Author: Colin Twiggs

Colin Twiggs is a former investment banker with almost 40 years of experience in financial markets. He co-founded Incredible Charts and writes the popular Trading Diary and Patient Investor newsletters. Using a top-down approach, Colin identifies key macro trends in the global economy before evaluating selected opportunities using a combination of fundamental and technical analysis. Focusing on interest rates and financial market liquidity as primary drivers of the economic cycle, he warned of the 2008/2009 and 2020 bear markets well ahead of actual events. He founded PVT Capital (AFSL No. 546090) in May 2023, which offers investment strategy and advice to wholesale clients.
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Bob Doll: First quarter corporate earnings highly impressive

Bob Doll

Bob Doll reports positive first quarter results so far in his weekly newsletter:

First quarter corporate earnings have been highly impressive. With approximately 20% of companies reporting, 81% have exceeded expectations by an average of 6.4%2. This compares to an average beat of 4.7% over the last three years, which underlies the strength of this quarter2. Much of the strength has come from reduced tax burdens: Earnings-per-share is on track to grow 23%, but would only be 16% were it not for the effects of lower taxes2.

Prices tend to follow earnings and a solid reporting season would likely see stocks posting new highs after the recent correction.

2 Data from Credit Suisse.

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Red flags for Blue Sky

Robert Shand - Blue Sky Alternative Investments

More good work by Elizabeth Knight at The Age. Here she interviews Chad Slater from Morphic Asset Management on red flags at fund manager Blue Sky Alternative Investments (BLA).

“It doesn’t actually come as surprise to me that Blue Sky (BLA) has been singled out as a short. I have been contacted on a number of occasions over the last two years as to my thoughts on BLA’s business model from a short-sellers’ perspective. Many of the issues raised by Glaucus were raised in those phone calls as a concern previously.”

These include, firstly, “a business with internally valued assets”.

“Businesses with assets that are ‘marked to market’ by company paid affiliates (auditors etc) are vulnerable to manipulation as the incentives are there for management in bonus payments, to hire someone to tell them what they want to hear. Now clearly not all companies will do this, but it is a murky area. Definitely a flag.”

Flag number two, he says, is when the CEO and founder suddenly leaves and cashes out a large portion of his wealth.

Another thing Slater says to watch for is “a very young senior team that has a background in management consulting rather than industry”.

Lastly a company that has grown very rapidly from a small base is another flag, he says.

While the last point is not necessarily a red flag, the first three are clear warning signs. Especially “a very young senior team that has a background in management consulting rather than industry.” I have witnessed the dangers of that first hand. Academic brilliance is no substitute for experience.

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Avoiding the hubris trap

Great example of how even the most professional management teams can fall into the hubris trap.

Michael Chaney describes to The Age how Wesfarmers burnt a billion dollars on the highly successful Bunnings hardware chain’s expansion into the UK market:

S&P 500

Bunnings Warehouse by Bidgee – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

Chaney was the chairman that signed off and despite everything contends he had never seen a more thorough investment analysis than had been undertaken on Bunnings UK.

They had a base case set of projections and a downside case and it all looked very positive at the time according to Chaney.

But a couple of fundamental mistakes were made subsequently after acquisition of Homebase home improvement network of stores including the removal of 150 senior managers.

“One was moving out the senior management and replacing it with our Australian experts and the second was getting rid of a lot of the products and the franchises because they didn’t suit the Bunnings model,” says Chaney.

By way of example the Australian interlopers jettisoned Laura Ashley from the home decorator product line up – and British women voted with their purses.

It was the success of the Australian model and its management that blinded the higher ups inside Wesfarmers to the fact that these guys didn’t know better what the UK customers wanted. Wesfarmers got caught in the hubris trap.

Some years earlier hardware giant Lowes fell into a similar trap in the US. Number-crunchers at head office worked out that they could save a bundle by replacing senior salespeople with more junior, inexperienced staff. The knowledge base of experienced floor staff was decimated. Customer service and sales plummeted. As one manager described it: “we became find-it-yourself instead of do-it-yourself.” Fortunately Lowes were able to correct their mistake and should have learned a valuable lesson but it seems they did not.

Investors should always be on the lookout for the hubris trap. The more successful the company, the more vulnerable they are. Expanding operations away from the home country or state is often a high risk venture, where management may be blind to cultural differences, regulatory pitfalls and an array of new competitors. Expanding into new product lines or services that are outside management’s traditional core expertise may also present traps for the unwary.

Ask Woolworths (Australia) about their Masters hardware venture, Commonwealth Bank about their expansion into financial advice, NAB about their expansion into UK markets, Centro Properties (now Vicinity) and Westfield about their foray into US shopping centers,….. I could go on. It’s a long list.

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Does China have the ‘financial arsenic’ to ruin the US?

The media has been highly critical of Donald Trump’s threatened tariff war with China, suggesting that China has the stronger hand.

Twitter: US-China trade deficit

I disagree on two points:

  1. Trump is right to confront China. Even Paul Krugman, not a noted Trump supporter, called for this in 2010.
  2. China’s position may not be as strong as many assume. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard sums this up neatly in The Age:

The Bank for International Settlements says offshore dollar debt has ballooned to $US25 trillion in direct loans and equivalent derivatives. At least $US1.7 trillion is debt owed by Chinese companies, often circumventing credit curbs at home. Any serious stress in the world financial system quickly turns into a vast dollar “margin call”. Woe betide any debtor who had to roll over three-month funding.

The Communist Party leadership will not kowtow to Donald Trump.

Photo: Bloomberg

The financial “carry trade” would seize up across Asia, now the epicentre of global financial risk. Nomura said the region is a flashing map of red alerts under the bank’s predictive model of future financial blow-ups. East Asia is vulnerable to any external upset. The world biggest “credit gap” is in Hong Kong where the overshoot above trend is 45 per cent of GDP. It is an accident waiting to happen.

China is of course a command economy with a state-controlled banking system. It can bathe the economy with stimulus and order lenders to refinance bad debts. It has adequate foreign reserve cover to bail out its foreign currency debtors. But it is also dangerously stretched, with an “augmented fiscal deficit” above 12 per cent of GDP.

It is grappling with the aftermath of an immense credit bubble that has pushed its debt-to-GDP ratio from 130 per cent to 270 per cent in 11 years, and it has reached credit saturation. Each yuan of new debt creates barely 0.3 yuan of extra GDP. The model is exhausted.

China has little to gain and much to lose from irate and impulsive gestures. Its deep interests are better served by seeking out the high ground – hoping the world will quietly forgive two decades of technology piracy – and biding its time as Mr Trump destroys American credibility in Asia.

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East to West: Headed for war?

Followers of international relations can take their pick of wars at present. There is a trade war brewing between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, which could descend into a currency war with competing devaluations. We have a Russia waging a cyber war on the West, a Cold War in Eastern Europe and the Baltics, a proxy war in Yemen between Saudia Arabia and Iran, a frozen war in Georgia and Ukraine, and a hot war in Syria that threatens to escalate into a major confrontation between Russia and the West. On top of that we have Kim Jong-un trying to break into the big leagues by test-firing ICBMs over Japan. It’s a tough neighborhood.

The “peace dividend” that was supposed to follow the collapse of Communism is well and truly over. The next major ideological conflict is upon us. Democracy versus the Dictators. For the West to prevail it will have to engage in a coordinated muscular diplomacy over the next few decades. A good start would be Margaret Thatcher’s Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World (2002):

Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in the oval office, 1988

Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in the oval office, 1988

“For my part, I favour an approach to statecraft that embraces principles, as long as it is not stifled by them; and I prefer such principles to be accompanied by steel along with good intentions.

…The habit of ubiquitous interventionism, combining pinprick strikes by precision weapons with pious invocations of high principle, would lead us into endless difficulties. Interventions must be limited in number and overwhelming in their impact.

….I should therefore prefer to restrict my guidelines to the following:

Don’t believe that military interventions, no matter how morally justified, can succeed without clear military goals.

Don’t fall into the trap of imagining that the West can remake societies.

Don’t take public opinion for granted — but don’t either underrate the degree to which good people will endure sacrifices for a worthwhile cause.

Don’t allow tyrants and aggressors to get away with it

And when you fight — fight to win.’

But the West also needs to clean up its own house and correct many of the abuses to which Capitalism has been subjected over the last few decades. Martin Wolf sums up the challenges in US-China rivalry will shape the 21st century:

‘The threat is the decadence of the west, very much including the US — the prevalence of rent extraction as a way of economic life, the indifference to the fate of much of its citizenry, the corrupting role of money in politics, the indifference to the truth, and the sacrifice of long-term investment to private and public consumption….’

Bold leadership is required. To fight the wars we have to but, more importantly, to resolve conflicts by other means wherever possible. That doesn’t mean avoiding conflict by retreating from red lines. It means establishing and vigorously enforcing new rules that benefit everyone. No one wins in a war. Whether it is a trade war, a cold war or a hot war. Everyone pays a price.

‘It must be thoroughly understood that war is a necessity, and that the more readily we accept it, the less will be the ardor of our opponents….’

~ Thucydides (circa 400 BC)

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Investing in a Volatile Market

The S&P 500 again respected primary support at 2550. Twiggs Volatility Index is retreating but a trough that forms above 1.0% would warn that market risk remains elevated.

S&P 500

I explained recently to my clients that the odds are at least 2 to 1 that the S&P 500 will recover and go on to make new highs later in the year.

But there is still a significant risk (one-third to one quarter) that tensions will continue to escalate and the S&P 500 breaks primary support to commence a primary down-trend.

If you are risk-averse, as my clients tend to be, it makes sense to adjust your portfolio allocation to cope with either scenario. What I call “having one foot each side of the fence” or “having a bet each way” in racing parlance.

Typical Portfolio Allocation

Gen Stocks are what I call “generational stocks” such as Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN), etc. ASX Income are stocks that yield strong dividends and franking credits.

If you have 50% of your investment portfolio in cash and short-to-medium-term interest-bearing securities (I collectively refer to this as “cash investments”) and 50% in equities, you are well-positioned to take advantage of either scenario.

If the market does fall — the less-likely scenario — you are well-positioned to convert some of your cash investments to take advantage of lower prices when the dust has settled after the crash. If the market rises, as expected, then you have enough exposure to benefit from the continued bull market. In that case, your only downside is the difference in yields between cash and equities.

Bear in mind that:

  1. This only addresses clients’ equity portfolios and does not take account of their other assets;
  2. The allocation is generic and does not take account of your personal circumstances; and
  3. The allocation is addressed at Australian investors.

Although the equity allocation is split equally between Australian and International (mainly US) stocks this does not infer that I rate them as equal market risk. Australian equities includes an allocation to Cyclicals which, in the present situation, could best be described as “counter-cyclical” as this largely consists of gold stocks which tend to rise as the market falls. My “Trump Insurance as I called it in an earlier newsletter.

J.P. Morgan once had a friend who was so worried about his stock holdings that he could not sleep at night. The friend asked, “What should I do about my stocks?” Morgan replied, “Sell down to your sleeping point.”

~ Burton Malkiel

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Trade Wars: Playing hardball with China

Remember North Korea and the imminent nuclear war? With leaders trading insults on Twitter and bragging: “My nuclear button is bigger than yours.” It may resemble a WWF arena more than international diplomacy but that is how Donald Trump conducts foreign affairs.

The current Twitter war over trade tariffs is no different. Threat and counter-threat of wider and deeper trade tariffs are likely to bounce back-and-forth over the next few weeks. Xi Jinping thinks he has the upper hand because he doesn’t face criticism from a hostile media at home. Nor does he need to front up to a hostile domestic opposition. They’re all safely tucked away in jail. His stock market has already crashed, so there is not too much to worry about on that front either.

Shanghai Composite Index

Xi will do his best to undermine Trump’s shaky support. Targeting Trump’s electoral base with tariffs on soy bean imports (farming states) and steel tubing (Texas) in order to undermine his support. Targeting technology companies like Boeing and Apple, where China is a large slice of their global market, is also likely to elicit strenuous lobbying in Washington. As are well-timed tweets aimed at undermining stock support levels, threatening a major stock market rout.

Dow Jones Industrial Average

Trump probably recognizes that China can withstand more pain, but figures that he has the capacity to inflict more pain. The US has a large trade deficit with China.

Twitter: US-China trade deficit

And exports comprise a larger percentage of China’s GDP.

In 2010, Paul Krugman wrote:

Some still argue that we must reason gently with China, not confront it. But we’ve been reasoning with China for years, as its surplus ballooned, and gotten nowhere: on Sunday Wen Jiabao, the Chinese prime minister, declared — absurdly — that his nation’s currency is not undervalued. (The Peterson Institute for International Economics estimates that the renminbi is undervalued by between 20 and 40 percent.) And Mr. Wen accused other nations of doing what China actually does, seeking to weaken their currencies “just for the purposes of increasing their own exports.”

But if sweet reason won’t work, what’s the alternative? In 1971 the United States dealt with a similar but much less severe problem of foreign undervaluation by imposing a temporary 10 percent surcharge on imports, which was removed a few months later after Germany, Japan and other nations raised the dollar value of their currencies. At this point, it’s hard to see China changing its policies unless faced with the threat of similar action — except that this time the surcharge would have to be much larger, say 25 percent.

I don’t propose this turn to policy hardball lightly. But Chinese currency policy is adding materially to the world’s economic problems at a time when those problems are already very severe. It’s time to take a stand.

Krugman (no surprise) now seems more opposed to trade tariffs but observes:

….I think it’s worth noting that even if we are headed for a full-scale trade war, conventional estimates of the costs of such a war don’t come anywhere near to 10 percent of GDP, or even 6 percent. In fact, it’s one of the dirty little secrets of international economics that standard estimates of the cost of protectionism, while not trivial, aren’t usually earthshaking either.

I believe that Krugman’s original 2010 argument is still valid and that Trump is right in confronting China. The gap between imports and exports of goods is widening, especially since 2014, not shrinking.

Exports and Imports: Value of Goods for China

But let’s hope that Trump has done his homework. At this stage this is just a Twitter war rather than a trade war, intended to soften up your opponent rather than inflict real damage. But for Trump to succeed he must demonstrate that the US is prepared to endure the pain of a lengthy trade war if needed.

Men naturally despise those who court them, but respect those who do not give way to them.

~ Thucydides (circa 400 BC)

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“Headwinds have turned into tailwinds”

“While many factors shape the economic outlook, some of the headwinds the U.S. economy faced in previous years have turned into tailwinds. Fiscal policy has become more stimulative and foreign demand for U.S. exports is on a firmer trajectory.”
~ New Fed Chair Jerome Powell in his first testimony before Congress

Two very important sentences for investors. Expect further rate hikes but at a moderate pace.

Bond yields have climbed in anticipation of higher inflation. Breakout above 3.0 percent would warn of a bond bear market, after the bull market of the last 3 decades, with rising yields.

10-Year Treasury Yields

The five-year breakeven rate (Treasury yield minus the equivalent yield on inflation indexed TIPS) has been climbing since 2016.

Fed Excess Reserves

But core CPI (CPI less Food & Energy) remains subdued.

And average hourly wage rates, reflecting underlying inflationary pressures, continue to grow at a modest 2.5 percent a year.

Private Sector Average Hourly Wage Rate Growth

Real GDP is likely to maintain its similarly modest growth.

Real GDP and Estimates

While the Fed is sitting on a powder keg of more than $2 trillion of commercial bank excess reserves, no one is playing with matches. Yet.

Federal Reserve Bank: Excess Reserves of Depositary Institutions

Those excess reserves on deposit at the Fed have the potential to fuel a massive bubble in stocks or real estate. But investors remain wary after their experience in 2008.

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it — and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again — and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.

~ Samuel Clemens

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Ben Bernanke: We’re very sorry…. we won’t do it again

….I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression. You’re right, we did it. We’re very sorry. But thanks to you, we won’t do it again.

~ Remarks by Governor Ben S. Bernanke
At the Conference to Honor Milton Friedman on his Ninetieth Birthday, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
November 8, 2002

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