Market Volatility Is Back, And That's Okay

You might be freaking out now that the U.S. stock market has dropped more than 8% during the first two weeks of 2016. With only nine trading days under our belt (including today) it has been a rough start to the new year. It has not helped our mental conditioning that from 2011 to 2015 we had a four-year stretch of no market corrections. Over the last six months we have now seen drops of 10% or more on two separate occasions. It also does not help that the national news typically only covers the stock market on days when the Dow drops 300 or 400 points, rather than giving equal time when it rebounds.

All of this is going to be okay. The shift from human to electronic trading has allowed computers to take over the process, which means much faster transacting. The result is that moves up and down now happen much more quickly. Market shifts that once took week or months can now come and go in a matter of minutes or hours. A 10% market correction might have taken three months a couple decades ago but now can take three days.

The ever-changing global economy also contributes to the volatility. We never heard much about China twenty years ago but now our financial markets can react violently to swift declines in Chinese stocks, even when their impact on American companies is minimal. As the United States matures and other countries grow faster and contribute a higher portion of global economic output, we become less shielded from international markets and therefore we will feel more ripple waves. And that's okay.

Advances in technology more generally have also had consequences for those of us who are investing for our futures. Information can now be transferred across the globe in a matter of milliseconds. While that is great for a level playing field and means we can research our investments more quickly, easily, and cheaply than ever before, it also means that there is more to react to. More information and quicker dissemination of that information has its drawbacks; namely volatility. Engineers are now even programming computers to automatically place buy and sell trades based on information delivered online. So not only do we get information faster, but we can act on in it much faster too.

And then there are new financial products being created all of the time. More ways to "play" means more money flowing in different directions, which also increases volatility of the underlying prices for assets. As the great new movie "The Big Short" conveys so well, financial derivatives allow more money to be wagered on various outcomes than ever before. As the analogy goes, you used to be the only one who could buy insurance on your own house or car, but now an unlimited number of people can do so. Imagine how volatile the price of insurance will be when it trades daily and anyone can buy it on practically anything.

By now you are probably thinking that I have changed my mind in a few paragraphs and everything will not be okay. Nope. The saving grace is that business profitability does not swing nearly as much as asset prices do. And over the long-term asset prices are going to track the underlying fundamentals of a business. As long as we are willing to not panic and sell when things turn south for a little while, the near-term price gyrations should not matter. And no matter how hard it is to accept this fact and not panic, that is what investing requires. I try to do the best job I can reinforcing this with my clients, but it is a tough job. Emotional reactions are natural and difficult to ignore.

My focus right now is on fourth quarter earnings reports and 2016 commentaries which are getting under way. Doing so will allow investors to separate what is going on daily in terms of asset prices and how the underlying fundamentals of companies look. After all, five years from now stock prices will reflect underlying earnings more than anything else. Five days or five weeks from now they can reflect anything at all.

PS: Some people may argue with that last point. After all, if markets get wacky five years from today what is to say that the underlying profits of the company will matter? That is a fair statement, to some extent. I think it is important to point out that history has shown that stock prices, while volatile, do not have an unlimited range of outcomes. The S&P 500 has traded as low as 7-8 times earnings during periods of double-digit interest rates and as high as 25-30 times earnings during bubbles. But it has never traded for 3 times earnings or 100 times earnings.

Why is this important? Let's say you buy a $100 stock today that trades for 10 times earnings and pays a 5% annual dividend. Your underlying investment thesis is that it will grow earnings per share by 10% annually for the next five years and continue to pay the dividend, which will be increased at the same rate as the underlying earnings grow.

If your fundamental analysis of the company turns out to be accurate, and you do not sell the stock (even during times of market panic), five years from now you will have collected more than $30 per share in dividends and the company's earnings will have grown from $10 to $16 per share. Assuming this plays out, what is the worst case scenario in terms of investment return? Even if the stock trades at only 7 times earnings, the stock will still trade at $112 per share. Add in the $30 of dividends you collected and your total return would be more than 40% over a five-year period, or about 8% annually.

Simply put, you are not going to lose money on that investment, as long as your thesis about earnings and dividends is right. This is important because we could not say the same thing if we only look out five weeks or five months into the future. If the stock drops to 7 times earnings in the short-term you would lose 30% on paper even if the company's fundamentals were on track. As long as you do not overpay for something, being right on the fundamentals and holding for the long-term becomes a winning proposition. That is why I spend the bulk of my time researching companies and hammering home the long-term nature of my investments.

This Market Correction In Perspective

One of my jobs as a financial manager for individuals and families is to put things into perspective, especially during times of short-term market distress, which can be quite stressful for the average person. In recent years I have tried to regularly remind my clients that normal stock market corrections of 10% or more occur about every year or so over the long term. Since we had not seen one since 2011, it had been four years since investors felt a near-term shock to their portfolios, which made being prepared for the next one especially helpful.

Given how much day-to-day stock market activity is computerized these days, one thing that is different now is that market moves happen more faster than they used to. What previously had taken weeks and months to take shape now can come and go in a matter of days. As I write this, the S&P 500 index is trading at 1,912, which is 10.4% below the all-time high made back in May. Amazingly, 8.8% of that decline has come in the last 4 trading days.

So what is important to keep in mind as computers send the market into a new world of volatility? Keep things in perspective. This  can often most easily be accomplished with graphics, so below I present three charts of the S&P 500 index:

Here is a year-to-date chart for 2015 which shows the current, sharp 10% decline:

Granted, that might look and feel kind of scary on its own.

Now, to see how far we have come and how much we have declined on relative terms, here is a 5-year chart:

SPX-5yr

I would guess that this second chart is far less scary to most people. It shows the market having more than doubled over a five-year period, includes the last major correction in the market (August 2011), and the most recent period appears to be no more than a standard, run-of-the-mill correction in stocks.

The last chart might be the most interesting, as it goes back 10 years. I included this one because it includes the last market peak before the "Great Recession" decline of 2008:

Even after the last week of declines, the U.S. stock market is still considerably above the peak it reached in 2007, just before the second largest economic collapse in United States history.

None of these charts can predict how the market will fare over the coming days, weeks, or months. Hopefully it does put the last decade in perspective and show that what we are experiencing right now, while not fun, is neither out of the ordinary, nor overly disconcerting. If you are retired, the plan you have in place with your financial manager is likely unchanged, as it should have incorporated the likelihood (or certainty, more precisely) of normal, periodic market declines. If you are still in the "work and save" phase of your career, times like these are a great time to add to your investment portfolio, as great companies are on sale.

Bargains Are Everywhere For Long-Term Investors, Even With S&P 500 Losses Contained Thus Far

Based solely on the number of new stocks I am finding to be priced at bargain levels, one would think the U.S. stock market has broken its years-long streak of avoiding a 10% correction. My potential buy list of stocks has not been this full in a long time, even though the S&P 500 (trading at 2,050 right now) has only dropped 4% from its all-time high. The reason is that as the current bull market continues to age, it is being led by fewer and fewer companies. Take out some high fliers like Amazon (AMZN) and Netflix (NFLX) and the underlying performance of the market overall has been pretty weak this year, and this is causing individual stock pickers to have ample choices when allocating fresh investment capital.

Take Disney (DIS), as an example. Down $6 today alone, the stock now fetches $100 per share, versus the $122 new high it reached on August 4th, just 16 days ago. For a blue chip company like Disney, which was a market darling just weeks ago, to be down 18% from its high is pretty remarkable. These are the kinds of moves we typically see when the market indices are really taking it on the chin.

It is impossible to know if the high-fliers are going to keep the S&P 500 fairly buoyant, or if we really will see a normal correction in the market (which would have to take stock prices materially lower from here), but as a long-term investor I do not especially care either way. I tell my clients that I invest in companies with every intention of holding them for at least five years. There are certainly times when I sell before that, but when you are searching for contrarian bargain opportunities you want to have time on your side since investors' daily emotions are so unpredictable and oftentimes irrational. So when I find great investment opportunities, as I am more and more these days, I do not hesitate to start accumulating shares, even though the market is overdue for a correction and only down 4% from its high. If my investment thesis is correct, and I am willing to hold the stock for five years, the short-term noise becomes irrelevant.

As you consider whether to add fresh money to your investment accounts (and when), keep that in mind. Buying a good company at a great price usually pays off very well for long-term investors, in any market environment. Assuming that environment is similar to today when I write my next quarterly client letter in early October, I am likely to encourage my long-term investor clients who are still regularly adding cash to their accounts to prepare a plan of attack. That might mean putting some money to work now and leaving some on the sidelines in case we get a bigger market drop, but at the very least I think we should be shaping our plans around what we are seeing out there right now. And I would characterize the market today as getting very interesting on a stock specific level, provided one has patience and is focused on company fundamentals and not day-to-day market noise.

Full Disclosure: Long AMZN, DIS, and NFLX at the time of writing, but positions may change at any time.

U.S. Stock Market Approaching Attractive Levels

The U.S. stock market has finally rolled over, after going 3 years without so much as a single 10% decline. We are not quite there yet (at today's S&P 500 low of 1,837 the index is down 9% from its peak reached last month), but for all practical purposes this is what a correction looks and feels like. So does it matter? Are stocks down to a point where investors should consider adding to their stock holdings? Let me share some thoughts as to how I am viewing the market's current position.

Entering 2014, the S&P 500 sported a price-earnings ratio of about 17 based on trailing 12-month earnings (1,848/107). While this was justifiable given how low interest rates were, it was at the high end of historical norms and did not provide a lot of room for multiple expansion. The best that bulls could hope for was that earnings would continue to grow and rates would stay low, allowing for stable P/E ratios. And up until a few weeks ago, that is exactly how things played out. Earnings for 2014 are slated to come in around $119 (+11% year-over-year) and the S&P 500 index reached a high of 2,019 in September, up about 9% for the year excluding dividends of 1.5%.

While everybody has been worried about when interest rates will rise, and by how much, I think it is far more important to look at P/E ratios relative to those rates. If the average P/E ratio over the long term has been 14-15x, in a low rate environment a 17-18x P/E ratio would be fair but not compelling, assuming you expected rates to trend upward in the intermediate term. However, if stocks were trading at 15x earnings with low rates, it changes things.

Let's assume the 10-year bond normalizes to a 4% yield (vs 2% today) over the next 3-5 years, which is the consensus view. If U.S. stocks would be likely to fetch a 15 P/E in that scenario (average rates, average P/E's), then stocks would be attractive if I could pay 15x earnings when yields are just 2%. Essentially, even if rates doubled, there would not be any P/E multiple compression. If, however, I pay 17-18x earnings and rates rise/multiples fall, then I should expect that P/E compression will offset corporate earnings gains, and my stock returns will be muted.

Why is this important? If the S&P 500 index were to drop to 1,800 (about 2% below current levels) and earnings for the index are $119 for 2014, the trailing P/E ratio for the S&P 500 would be 15x at year-end and interest rates would be near record lows. That would make me want to add fresh capital to my stock market investments. If rates stay low for longer than people expect, then multiples could go back to 17x and equity gains will result. If rates rise and we only see average P/E ratios of 15, then stock returns will largely track corporate profit growth, which continues to be strong.

Paying above-average prices in a low rate environment is justifiable but offers minimal upside. Paying average prices for stocks in a low rate environment offers you some downside protection if rates rise and solid upside potential if they are steady. As a result, I think U.S. stocks look attractive at around 1,800 on the S&P 500. And many people would suggest starting to buy even with the index at 1,840 because it's "close enough." Bottom line: it's time to make a shopping list because stocks are on sale.

The Average Investor Can (And Should) Ignore the 60 Minutes Story About "Rigged" Markets

The piece on 60 Minutes this past Sunday has ignited a discussion about high-frequency electronic trading systems and undoubtedly has spiked sales of the new Michael Lewis book entitled "Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt" which digs deep into the topic. Since I have yet to read the book, I am not going to get into many details here, but the big issue is that technology has become so advanced these days that certain people are now able to get insights into what orders are coming in for a particular security, and jump in front of those orders to make a few pennies per share on the backs of smaller investors. It's gotten so bad (read: unfair) that a company called Virtu Financial Inc, which recently filed documents to go public, disclosed that it has only lost money on one day out of the first 1,238 trading days it has been operating.

Since I work with regular retail investors, the most salient question my readers might want to ask is "Does this affect me?" I would say "No, it doesn't." There are definitely counter-arguments to be made, but for the typical investor (who is investing in the stock market and planning on holding a stock for months or years) the existence of high-frequency trading firms should not even be a blip on their radar. The market is not "rigged" against the types of investments they are making. If you want to invest in Company A, you have done your research, and you feel as though paying $20 per share for that stock is an attractive price, then all you have to do is enter a limit order to buy Company A at $20 per share. In that scenario, you know what you are getting, you know what price you are paying, and you feel good about your odds of success. Over time if your investment thesis proves accurate then you will make money, and vice versa. Nothing else really should matter to you.

Now, it is hard to argue that we should embrace or even accept a system where certain groups of people with more money and better technology should be in a position to game the system and earn a profit 1,237 out of every 1,238 days the market is open. Hopefully regulators will do everything they can to close these loopholes in the system. That said, the discussion around whether regular investors should change how they save and invest based on this new book or the 60 Minutes segment are focusing their coverage and attention on the wrong headlines, in my view. Carry on.

Why the January Barometer Drives Me Crazy

You can find the "January Barometer" mentioned in dozens of media articles and it has been referenced a ton on CNBC so far this year, as it is every January. Here's a recap from the Financial Post in case you have been lucky enough not to hear about it:

"Stock performance in January can say a lot about where the markets are headed for the rest of the year. At least, that's the premise behind the January Barometer, a theory that the performance of the S&P 500 during the first month will set the tone for the rest of the year... The Stock Trader's Almanac points out that since 1950, the Barometer has been right 76% of the time."

Sounds harmless enough; If January is up, then the market will finish up for the year three times out of four. Good odds, right? So why does this so-called barometer drive me crazy every time I hear it? Because you need context to really determine if this indicator has any value.

Forget January entirely for a second. Would it not be helpful to know how often the market goes up in a given year regardless of any particular month? I certainly think so. In fact, since 1957 (the year the S&P 500 index was created -- don't ask me how they claim to have data from 1950-1956) there have been 56 calendar years and the S&P 500 index has risen 44 times and fallen 12 times. Why is that important? Because 44 divided by 56 equals 78%. The market goes up 78% of the time no matter what!

But if January is up then the market goes up 76% of the time. So what? Actually, that tells me that January has essentially no influence at all. In fact, we could go a step further and say that if January is up, the odds the market will rise for the full year actually go down slightly compared with the historical average. So really, January is irrelevant. It tells us nothing on its own.

It's sort of like saying if you play blackjack in Vegas in January then the house edge is only 1%. That might sound like great odds, until you do some digging and realize that the house edge in blackjack, assuming you follow perfect basic strategy, is actually less than 1% regardless of when you play.

Does Sales Growth Really Matter That Much?

"Sure, earnings are going to be fine this quarter, but sales growth has been tepid."

I am hearing this line a lot in the financial media lately and frankly, it is a theme that is being given way too much airtime. All else equal, would earnings grow faster if sales were also growing faster? Sure. But that does not mean that earnings growth this quarter (tracking at 5-6%) is somehow bad news for investors. All too often it seems that people forget that stock prices are based on earnings, not sales. Why? Because shareholders in public companies are entitled to a proportional share of the firm's free cash flow. Sales have nothing to do with it.

Don't buy that argument? Think about the dot-com bubble. Why did the internet stocks tank beginning in March 2000? Because the companies were not making any money and after a while investors refused to pay 20 time sales when they were used to paying 20 times earnings. I could set up a web site that sells dollar bills for 95 cents and it would be hugely popular. Think of how fast I could grow the site's sales! But an investor would never give me any money because the business model does not work. Stock investing is all about placing a value today on profits to be earned in the future. Sales growth is irrelevant in that context.

Consider a real world example. IBM has doubled its stock price from $100 to $200 since 2009. IBM is expected to book sales of $102 billion this year, versus $96 billion in 2009. If sales growth really mattered, IBM's stock would not have doubled in four years because it only grew sales by 1.5% annually. Earnings per share, on the other hand, have risen by 70% during that time. That fact, along with some P/E multiple expansion, explains the stock's performance. Don't get caught up in the revenue growth debate. Earnings are what matter.

Time To Make A Shopping List

It's one thing to say that interest rates will eventually go up, and it's something entirely different to see them actually start to rise. Over the last couple of weeks the stock and bond markets have been spooked as the benchmark 10-year treasury has seen its yield spike. Since May 1st, the 10-year yield is up 100 basis points, from 1.6% to 2.6%. In percentage terms, that is a huge move, which is why the markets have been rattled.

It is also a fairly uncommon situation to find the stock and bond markets falling at the same time, as equity outflows typically are redirected into bonds as a safe haven. However, the rise in stocks in recent memory has largely been helped by falling bond yields (which make equities more attractive on a relative basis), so it makes sense that when bonds start to sell-off, causing rates to rise, that it would also cause a retracement in recent equity gains. So, we have bonds and stocks dropping simultaneously, and in many cases, bonds actually falling more than stocks, which hardly ever happens.

So what do we do as long-term investors? First, let's keep things in perspective. Rather than simply focus on your stock and bond returns in May and June, consider them in the context of the last several years. While we are finally having a market correction, it should have been expected (though the exact timing is always hard to gauge). Healthy markets need to pull back every once in a while to avoid overheating. This time is no different. In fact, it had been a record number of trading days since we last had a 5% correction, so we should not fret too much at the market's recent action.

With yield-sensitive securities leading the way down, should we throw in the towel and pronounce income-investing and the dividend-paying stock bull market dead? I would not be so quick to judge. Does a stock yielding 4% or 5% look a bit less attractive if bonds yield 2-3% instead of 1-2%? Sure. Does that mean the merits of owning high-yielding stocks have simply vanished? Hardly. Many MLPs and REITs are seeing their yields jump to 6-7% again. Even if interest rates rose another percentage point, those securities will remain attractive in the big picture.

I would suggest making a shopping list of your favorite stocks and bonds. At a certain price they become very attractive and are likely ripe for purchase during this correction. Many reached fair value, or even surpassed it a bit, thanks to interest rates hitting record lows. That was bound to stop at some point, and now the market is re-calibrating its expectations that rates will not stay ultra-low forever. We may have already known that, but markets don't typically react until the move higher begins. And investors can expect that market prices will adjust to even higher rates ahead of time, since the financial markets are discounting mechanisms. In fact, we are likely seeing that process play out right now.

As The Dow Jones Industrial Average Hits A Record High, Is The Stock Market Overvalued?

How can we tell if the U.S. stock market is getting too pricey? Well, if you watch CNBC long enough or read enough stories in the financial media, you are likely to learn dozens of ways people will try and answer that question. There is not one right answer. If there was, successful investing would be easy and it is far from it.

I decided to dig into the numbers and present one way we can evaluate the stock market at today's levels relative to prior market peaks, in order to see if we are nearing a point where we should start to get worried. I chose five of the most noteworthy market peaks over the last 25 years or so. After each of these peaks, the S&P 500 index fell at least 20% peak-to-trough. Some of the corrections were relatively normal, mild bear markets (the 1990 recession; -20% and the 1998 Asian financial crisis; -22%). Others were more pronounced (the 1987 crash; -33% and the dot-com and housing bubble bursts of 2000 and 2007; -50% and -58%, respectively).

I have graphed the P/E ratio of the S&P 500 index at each of these five market peaks. At one extreme we have the 1990's bull market led by internet stocks, which saw equity valuations easily reach record-high levels, but at other peaks the results are more uniform, with markets typically topping out with P/E ratios in the high teens or low 20's.

As you can see, today the S&P 500 sits at 16x earnings. While we are approaching levels that should be considered elevated, one can argue that another 10-15% upside in P/E ratios would not be out of line with historical data. That said, making a large bet that valuations will reach the high end of the historical range is not something I would take to the bank. To me, this data says that the market is starting to get pricey, and although we could very well squeeze more upside out of this bull market (largely because with interest rates so low, equity investors are willing to pay more for stocks), I would still be cautious. As a contrarian, ever-higher stock prices only increase my preference to raise more cash and wait for the next correction, even if we don't know exactly when it will come.

Best Section of Warren Buffett's Annual Letter to Berkshire Hathaway Shareholders: Why Buybacks Are Preferred Over Dividends

This weekend I had the pleasure of reading Warren Buffett's annual shareholder letter (an annual exercise for me) and I wanted to share a section of the 23 page document with my readers. In it, Buffett discusses why he prefers share buybacks over dividends (Berkshire has never paid a dividend). Not only did he present a clear and concise explanation, but I also think it sheds much light into the current debate at Apple, where shareholders are hoping that management there finally makes some wise capital allocation decisions, as the stock hits a new 52-week low today. I have created a PDF file consisting of just the 3 page section on dividends versus buybacks if you would like to read it.