If Your Broker Sells Mutual Funds, Run, Do Not Walk, To The Nearest Exit

In a perfect world, stock brokers would actually earn their money. If they recommend individual stocks to their clients, those stocks would do better than the ones chimpanzees choose by throwing darts at the Wall Street Journal stock tables. If they recommend mutual funds to their clients, those mutual funds would be above-average performers. After all, if you have thousands of options and a professional helping you choose from them, you should be able to tell the good from the bad.

Ah, but the world is far from perfect. Research has shown that sell side investment recommendations provide investors with more volatility and lower returns than a broad market index. In addition, a study done by a trio of college professors from the Harvard Business School and the University of Oregon shows that between 1996 and 2002 brokers who sold mutual funds actually cost their clients billions of dollars. This conclusion was reached by comparing returns for two groups of funds, those that brokers sold and those that individuals picked on their own.

If we take a step back and think about brokers who sell mutual funds, and how they are compensated, we can understand why they might not provide the best advice to their clients. Brokers get paid to sell certain funds. Those funds are not chosen based on how good they are, but rather on which fund companies give kickbacks to the brokers selling them. So, if brokers are getting paid to sell "Fund X" and that decision has nothing to do with how good Fund X is (but because Fund X is throwing money at the broker), there is little reason to think Fund X would be any better than alternatives such as "Fund Y" or "Fund Z." As a result, logical minds might conclude that mutual funds sold by brokers will perform no better and no worse than the average mutual fund. If performance is not a yardstick that is being given any attention, how well the fund does in the future will be pretty much a coin flip.

Interestingly, the aforementioned study (which tracked more than 4,000 mutual funds over a seven year period) showed that broker-sold funds actually do far worse than average. How striking were the results? Very striking indeed. Investors working on their own to pick mutual funds earned an average return of 6.6% per year. Investors who used a broker and bought the funds they recommended earned 2.9% annually. The public outperformed supposedly "knowledgeable" brokers by more than 100 percent. To make matters worse, the people working with brokers actually lost money after factoring in inflation and taxes.

If you are using a broker and are invested in mutual funds that they recommended to you, you might want to take a close look at your results and make sure your broker is working for you, not the mutual fund company subsidizing their paycheck.

CNBC: Stop Hyping Your New Web Site!

A few years back CNBC, in partnership with MSN and some investment companies, began promoting the "StockScouter" ranking system. The quantitative formula ranked stocks using a 1-10 scale on numerous criteria and investors could sort companies by their StockScouter ranking on the CNBC/MSN web site.

This was fine, except they took it a bit too far by mentioning the StockScouter ratings constantly on the air during CNBC broadcasts. After each executive interview they would tell you what StockScouter said about the company being profiled. Not only that, but when portfolio managers came on air recommending stocks, their opinions were followed by a comparison to StockScouter's opinion, which often led to the awkward on-air moment when a top-rated fund manager was told by Sue Herrera that StockScouter rated their top holdings "a 2 out of 10."

Fortunately the StockScouter was removed from CNBC airwaves eventually, probably due, in part, to the fact that it would give very high "safety" ratings to stocks like eBay (EBAY) and Yahoo! (YHOO) on a consistent basis, shares that clearly were not "safe" investments.

Well, it looks like CNBC is wasting viewers' time again with the relaunch of "the new CNBC.com" web site. The site went live in recent weeks and at every moment they get, CNBC anchors try and convince viewers that the information on the site is somehow new and better than any other site out there. Among the earth-shattering innovations on the new CNBC.com; advanced charting, up-to-the-minute news items, and even... hold your breathe... a portfolio tracker!

They even have a special desk where anchors sit and guide viewers step by the step through the process of charting a stock, etc. I know CNBC has plenty of time to fill during the day, and obviously they want people to go to their web site. However, hyping their product offerings so much during the actual broadcasts, especially when it has little to do with the rest of their content, is extremely annoying. They really should just run a few commercial spots every hour to advertise the web site so people like me aren't tempted to change channels when they do a segment of CNBC.com 101.

Targeting Market Winners for 2007

I've been spending time on the Peridot Capital 2007 Select List lately, hence my blogging frequency has slowed a bit. At any rate, my strategy for 2007 is going to be a bit different than last year. With the market having done extraordinarily well since August or so, my tendency to take a very contrarian approach will be even more apparent than usual as we head into early next year.

I forget the exact number of days, but it has been a very long time since we have had a 10% correction. I'd be surprised if one didn't come next year. After we get a sell-off, and therefore digest these out-sized gains we've seen, I'll likely become more aggressive. Until then, my investment selections (as readers will see when the 2007 Select List is issued during the first week of January) will focus on large caps that have lagged the market in 2006, as well as smaller cap growth stocks that should continue to do well regardless of the domestic economic environment in 2007 (I'm not going to try and predict when, if at all, a recession will hit, as it's anyone's guess).

Despite the double digit gain in the S&P 500 so far this year, my research recently has uncovered many large cap growth companies that are trading at market multiples. Earnings growth for these firms should be above-average, but for some reason their P/E multiples are not. The common debate among Wall Street strategists right now, as they try to gauge the market's overall direction in 2007, seems to revolve around whether or not the S&P 500 multiple should remain around 15 or 16, or perhaps rise to the 17-18 area. I'm not really comfortable forecasting P/E expansion in 2007, but for companies that are set to grow earnings per share at 12 to 15 percent annually for the rest of the decade, there is no doubt in my mind that a 15 or 16 P/E is too conservative. So, while I believe market gains overall in 2007 will be below 2006 levels, there are still values to be had.

Stay tuned for more details, both in the upcoming second annual Select List, as well as future blog postings.

Does a Roller Shoe IPO Signal that this Market is Too Hot?

As you may have noticed, 2006 has been the year of the consumer IPO. Familiar and popular consumer brands have debuted on the public market to much fanfare. Names like Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG), Crocs (CROX), Mastercard (MA), and UnderArmour (UARM) have all made investors a lot of money. Of that group, Crocs is really the only one that I looked at and said to myself, "Boy, that will be a great short when the fad dies and the stock's momentum dies down."

Well, that is until we learned that a roller shoe company called Heely's (HLYS) was going public at $21 per share on Friday, putting the firm's value at more than half a billion dollars. Shoes with wheels on them? Wall Street can't be serious.

I am not saying the company isn't selling a lot of shoes right now, and retail investors are going to bid the stock up a lot just like they did with Crocs as soon as it starts trading. That said, I can't believe this company is going public. It must say something about the overly bullish stock market environment we find ourselves in right now.

While I won't be buying any Heely's shares, I hope they go through the roof. Maybe the company's market value even hits a billion dollars or two when it's all said and done. What an excellent short candidate that would make it.

Which Group of Analysts Will Be Right About Earnings?

Glancing over earnings estimates for the duration of this year and 2007, I noticed a very interesting dichotomy. Bottom-up analysts are still quite bullish on corporate profits, forecasting year-over-year growth in each of the four calendar quarters during 2007. Top-down analysts, conversely, are predicting annual declines in earnings beginning in Q3.

Which group will be correct? It's simply too early to know. I would tend to side more with bottom-up analysts in general, merely because they are basing their forecasts on what actual company management teams are saying, as opposed to merely taking a broad macroeconomic view of the world.

That said, I am worried that earnings growth will be difficult to maintain. Over the last couple of years a majority of the gain in S&P 500 earnings have come from the energy and materials sectors. As we head into next year, contributions from these groups could be minimal, if not negative. Commodity prices seemed to have peaked for the short term, and although I do think we are in the middle of a secular bull market in the group, there is no reason to think we could not see a breather in the run during 2007.

If energy and other commodity stocks find it difficult to grow earnings, other groups would have to see accelerating profit growth to make up the difference and continue to boom in corporate earnings. I can't really see what areas would be up to the task.

What is the implication for stock prices going forward? Depending on what earnings number one uses for the S&P 500, we are currently trading between 15 times (operating) and 16.5 times (GAAP) 2007 earnings estimates. Market bulls suggest that P/E multiples should expand given the outlook for economic and earnings growth. However, if corporate profits begin to see year-over-year declines in the back half of 2007, such multiple expansion is unlikely.

With multiples staying flat or declining, and profits peaking, it would be hard to make the case that stock prices have a lot of room to run next year. Perhaps that is why the S&P 500 seems to be having trouble breaking past recent highs in the 1,390 area. As it stands right now, I don't see the S&P breaking meaningfully above 1,400 in the short term until we have increased confidence that a more bullish scenario could play out.

GE to Banc of America: Thanks for Trustreet

GE Capital must be very happy that most Wall Street analysts don't have a clue how to value the companies they follow. On 10/30 they announced a deal to buy Trustreet Properties (TSY) for $17.05 per share in cash. Investors were rewarded nicely, as TSY investors are being paid a 36 percent premium to TSY's closing price of $12.51 on 10/27.

Clients of Banc of America Securities, however, are far from thrilled. The investment bank initiated coverage of TSY in February with a "neutral" rating with the stock trading at $13.85 per share. By August the stock had dropped 17 percent and the analyst covering Trustreet, Ross Nussbaum, downgraded the stock to "sell" with the shares at $11.44 each. Oops.

Less than three months later, GE Capital swoops in and offers 49% more than where TSY was trading at the time of the "sell" recommendation. How these people keep their jobs baffles me. How can an analyst, whose sole job is to value public companies, be off by a whopping 50% when doing so? Clients who sold their shares at $11 and change must be fuming, as are those who shorted it after a rare "sell" call.

Meanwhile, smart value investors are smiling. The sell side analyst community continuously gives them gifts, like TSY at eleven bucks. GE Capital, too, must be thrilled that Mr. Nussbaum keeps his job despite being incredibly bad at it. After all, without so much analyst negativity, TSY shares might have been trading much higher, and GE Capital would have had to offer more than $17 to persuade Trustreet management to sell the company.

As usual, investors who listen to analysts get the worst of it. I know many of my readers are familiar with my advice to avoid paying attention to sell side analysts, and many of you do just that. Still, when things like this happen, I can't help but mention them just in case some of you are suspect of my opinion. 

Overbought Market Nears Dow 12,000

The current market rally has exceeded my expectations, both in duration and in strength. After such a move, am I correct in characterizing the U.S. equity market as overbought? Consider this astonishing statistic. We have now gone 66 straight trading days without a 1 percent drop in the S&P 500 in any given session (July 13th marked the last drop of such magnitude). During that three month period, the S&P has rallied more than 10 percent.

Now I have no idea what the record is for consecutive days without a drop of 1 percent, but given the current streak, I have little doubt we are getting quite overbought at these levels. Unfortunately, much like overbought stocks, just because markets are overbought, it does not mean the rise will stop on a dime. Nonetheless, I am waiting to commit new money to the market. Perhaps some quarterly earnings disappointment will provide attractive entry points for certain stocks in the coming weeks.

Same Ol' Sell Side Crap

From the New York Post:

The New York Attorney General's office and the Securities and Exchange Commission have launched full-fledged probes of a small but influential Wall Street firm that fired an analyst who tried to publish a report critical of one of its clients.

Subpoenas have gone out over the past week to Rodman & Renshaw over the departure of Matt Murray, a biotech analyst who said he was not allowed to lower his stock rating of a company once it had reached its price target.

Shortly after broaching the subject of downgrading Halozyme - a Rodman banking client - he was fired, he said.

A law enforcement source told The Post that a subpoena launching a New York AG investigation into Murray's February departure had gone out to Rodman; this source also said the SEC had also subpoenaed the firm.

Murray told The Post he was "grateful to learn that the Attorney General is continuing the important work on supporting analyst independence."

At the time of his departure from Rodman, which specializes in underwriting controversial PIPEs - or private investment in public equities - Murray was a high-profile analyst of small-cap pharmaceutical companies.

Murray said that once his request to downgrade the shares of Halozyme was turned down, he asked Rodman's compliance chief to remove his name from its coverage.

This set in motion a series of ugly confrontations between Rodman executives and Murray that led to his departure.

Will Q4 Be Strong Yet Again?

Fourth quarters in recent years have been strong periods for the equity market, but I wanted to put some hard numbers behind my recollections. I went back all the way to 1990 and calculated the S&P 500's performance for each of the last sixteen fourth quarters. The results, shown below, were even stronger than I had remembered.

As you can see, fourteen of the last sixteen years have produced positive S&P 500 returns in Q4. The mean return for the period since 1990 has been 6.5%. The average gain in the positive years is 8.0%, while the average loss in the negative years is only 4.5%.

Does this mean investors should be 100% equities going into October? Surely some will do just that based on these statistics, but I am being more cautious. The market has had a very, very strong third quarter and I want to protect some of those gains.

Stocks simply feel overbought currently. With the average fourth quarter producing a 6.5% gain since 1990, I am going to have to take "the under" and say this year will be less impressive than average. On the bright side, I'll be thrilled if I'm wrong!