Making Money in the Market: Too Easy?

It’s impossible to predict market changes with 100% certainty.  Signs emerge at times, though, such as when making money in the market looks easy, volatility is low and investors’ confidence level is generally high.  Remember, the market won’t provide high returns just because we need/want them, and stability breeds instability.

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Don’t ask the barber if you need a haircut.
-Warren Buffett

why have there ever been recessions?

“The enthusiasm of investors about central-bank interventions has reached a pitch that is already well-reflected in market prices, and a level of confidence that with little doubt, investors will ultimately regret. In the face of this enthusiasm, one almost wonders why nations across the world and throughout recorded history have ever had to deal with economic recessions or fluctuations in the financial markets. The current, widely-embraced message is that there is no such thing as an economic problem, and no such thing as risk. Bernanke, Draghi and other central bankers have finally figured it out, and now, as a result, economic recessions and market downturns never have to happen again. They just won’t allow it, printing more money will solve everything, and that’s all that any of us need to understand. And if it doesn’t solve everything, they can just keep doing more until it works, because there is no consequence to doing so, and all historical evidence to the contrary can finally, thankfully, be ignored. How could anyone ever have believed, at any point in history, that economics was any more complicated than that?” (John Hussman, Ph.D)

Investors (with)Drawing Patterns

I am struck this morning by the counter-productive nature in which investors continue to make investment decisions.  Human nature, they say, is unchanging.  This past year illustrated this well.

There’s a lot of information out there about how investors often are their own worst enemies, adding money when the markets are up and withdrawing money when the markets are down. Buying high and selling low. Emotions replacing logic.  Wall Street is the only place people run from when there’s a sale.

According to Morningstar, 2011 was the second-worst year for actively managed U.S. stock funds flows (money in versus money out) since they started tracking the data.  In the last half of 2011, investors pulled more more out of these funds than during the last two quarters of 2008.  This is a striking statistic given that markets were only down 5% in the first half of 2011 (and lost 29% in the last half of 2008, amid massive financial market turmoil and government intervention).

Withdrawal behavior has a predictable effect on managers of these mutual funds – they have to be a bit more defensive and raise cash to meet redemptions.  Often, they can’t be aggressive buyers when the markets are down.  For what reason?  Mostly due to emotional decision-making by the fund’s shareholders.  In the U.S. stock funds category, investments ought to be made with the long-term in mind.  Ideally, inflows would be predictable and smooth, with new cash added over time; outflows would follow roughly the same pattern.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t tend to work like this and investors seem forever locked in a pattern of withdrawing money at the wrong time.  Since the end of the third quarter of last year, the S&P 500 Index (not including dividends) is up over 16%.  Those selling prior to the rally may have the certainty of cash, but also certainly don’t have 16% more money than they would have if they’d stayed invested (at least at this point).

Considering withdrawing or adding money to ‘the market?’ Think about the reasoning for your decisions and remove as much emotion from the process as possible. Your financial well-being will likely benefit.

on investment discipline

For investors, it’s imperative to establish a disciplined approach and stick with it.   Developing that approach is one of the most difficult parts, however, as what has worked over time in investing does not work at all times.  Yet regardless of what the market is doing someone has done well recently.  Some hedge fund manager made a billion dollars on natural gas spreads, wheat futures, or in Latvian mud art, rare stamps, or old soda pop bottles.  The media will always find examples of who has done well lately.  If it were easy to flit around from strategy to strategy I’d be all over it, but it’s nearly impossible to execute reliably over long time periods.  The trick is not to lose focus on your own approach and to understand that if the core investment framework is sound and well-reasoned, there’s no cause to abandon it just because it’s not working at the moment.  To do so would be like piloting a rudderless ship, at the mercy of winds on the open seas.  It’d be tough to get anywhere.

There is also an undue focus on ‘the market’.  The goal is to beat the market, yes, because active management is, in theory, a fool’s errand without this outcome.  However, the majority of active managers don’t beat the market, and even index funds fall behind (due to fees and expenses).  The overriding goal should be to limit risk while generating returns that meet long-term goals.

Let’s face reality here, the smorgasbord of available investments today – stocks, bonds, real estate, commodities – have rather low forward return prospects.  The low interest rate environment has caused asset prices to be bid up to the point where forward return prospects are in the 4-7% range on average.  The capital markets are not just a place to blindly place capital today.  As Peter Bernstein observed, “The market’s not a very accommodating machine; it won’t provide high returns just because you need them.”  Yes, it’d be nice to see double-digit returns, but given the macro environment it doesn’t look possible on a sustainable basis.  (That is, it could run up 20% annually for five years, but the gains would likely be borrowing from well into the future.)  Investors should view an index fund investment today as a decent place to put money, but not a spectacular one.  Individual investments, on the other hand, may offer opportunities for better-than-average returns.

This leads me back to the main point: finding a consistent, disciplined investment approach.  How?  Identify what’s worked over time, regardless of market environment.  A few of these are listed below.  These provide good perspective for investors today, with a stock market that has declined for the past several weeks (but nonetheless remains up for the year).  It’s useful to remind oneself frequently of what has actually worked, especially when the pickings are slim.  As mentioned, they may work over time, but notall the time.

A list of some basics:

•           A Low Price in relation to earnings, cash flow and asset value,
•           Insider purchases of significant size,
•           Recent large declines in a stock’s price,
•           Smaller companies, and
•           The above, especially with companies that generate high returns on invested capital.

Consistent execution of a strategy is tough.  For a portfolio manager, it requires institutional support to follow a discipline, especially because there aren’t loads of qualifying investments at all times.  When stocks are cheap, it’s psychologically tough to buy (“they could go lower”) and when they’re high it’s hard to sell (“they could go higher.”)  Individuals might have an easier go at implementing the strategy – the only thing they have to fight is “the urge to do something,” which is a powerful tendency.  (Professional investors aren’t immune, either.)

A final note: following a consistent investment strategy over time requires being very discipline on price paid in relation to value.  So when one can’t find qualifying investments, what ought they do with it?  Hold cash.  Just because it’s not ‘making anything’ doesn’t mean a whole lot. Think about it this way: an investor has $1,000 and a target stock is priced at $50 (worth $50).  If the investor buys today he’ll have 20 shares.  If the stock subsequently declines to $25 (worth $50), he’ll have only $500 (20 shares at $25) and won’t be able to buy more at the now-lower price. If he waited and holds cash, he’ll have $1,000, still, and be able to buy 40 shares for $1,000 that are now worth $2,000 total.  (Yes, the stock could also go up from $50, but wasn’t under-valued in the first place.)   I call the potential returns earned from having excess cash at the right time the ‘opportunity yield’.  The ability to hold cash is an important tool in an investors’ toolkit, and one an investor shouldn’t hesitate to wield.  Warren Buffett says it eloquently, “Lethargy bordering on sloth remains the cornerstone of our investment style.”

In investing there are no strikes called for not swinging, so there’s often no point in swinging unless they’re coming down the middle of the plate.

an opinion on fairness opinions

Several months ago, I reviewed the NYSE Euronext’s proposed merger with Deutsche Borse.  At nearly 900 pages, it was a huge document with loads of information: the agreement and exchange offer, regulatory issues, standalone financials, pro-formas, management discussion, risk factors, background of the merger (a personal favorite), projections of synergies, opinions about the merger from investment banks, etc..  Each time I’ve reviewed merger documents trying to find holes and glean new insights, I continue to be amazed that banks are still paid so much for so-called ‘fairness opinions’.  [This post is a bit longer than usual, but contains several citations with our emphasis that don’t require word-for-word reading.]

Let’s face it, executives are going to push a deal through whether or not it’s good.  With Excel spreadsheets it’s too easy to ‘click and drag’ indefinite predictions of a rosy future.  Valuation models are ‘garbage in, garbage out’, and many large mergers turn out to be just that, garbage, at least for shareholders (executives tend to fare better, owing to change-in-control provisions).  So, predicted ‘synergies’, mostly cost-savings, can really be about anything executives say they are.  Who am I to question their predictions?  And fairness opinions are there to serve the C.Y.A. function for boards of directors.

A fairness opinion is essentially a stamp of approval from an investment bank about a transaction.  In official terms, “A fairness opinion addresses, from a financial point of view, the fairness of the consideration in a transaction.  Fairness opinions are routinely used by directors of companies in connection with a change in control transaction, such as a merger or sale or purchase of assets, to satisfy their fiduciary duties to act with due care and in an informed manner.”

To us, “to satisfy their fiduciary duties” essentially means to pass the buck when a merger doesn’t work as projected.  According to professor Robert Holthausen (@Wharton), more than half of mergers fail and “one recent study found that 83% of all merger fail to create value and half actually destroy value.”  Yet, 80% of board members involved in acquisitions thought theirs had created value for the company.  So, I know out of the gate that regardless of what the opinion says it has about a coin’s flip chance of being accurate.  Yet, bankers are paid millions to prepare these 3-4 page documents with a clear financial incentive to help engender that outcome.

The below excerpt increases the length of the post, but it need not be read in its entirety.  I’ve bolded the main points.

The full text of Perella Weinberg’s written opinion, dated February 15, 2011, which sets forth, among other things, the assumptions made, procedures followed, matters considered and qualifications and limitations on the review undertaken by Perella Weinberg, is attached as Annex B to this document. Holders of NYSE Euronext shares are urged to read Perella Weinberg’s opinion carefully and in its entirety. The opinion does not address NYSE Euronext’s underlying business decision to enter into the combination or the relative merits of the combination as compared with any other strategic alternative that may have been available to NYSE Euronext. The opinion does not constitute a recommendation to any holder of NYSE Euronext shares or Deutsche Börse shares as to how such holders should vote or otherwise act with respect to the combination or any other matter and does not in any manner address the prices at which NYSE Euronext shares, Holdco shares or Deutsche Börse shares will trade at any time. In addition, Perella Weinberg expressed no opinion as to the fairness of the combination to, or any consideration to, the holders of any other class of securities, creditors or other constituencies of NYSE Euronext. [Isn’t this a fairness opinion?]  Perella Weinberg provided its opinion for the information and assistance of the NYSE Euronext board of directors in connection with, and for the purposes of its evaluation of, the combination. This summary is qualified in its entirety by reference to the full text of the opinion. Perella Weinberg’s business address is 767 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10153, United States of America. Perella Weinberg has given its consent to the use of its opinion letter dated February 15, 2011 to the Board of Directors of NYSE Euronext, in the form and content as included in this document, as this document stands, at the time of publication.  In giving such consent, Perella Weinberg does not admit that it comes within the category of persons whose consent is required under Section 7 of the US Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the rules and regulations of the US Securities and Exchange Commission thereunder, nor does Perella Weinberg thereby admit that it is an expert with respect to any part of the Registration Statement on Form F-4 of Alpha Beta Netherlands Holding N.V. filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which includes the proxy statement/prospectus, within the meaning of the term “expert” as used in the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission thereunder.

So, hopefully it’s apparent that the opinion really isn’t anything but an expensive formality.

Here are some more “outs” from Deutsche Bank’s opinion (emphasis ours).

DBSI prepared these analyses for purposes of providing its opinion to the Deutsche Börse management and supervisory boards as to the fairness to holders of Deutsche Börse shares from a financial point of view of the Deutsche Börse exchange ratio. These analyses do not purport to be appraisals nor do they necessarily reflect the prices at which businesses or securities actually may be sold. Analyses based upon forecasts of future results, including the broker projections and estimates of the synergies, are not necessarily indicative of actual future results, which may be significantly more or less favorable than suggested by these analyses. Because these analyses are inherently subject to uncertainty, being based upon numerous factors or events beyond the control of the parties or their respective advisors, none of Deutsche Börse, NYSE Euronext, DBSI or any other person assumes responsibility if future results are materially different from those forecast.

Each opinion issued contains similar language.

Don’t forget the indemnification language.  “Deutsche Borse also agreed…to indemnify Deutsche Bank and its affiliates against certain liabilities, in connection with this engagement.”  This language applies more or less equally to each company issuing its opinions and advice.  Bankers are relying on management’s internal projects and representations, and this becomes another out through which they can’t be held liable for future results.

I could go on and on with examples, but won’t belabor the point beyond those illustrated above.

In the NYSE case, Pirella Weinberg was paid $5 million upon the public announcement of the agreement of the combination and is to be paid $22.5 million upon the completion. Deutsche Bank will be paid €14 million ($20.5 million) contingent upon completion of the combination — or a max of €2.4 million ($3.5 million) if not completed, and JP Morgan will be paid $10 million, “a substantial portion of which will become payable only if the proposed exchange offer and merger are consummated.”  Is it really worth more than $50 million for some financial analysis and a rubber stamp?

In summary:

• The incentive structure is misaligned:
• Indemnification from the company makes banks’ liability negligible, absent some demonstrable lack of due diligence or fraud
• Banks are paid mostly through contingent fees (if the deal is consummated)
• There are numerous “outs”:
  • Like auditors, the representation letter signed by management gives opinion-writers an “out”, i.e., “We relied on management’s representations and do not independently verify…”
  • Buckets of “we do not do X, Y, Z” and “…the opinion is not…” statements
  •  “The future is inherently unpredictable”

All of that said, there is a lot of work involved and some fairly sophisticated modeling is required to back up the opinion.  Yet they simply should not cost $10-20 million on both sides of the transaction.  My company, Sagacious, Inc., offers fairness opinions and is working on OpinionFairness.com for those who desire a fairness opinion but prefer it delivered on a non-contingent, fixed fee basis.  We offer experienced analysis and will work one-on-one with boards of directors and managements to offer an informed, measured opinion.  We’ll determine whether the deal is fair from a financial point of view for a lower, fixed price sans conflicts of interest.  Meanwhile, the shareholders will continue to pay (way too much) for such opinions.

Disclosure: No positions in any of the companies mentioned.

tech confessions from a value investor

It was about a decade ago now that a friend and I started an investment partnership.  The venture was my first foray into managing money for others (friends, family), and it accomplished its intended goal.  First, it made us concentrate on discussing investments on a regular basis.  It established a disciplined feedback mechanism.  It’s like having a running partner – you don’t want to let the other person down.  We discussed strategy, generated ideas, developed reports and wrote letters indicating our thoughts on a regular basis.  The letters are fun to go back and read.  Some things were missed in those reports, however, including many errors of omission that appear glaringly large now.  This post somewhat of a post-mortem along those lines.  While we made plenty of mistakes on the stocks we actually bought, in retrospect, far worse decisions were made with respect to those we discussed but did not buy.  Case in point: Amazon.

Almost from when I began investing, I have been a devout value investor.  (Exception: about the first year.)  The books I read were almost exclusively ‘value’ based.  If I had a mentor, it would be those books and Warren Buffett.  Almost all of them, save a few, dismiss investing in technology stocks almost out of hand.  Buffett, for example, hasn’t touched Microsoft – except for 100 shares in order to receive the annual reports – even though his friend Bill Gates is one of the most brilliant folks he’s met.  (Also, Buffett has jumped into technology lately with his BYD investment, but that’s another story.)  The point is, when I started my mentally was to do the same: dismiss ‘tech’ investments almost out of hand.  “There are enough investments without technology stocks,” I’d say, plus I put them in the ‘too hard’ category.  It’s too hard to figure out what the future will look like.  So I avoided them.

The first rule of investing is ‘don’t lose money’ and the second rule is ‘don’t forget rule #1,” so looking at it from this perspective not investing in fast-changing tech makes a lot of sense.  It IS hard to figure out what the future economics of a business will be, let alone one that is heavily involved in technology.  Underestimated, however, was just how powerful some of these businesses could become.

Anyway, we went on to pass up investing in Amazon.com, at $7.  It was mostly my fault.  I would later pass on the IPO of Google.  I read about the pricing of the offering and considering it too expensive.  (In my defense, IPOs tend to be horrible times to invest.  Who would want to buy from a super-knowledgeable seller?)  Of course, the $85 IPO price looks like a bargain now.  Netflix was another.  I actually bought puts on the stock, trying to profit when the stock fell.  (It hasn’t.)  I must also note that I used Amazon a lot, performed web searches via Google, and was also a Netflix customer.  I loved each of their services.  I thought all three were great companies.  It came down to what I considered a high price in relation to value that I wasn’t willing to bet partners, client, or my own money, on them.  While I’m being masochistic, throw Apple in there, circa 2001.  I passed this over in spite of having several friends who used Macs and loved them.  Oh, then iPods came out…

Buffett has said that “growth” is a part of the “value” equation, that they are not distinct and separate.  This is something  I agree with wholeheartedly.  I’ve always used growth when valuing companies.  It’s the stinginess that, I think, made me not properly consider how growth could impact valuation if returns on capital could be maintained even at very high rates of growth.  Statistically this is very rare.  I also failed to weigh heavily enough how much the people running these companies mattered.  Bezos, Brin/Page, and Hoffman are phenomenal folks — that’s a key takeaway.

Allocating scarce capital involves many tough decisions, and for me the errors of omission keep me up as much as those of commission.  Of course, it’s easy to look back at the winners and say I missed them.  In the intervening period, there were successes in more ‘boring’ companies.  Still, reviewing one’s mistakes is FAR more useful as a learning tool than reviewing successes.  Failure, like success, can involve more luck than skill, but if you know you passed it over for ‘rational’ reasons it’s worth exploring those reasons and considering their validity no matter how much time has passed.   Too, I didn’t buy a bunch of high-flying technology stocks only to see them collapse 95% and lose it all.  So there is some advantage to investing – or not investing – according to a value discipline.

This post is already long enough to make folks who are reading it start to drift off, so I’ll stop here.  In closing, I am certainly more open to technology investments now, but I still prefer to buy the profitable toaster manufacturer trading at $5 with $10 of net cash on its balance sheet.  If I can have a 90% probability of a base hit versus 5% probability of a home run, I’ll still lean toward the base hit.

Disclosure: I own shares of Google (GOOG). 

converging viewpoints

Over the past month I’ve been mostly out of the portfolio management game, and it has been titillating (to make use of an oft-unused word) from a personal standpoint to watch the capital markets from the sidelines.  There is a constant need for client management, nearly as much as actually managing money, when managing portfolios.  And when markets are volatile and the world seems more uncertain, client management can be nearly, or more, time consuming than actually trying to add value to managed assets.  I have been able to view it through another lens and it has been fascinating.

The above is not the main subject of this post.

Though I am not actively managing client assets, I am still deeply involved in thinking about the economy, capital markets, and specific investments.  In that vein, I’ve been corresponding with a friend about the situation in the world today.  Europe finds itself in crisis.  The U.S. may be in another recession and is growing anemically at the very least.  Or that’s the way the world – viewed through the media – now seems to portray it.

My friend has always been at odds with the prevailing view of the world.  He’s been a heavy investor in foreign currencies and gold, and short the market from time to time.  Not really the buy and hold type.  Today he was lamenting that he seems to have lost his footing.  That is, the investment world seems to be saying the things he’s been saying for years.  “Wait, you agree with me?  I’m not used to that!”  When a contrarian opinion becomes consensus, it often leads to these awkward feelings.  I’ve been there myself several times.

While I’m not a ‘buy gold, the world will eventually collapse’ investor, I do think we are in what would technically be a depression.  But it’s ongoing deleveraging that leads me to that conclusion, not a hatred of Western society or the President.  (Not that my friend is motivated by these, either.)  Robust economic growth the past couple decades was borrowed from the future in the form of private and public sector debt used for consumption more than long-term asset building.  This must be now paid down.  Put matter-of-fact-ly, aggregate growth will be lower no matter what fiscal and/or monetary efforts are wielded against it. I came to this conclusion around the same time others did, albeit independently, during late 2008.  History foretells what is bound to happen out of similar conditions and this is an experiment we’ve seen run before.

Back to the main point.  Anytime one has an unwavering view that doesn’t ebb and flow with the tides of investment sentiments, the collective view will occasionally converge with it.  Sometimes, it happens in a big way.

So I’ve held this worldview and when the prevailing viewpoint is congruent with mine I, too, feel strange.  The initial feeling when the world seems to agree is one of vindication but, summarily, the contrarian in me feels uncomfortable and leads me toward rigid self-examination.  Okay, I was right but will I continue to be?  If so, why?  Is the data coming out that seems to vindicate these views even accurate?  How to capitalize on the situation from here?  It is not profitable to hold one view forever in spite of the evidence so one needs to constantly question.  The philosophical part of the post is over.  [Continue reading for more stream-of-consciousness.  This is the most fun way to write a blog – get some thoughts out on paper and minimally edit them.  Who was it – ? – Pascal or some prolific writer – who didn’t edit typos because he thought it a waste of time.  I agree to a point, though MS Word sees to it that I have far fewer typos that had I been inscribing this on papyrus several hundred years ago with a feather and charcoal.]

* * * * *

With talk of the Dow headed lower, I will always remember the WSJ headline the day before (or day of) the bottom discussing how the markets could go MUCH lower than they were at the time.  World trade data was terrible.  Unemployment was rising.  One difference between then and now is that it’s a worldwide — or at least multi-country — phenomenon, and the Fed has blown most of its firepower and, more importantly, its credibility, to little effect.  The world is more at the mercy of natural forces rather than some (flawed) idea that fiscal and monetary intervention, poorly conceived, can get us out of any mess.  The can has been kicked as far as it can go and investors know there will have to be real losses…and that governments really can’t do much about it other than let it play out.  Sure, there will be efforts to do one thing or another and on some level they might be successful.  But ultimately debt has to be paid down and that means lower growth and a slower recovery period than we’ve been used to for several decades.  Bummer, I know.  Grab a drink.

A closing thought I alluded to above: typically when the collective is leaning one way, it may not be the right way to lean.  Is it time to look for opportunities in the ‘it turns out better than everyone thinks’ trade?  Late MIT economist Rudiger Dornbusch said something like, The crisis takes longer than you think, then hits faster than you would have thought.  I would not personally bet on things getting better on a macro basis, but I think individual opportunities are clearly out there.

The Great Equalizer

The financial crisis of the past several years has had an equalizing effect on the experience of many in the investment industry.  After what’s transpired, a person with five years of experience might rightly be considered to possess similar competencies as someone with twenty-five.  The reason?  The crisis, abrupt market declines and recovery, and ongoing economic and market difficulties have been new to the experience of most current market participants.

The newest industry entrants (the last two to three years) that have just read about in school or saw it happening while they were taking classes and not actually investing others’ money do not count here.  I speak of those that have actually lived through it.  Moreover, those who’ve lived through it and taken time to understand what’s going on in the context of history have benefited the most.  We know similar events have taken place before, just not in most folks’ memories.  And that is the key point.  The same can be said of periods like the Great Depression as well as the go-go market of the 1960s that gave us the market malaise of the 1970s.  Each of these periods was preceded by a market unhinged from value and driven largely by younger folks who had not experienced a serious downturn in their (career) lifetimes.  Until they did.

This experience and historical knowledge is not always helpful, however.  For example, an historical perspective over this period gave me the knowledge that it could get a lot worse.  Yes, the market could have rallied big time (it did) but it could also drop in half over the subsequent several year period, as happened during the Depression.  Instead of falling to 10x normal earnings, it could go well past that and hit 6 times (it didn’t).  So historical perspective could have caused one to be more conservative than was warranted with perfect 20/10 hindsight.

Still, out of this period client interactions have changed, as well as the way portfolios are allocated.  The way an investor should think about longer-term objectives has also been altered.  While modern portfolio theory had largely been discredited before the market declines, it now has less credence in the industry (though it remains in widespread use; the investment and planning industries use it because it offers some degree of concreteness in a world that otherwise lacks concreteness).  But while it’s methodology may aid in allocating portfolios from a top-down perspective, what makes the most sense is not whether a portfolio is mean-variance efficient.  Fundamentals and client goals matter.  It’s not just the frequency of the event that’s important – i.e., that stocks go up over time.  It’s the magnitude – i.e., they can go down 50% the year you need the money.

The Great Equalizer effect of which I write needs qualified.  It has been easy, given the market rally and economic recovery (until recently) that ensued after the depth of the market lows in March 2009, to adopt a ‘bad couple of weeks’ mentality.  Seth Klarman has pointed this out and I agree.  In some ways, people forgot how bad it was in late 2008 and early 2009.  (Memory is extremely short in finance, that’s why we have such frequent cycles.)  The folks still in the game who remember it and stick with their post-crisis philosophical and methodological recalibrations are the ones whom I believe will be the most successful over time.  Yes, stocks will rally from time to time but they can also go down and stay there for an extended period (they just didn’t this time).  And given prevailing valuations the broad indexes are not discounting the double-digit returns of yore, unless we have a larger selloff and start at a lower base.  Mid single-digit returns look most likely here, but so does the possibility of large drawdowns.  Overall, though a well-considered, goal-oriented investment allocation that focuses on base hits is going to be a better approach than something that is trying to catch each wave but risks going out with the tide.

Chinese demand profile and incremental commodity demand

I wanted to point out a few things about China from Michael Pettis’ early May newsletter. Below are some really eye-popping statistics about China’s demand profile. (Many thanks to Jeremy Grantham, to whom Pettis credits as the original source for the below statistics.)

	Share of global GDP
China’s GDP	9.4%
China’s GDP (PPP basis)	13.6%

“The next table lists China’s share of total global demand for a selected list of non-food commodities:

Non-food commodities	Share of global demand
Cement	53.2%
Iron Ore	47.7%
Coal	46.9%
Steel	45.4%
Lead	44.6%
Zinc	41.3%
Aluminum	40.6%
Copper	38.9%
Nickel	36.3%
Oil	10.3%

“Finally, the same table for food commodities:

Food commodities	Share of global demand
Pigs	46.4%
Eggs	37.2%
Rice	28.1%
Soybeans	24.6%
Wheat	16.6%
Chickens	15.6%
Cattle	9.5%

“What is most noteworthy about these tables, of course, is the disproportion between China’s share of global GDP and China’s commodity consumption.”

Pettis, whose commentary is always original and borderline brilliant, goes on to comment about Chinese investment growth and how re-balancing of the economy in that country (from investment-led demand to consumption-led demand), could have significant effects on non-food commodities (second chart):

“Take iron, for example. If Chinese demand declines by 10%, this would represent a reduction in global demand of nearly 5%. I am not an expert in the commodity markets, but I guess that supply and demand considerations are fairly finely balanced, and a 5% reduction in demand should have significant price repercussions – especially if a material part of Chinese demand represents stockpiling and this stockpiling is reversed.”

Some food (or non-food) for thought.