The Rude Awakening
Napa Valley, California
Tuesday, June 26, 2007 ------------------------- - Three simply ways to uncomplicated your investing,
- What's the deal with collateralized debt obligations?
- Chewing gum and B.S. And much, much more…
------------------------- Eric Fry, amongst the vines of Napa Valley, reports… "The entire American capital structure is papered over with chewing gum and B.S.," a professional investor griped yesterday. "And a clubby, 'bailout mentality' supports the entire thing. CDOs [collateralized debt obligations] are just one of the most flagrant examples." "What do you mean by that?" your editor replied. "Well, no one knows what these things are really worth - or even what they really are - but everyone knows they're worth much less than everyone is pretending they're worth," the investor explained. "The buyers of CDOs understand that these strange, bond-like creatures are derived from baskets of things like home loans…But after that, the comprehension becomes a little fuzzy." "Wall Street's elite brokerage firms have made hundreds of millions of dollars off of the CDO market by convincing folks that the power of financial chicanery can convert junk-rated credit into AAA credit," the investor continued. "They've convinced well educated investors that these supposed AAA credits will perform well, even when the lower-rated CDOs do not." "Well isn't that true?" your editor asked. "To some extent yes. But again, no one really knows," the investor replied. "To create CDOs, Wall Street's whiz kids split portfolios of home loans into different slices. Some slices are supposed to be risky and others are supposed to be safe. They use the French word, 'tranche' to lend an air of sophistication to the process. But really, the process more closely resembles a different French word: 'roulette.' "Yes," your editor agreed. "The entire CDO world relies on a bunch of guesses by PhDs. When has that ever worked out well?" "Exactly," the friend continued. "Certainly, the AAA tranches are safer than the lower-rated tranches, just like the top of a tree can be a safer location than the bottom…like during a tsunami, for example. But if a lumberjack shows up and starts hacking away at the bottom of the tree, those upper branches won't seem quite so AAA anymore." "And is that what's happening?" "You tell me," the professional investor said. "A couple of funds at Bear Stearns start choking on some ill-fated CDOs and the entire U.S. credit market starts wobbling. Doesn't that seem a little odd? A little unstable? Looks to me like Mr. Market is working a chainsaw on the trunks of a few CDOs." "But in spite of all that, stocks are still near all-time highs," your editor observed, trying to annoy his friend. "Yeah, it's astonishing that stock market investors play along as if everything in the housing market and the credit markets is just hunky-dory. It's insane," the investor emphasized, "No one can sell a house, No one can sell a bond…and they sure as heck can't sell a CDO. But they can still spend all day buying stocks…This is a disaster in the making." The preceding conversation does not relate directly to the following column by Chris Mayer, but it does relate indirectly… Good investors sell expensive stocks, especially when they are widely loved. And good investors buy inexpensive stocks, especially when they are widely scorned. Let the reader decide whether the time is right to be a buyer or a seller… --- Agora Financial Reserve - 9 Days Left --- Here's Why You'll Get Our Newest $995 Investment Research Service Completely Free… It took us nearly two years of careful preparation. But we're putting the final touches on what should turn out to be one of our best performing stock research services over the next few years. It's called the Energy & Scarcity Investor and it'll cost at least $995 per year when we launch it in the next couple of months. But since you're a valued Agora Financial member, you can receive it 100% FREE. Read on Here: The Reserve - 9 Days Left --------------------------------------------- Bad Markets, Good Investing
By Chris Mayer Some of what makes a great investor is baked-in natural talent, beyond imitation in the same way countless hours of golf practice won't turn you into Tiger Woods. But some things you can copy. In fact, a few things are very easy to copy. Three of them include: discipline in the price you pay for an investment, keeping your turnover low (sticking with your investments longer) and focusing on your best ideas. What follows is some shoptalk gathered at a recent investment conference in Hollywood, CA, that reinforces these three principles. Let's start with lessons from the Great Depression… The Great Depression was a terrible time to own stocks. During the entire span from 1929 to 1939, stocks delivered a negative return. Small-cap stocks were hit the hardest, losing more than 5% a year on average. Bonds were the only place to hide, scratching out a relatively robust 4.7% per year. Or maybe not. Two great investors, Robert Rodriguez and Steve Romick, both money managers at First Pacific Advisors (FPA), show that a little discipline - a little attention to prices paid - would have given you good returns, even in the Great Depression. They show that waiting just two years - until 1931, instead of 1929 - turns negative returns to positive ones. Suddenly, small caps beat out the alternatives: Between the market lows of 1931 and 1939, small cap stocks outpaced bonds. And if you factor in the de-flation that occurred during the 1930s (as opposed to the inflation that we all know), small caps delivered an even more impressive result. Because the 1930s were a deflationary time, a dollar in 1939 bought more than a dollar in 1929. If you factor that in, the real return on small-cap stocks was 9.2% annually during the Great Depression. Rodriguez and Romick are not market-timers. They are stock-pickers. They buy stocks when they are cheap. They hold onto them. So their basic message is simply this: Stick with buying cheap stocks. You can still earn good returns even in a lousy market. If you could buy all small-cap stocks and get a 9% annual real return during the Great Depression, think what a stock-picker could have done by just sticking with the cheapest stocks in a friendlier investment environment. Stock-pickers are a minority these days. As James Montier, a researcher at Dresdner Kleinwort, recently observed, "Stock-picking has become a minority occupation. But if no one else wants to be a stock picker, then this is, most likely, where the opportunity lies." The second part of Rodriquez and Romick's presentation had to do with patience. Investors, as a group, are not patient. They flip stocks too often. They sell when prices fall and buy when prices rise. The fund flows into (and out of) Rodriguez's own fund offers a classic example of how most investors behave. The FPA Capital Fund, run by Rodriguez, has been one of the best mutual funds in the business for about two decades. Through 2005, in fact, it was the best-performing mutual fund over the past 20 years, beating the market by a sizable margin. In 2006, the fund slipped a bit and lagged the market. Despite Rodriguez's two-decade-long performance history, some investors actually pulled money out of the fund. The fund lost 8.6% of its money under management to redemptions in the first quarter of 2007 alone. This has happened before. When the fund lagged the market in 1999 the fund lost 15% of its assets due to redemptions. In the following year, it lost a whopping 25% of its assets from redemptions. The Fund subsequently beat the market by 35 points in 2001. The FPA Capital Fund's experience illustrates a classic case of investor impatience. There are several studies out there that show the average investor actually earns returns less than what mutual funds report. Why? Because the average investor tends to take his money out at bottoms and invest it near tops. The typical investor trades too much. Again, Montier, commenting on empirical research exploring the link between turnover and performance, wrote: "Unsurprisingly, those funds with the highest turnover deliver the worst performance, while those funds with the lowest turnover do the least damage to net risk-adjusted returns." So the lessons to take from Rodriguez and Romick's presentation are twofold: First, pay attention to the price you pay and you can make good returns, even in a bad market. Second, don't chase past returns. Instead, be patient with your investments and give them time to bear fruit. Lastly, focus on Your Best Ideas Zeke Ashton is on nobody's list of great investors - at least not yet. But he is a rising young star. His presentation brought home another trait that successful investors have: They tend to focus their money on their best ideas. Again, research supports the idea that the best-performing investors concentrate on their best ideas. The average mutual fund owns 128 stocks. Among the top 25% of all funds, the average is only 63 stocks. The bottom 75% own over 140 stocks. In short, the best investors own fewer stocks. As Ashton said, "The goal for all investors should be to get the most value out of your best ideas without risking significant capital loss if you are wrong." What makes a great investor is endlessly fascinating to me. I love to study how great investors play the game. Doing so also helps reinforce good investing habits. Sometimes, these habits are relatively easy to copy: pay attention to price, trade less and focus on your best ideas. Joel's Note: There exist all along Wall Street the types of investors that bank a million dollars a year…only to lose it all the next year. One moment they are kings of the world, the next they are paupers along the curb. There's no trickery or sleight of hand to Chris Mayer's method of investing. Simply, he follows hard learned fundamentals and sticks to what he knows best. If this kind of rock solid investing appeals to you, check out his newsletter, Capital & Crisis, right here: Chris Mayer's Capital & Crisis --- CAVEAT Investing Report --- The 10 Most Boring Stocks That Could Ever Triple Your Money - or MORE Spank the S&P by up to 2,800% with CAVEAT Investing: the key to finding mega-profitable market "sleepers" that can help YOU build a fortune…in months, instead of decades! Click Here To Read The Full Report --------------------------------- Rude Endnote: A correction is in order for yesterday's Mailbag edition. After mailing I engaged in, among others, the following email exchange: Thomas: I don't know much about that pipeline, but I do know that the Baltic is not south of Russia. Do you mean the Black Sea? Joel: The Black Sea…yes, thanks for the correction. Perhaps another cup of coffee before I send the final print… Thomas: Maybe add a dash of vodka! Thanks for all the geography related emails to that end and commendations on the vigilance. The gents in Baltimore are scouring the news of the world for your 5-Minute Forecast but, for now, that's all from Rude. Cheers, Joel Bowman
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