordinary measures” used to keep debt from going past he mandated level[29]. This brings US debt to $17.075 trillion Thursday.

Two days after, US debt further expanded by $7 billion to $17,082,571,268,248.24[30].

clip_image009

Debt levels growing at a rate far faster than the rate of economic growth is simply unsustainable.

Since 2008, US Federal has grown past $ 7 trillion whereas the economy grew by nearly $1 trillion[31].

There is always a consequence to every action, so will the above.

Yet this is what equity market praises.


[1] Friedrich Nietzsche CHAPTER IV: APOPHTHEGMS AND INTERLUDES Beyond Good and Evil, p 107 planetpdf.com



[4] Business Insider Net Income is Actually Declining even as Earnings Rise, Wall Street's Brightest Minds Reveal THE MOST IMPORTANT CHARTS IN THE WORLD, October 9, 2013


[6] Reuters.com Bond-backed stock buybacks remain in vogue September 6, 2013

[7] John Asker, Joan Farre-Mensa and Alexander Ljungqvist Corporate Investment and Stock Market Listing: A Puzzle? April 22, 2013 Social Science Research Network


[9] The Wall Street Journal Market Pulse In Latest IPOs, Profits Aren’t the Point October 11, 2013



[12] S&P Dow Jones McGraw Hill Financial S&P 500 Indices Fact Sheet

[13] Jeffe Macke Is Google Worth $1,000 a Share? Yahoo.com October 18, 2013


[15] Yahoo Finance, Google Inc. (GOOG) Key Statistics

[16] The Wall Street Journal Market Data Center US Stocks

[17] 4-traders.com Google Inc (GOOG)



[20] Tradingeconomics.com FRANCE INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION

[21] Tradingeconomics.com FRANCE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE

[22] Tradingeconomics.com FRANCE LOANS TO PRIVATE SECTOR





[27] US Congress H.R.2775 - Continuing Appropriations Act, 2014

[28] The Foundry Debt Ceiling with $300 Billion in New Debt, Heritage Foundation, May 19, 2003



[31] Lance Roberts The Long Game Of Hiking The Debt Ceiling STA Wealth October 11, 2013

When Will Century Properties Group Wean from her Dependence on Debt?

I have been pointing out that even in the Philippines, publicly listed companies have been increasing their exposures on unnecessary risks via increasing debt loads in the hope of extracting yields or earnings grounded in the belief that good times lasts forever.

I have pointed to SMC[1] and SM Investments[2] as examples.

Before I proceed I would like to restate my objectives for the following discussion
The following doesn’t serve as recommendations. Instead the following has been intended to demonstrate the shifting nature of business models by major firms particularly from organic (retained earnings-low debt) growth to aggressive leveraging or the increasing use of leverage to amplify or squeeze ‘earnings’ or returns, the deepening absorption of increased risks in the assumption of the perpetuity of zero bound rates, and how accrued yield chasing by the industry induced by zero bound rates has pushed up property prices
The flow of my analysis has always been patterned after “follow the money trail”. This is why I have opted to use free cash flow relative to debt as measure for risks.

Free cash flow is the lifeblood of any business[3]. The importance of free cash flows as highlighted by Q Finance[4] (bold mine)
Unlike earnings, free cash flow represents real cash. It is a very useful way to assess the financial health of a company as it is what is left after all the accounting assumptions built into the earnings have been stripped away. A company may seem to be generating high earnings, but only free cash flow indicates whether any real money has been generated in a designated period. Ultimately, the stock market’s estimate of how much free cash flow a company will generate in the future is reflected in the share price.
Benjamin Graham’s value investing[5] has essentially centered on debt, profit margins and cash flows.

It is not my intent to flaunt financial gibberish—to paraphrase Warren Buffett (the value investor and not the crony), by doing equations with Greek letters on them—just to look sophisticated. Superficial knowledge in numbers really represents negative knowledge or knowledge that is wrong and don’t work.

As the late economic historian Peter Bernstein warned[6],
Our lives teem with numbers, but we sometimes forget that numbers are only tools. They have no soul; they may indeed become fetishes.
My concern today is the growing use of leverage by elite property developer Century Properties Group [PSE: CPG]

CPG is easily one of the high profile standouts in the Philippine property development sector with signature projects tied to American celebrities such as the $150 million (Donald) Trump Tower and the Paris Hilton designed amenities of Century's Azure Urban Resort Residences—a beach club[7].

According to the CPG’s profile at the PSE
As of December 31, 2012, the Company completed 21 condominium and commercial buildings (5,530 units) with a total of gross floor area of 669,857 square meters. Among CPG's developments include the Essensa East Forbes and South of Market in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig City; SOHO Central in the Greenfield District of Mandaluyong City; Pacific Place in Ortigas, Pasig City; and a collection of French-inspired condominiums in Makati City called Le Triomphe, Le Domaine and Le Metropole.
clip_image002

According to CPG’s second quarter[8] cash flow statement, while income grew by 15.96% from last year, interest expenses ballooned by 416.07%. This resulted to negative cash flow from operations of 173 million pesos compared to last year’s 1.823 billion (net of interest and taxes). This year’s improvement may have been due to increased collections from sales. But still a deficit.

And in addition to the negative cash flows from operations, mostly due to investment properties, CPG generated a cash deficit of 539.7 million pesos from investing activities this first semester, as compared with 262.5 million pesos over the same period last year.

The combined deficits have been more than offset by cash flows from sale of equity shares (1.584 billion pesos) and by increasing debt (222.1 million pesos).

The same dynamics can be seen from last year sale of equity shares (2.187 billion) and by increasing debt (284.1 billion pesos)

clip_image004

In CPG’s 2012 annual report[9], in 2012 CPG’s income almost doubled. However interest expense jumped by 20%.

Since 2010, CPGs ‘cash used in operations’ (before interest and income charges) have been in a deficit.

In 2012 CPG added 800 million pesos worth of investments which compounded cash deficits from investing to 863 million pesos.
clip_image006

So how did CPG finance the 2012 cash deficit from operations of 3.077 billion pesos (before interest and taxes) and deficit from investing activities of 863 million pesos? By borrowing money 2.78 billion pesos and sale of shares worth 2.19 billion pesos.

So far CPG’s core business has been inadequate to service the company’s debts and thus has resorted to borrowing aside from relying on cash proceeds from the company’s listing in the PSE in 2011.

The company’s long term debt of 3.367 billion pesos have mostly been in bank loans and partly on CTS (contract to sell) financing.

CPG has 1.794 billion pesos in cash and cash equivalent. This represents around 53% of the total debt. This also means CPG has a significant cash cushion to burn while waiting for the core business to turn positive.

Nonetheless if the vacancy rates in the high end property sector as noted last week[10] continue to rise, which likely means the slowing of top line figures, then CPG’s cash hoard will eventually be consumed. CPG will then have to rely on more debt or further sale of her assets (or inventories at lower prices).

Of course CPG debt exposure (3.367 billion pesos) to the financial system is minute compared to San Miguel (324 billion pesos adjusted for the sale of Meralco) or CPG hardly poses as systemic risk.

But again the point here is that zero bound rates has prompted aggressive leveraging and risk taking by companies such as SMC, SM and CPG.

So yes stocks may continue rise, but if these companies continue to absorb more risks via more debt without improving core businesses, and if economic conditions change enough to expose their vulnerabilities whatever gains today may be lost in a snap of finger.

[Updated to add: correction on two numbers: 539.7 billion and 222.1 billion altered to million]






[3] Wikipedia.org Cash flow forecasting



[6] Peter L. Bernstein Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk John Wiley and sons p.7.


[8] PSE.com.ph CENTURY PROPERTIES GROUP INC 2nd quarter report (as of June 30, 2012) SEC Form 17Q Report August 14, 2013

[9] CENTURY PROPERTIES GROUP INC Annual Report SEC FORM 17-A April 16, 2013

Saturday, October 19, 2013

Video: Competition, Beer & Diversity

This cool video relates market competition in the beer industry with biodiversity (hat tip Cafe Hayek)

Cheers!



Robert Wenzel warns US citizens to move their money out of the banking system

The US banking system appears to be in preparation for a Cyprus like deposit bail-in/capital controls by making withdrawals in the banking system more difficult.

Writes Austrian economist Bob Wenzel at the Economic Policy Journal: (hat tip Lew Rockwell)
I am now advising that your money be moved outside the US banking system. Within the last 24 hours, I have learned of two major banks that are making it difficult for you to send international wires or draw out large amounts of cash. Both JPMorganChase and HSBC USA have instituted new policies which will make it difficult for you to withdraw your funds in certain ways. This is not good. There are apparently some workarounds relative to these policies, but just try setting up those workarounds when you want to move your money during some kind of panic.

This is what you will face:

Bank line in California in 2008 at IndyMac Bank

Totalitarians don't take away all your freedoms at once. They do it in incremental measures. Watch the movie The Pianist to understand how many Jews ended up in gas chambers by shrugging off early totalitarian measures.

The prevention or delaying of certain customers from sending international wires, and JPMorganChase stopping some accounts from withdrawing large amounts of cash,  is a serious signal that we are well along the way to a banking sector that doesn't respect its customers and has no compunctions about preventing customers from pulling out their money, if the banks deem it in their interest to prevent such withdrawals.

Bottom line: You are playing with fire if you keep any serious amount of money in a US bank.
The above echoes Sovereign Man’s Simon Black’s warning on the imposition by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to “limit cash withdrawals and ban business customers from sending international wire transfers” as I earlier posted here.

If the US economy has indeed been booming, then why has US political authorities been resorting to discreet imposition of capital controls? Don't be misled by the market melt-up, the above are signs of desperation rather than of optimism.  

UPDATED TO ADD: To my US based readers, pls take all the necessary precaution.