lördag 5 december 2015

Öppen manipulation av tillgångsslag

Veckans komiska inslag står en polare för!
Jag fick nedanstående meddelande och bild från individ H:

"Nu är slutet nära"

Visste ni att Finger värderas till 41 miljarder sek och att Alfa Laval värderas till  65 miljarder? Fingers omsättning de senaste 9 månaderna uppgår till 1550 miljoner sek, vilket kan jämföras med Alfa Lavals omsättning de senaste 9 månaderna om 29 miljarder sek? Man ska komma ihåg att Alfa Laval är förhållandevis dyrt idag och Alfa Lavals omsättning kan vara förhöjd. Nu växer förstås Fingerprint snabbt, men värderingen är löjeväckande.

Öppen manipulation av tillgångsslag
I juli skrev jag om det kinesiska börsfallet och jag misstänkte att de kinesiska stödköpen på börsen skulle misslyckas. Börsen fortsatte kollapsen någon månad efter mitt inlägg, men jag underskatta dock de kinesiska myndigheternas förmåga att manipulera börserna. Enligt vissa estimat äger Kinas "national team" nu hela 6% av den kinesiska börsen, och situationen har ballat ur helt.  Prisutvecklingen på börsen styrs av den marginella köparen/säljaren och att en part köpt upp 6% av börsen har haft enorm inverkan!



Nu börjar Kinas stora råvaruproducenter begära att Kina ska stödköpa råvaror?

"The state-controlled metals industry body, China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, proposed on Monday that the government scoop up aluminum, nickel and minor metals including cobalt and indium, an official at the association and two industry sources with direct knowledge of the matter said."
(Länk)

Varför begär kinesiska "metallproducenter" detta?? Kanske finns svaret i en nyligen publicerad rapport av Macquarie. Macquarie estimerar att 50% av Kinas råvaruföretag inte kan täcka sina räntekostnader:

"Macquarie's focus was on the number of companies with "uncovered debt",specifically those which can't cover a full year of interest expense with profit.
While it was generally know that there was a surge in China's uncovered debt, the scope of that debt was shock. The deterioration since 2014 has just fallen off a cliff with 50% of the companies in this sector at risk of default." (Länk)

Kina är förstås inte ensam när det kommer till att göra direkt stödköp på börsen och aktivt manipulera marknaderna. Japans centralbank äger nu 52% av den japanska ETF marknaden. Även i Japan är manipulationen av tillgångsklasser öppet accepterat och syftet sägs vara att skapa ökat "risktagande" (idioti).

"Japan’s central bank began buying ETFs in 2010 to spur more trading and promote “more risk-taking activity in the overall economy.” Governor Haruhiko Kuroda expanded the program in April 2013 and again last October. The BOJ tends to enter the market on days where stocks decline in the morning, and has spent more than 80 percent of its allowance for this year." (Länk)

Fast inte ens vi i väst är förskonade från centralbankernas omättliga strävan efter att manipulera och skapa risktagande. Räntorna har sats till noll för att få upp "inflationen", vilket medvetet/omedvetet forcerat in individer på marknaden som aldrig skulle varit där annars. Det är också alldeles uppenbart att centralbankirerna reagerar på marknadsrörelser och försöker motverka nedgångar på börsen. Eller som jag beskrev det i Juni i år:

"Låt lugnet råda!
Vi kan alla vara lugna, för om marknaderna faller med mer än 10% lär säkerligen centralbankerna genomföra åtgärder som:
1. ECB påpekar att de ska öka stimulanser och lansera QE.
2. ECB påpekar att de ska dumpa räntorna 
3. Riksbanken tvingas följ ECBs exempel och genomföra åtgärder i samma utsträckning.
4. Fed ledamöter kommer påpeka att de låga räntorna kan behöva kvarstå länge och att QE kan behöva förlängas.

Ovanstående kan verka löjligt eller konspiratoriskt till en början.... 


Sedan inser man att jag bara beskrev vad som skedde i oktober......"

Anekdot varning (nedan)
Ett annat komiskt exempel på hur centralbankerna anpassat sig helt efter marknaden är hur Janet Yellen agerat kring den första räntehöjningen. Även om jag förstås tycker det är komiskt att betrakta Yellen så framstår situationen som smått sinnessjuk. Jag saknar källor kring nedanstående och därför bör man ta det med en nypa salt:

1. Yellen säger att de kanske ska höja räntorna dag X, men Yellen påpekar de potentiella nedsidorna i ekonomin och osäkerheten kring en kommande räntehöjning.
2. Dag X+1 går marknaden ner för marknaden tolkar Yellens osäkerhet som att ekonomi är svag.
3. Dag X+2 gör Yellen ett nytt uttalande fast poängterar att ekonomin ser bra ut och att höjningen förmodligen kommer.
4. Marknaden går upp

För alla som tycker att jag börjar bli "konspiratorisk" föreslår jag att man undersöker hur Mario Draghi arbetar? Draghi gjorde marknaderna "besvikna" under torsdagen, vilket ledde till att Euron steg och börserna föll. För att rätta till detta höll Draghi ett tal under fredagen och poängtera att stimulansutrymmet inte hade någon "övre begränsning". I en intervju fick Draghi en fråga om huruvida hans tal under fredagen var i respons till marknadsrörelserna dagen innan? Svaret från Draghi finnes i länken nedan, 1 minut in i videon. Det är bara att konstatera att jag är extremt konspiratorisk!

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000463140

Faktum kvarstår att centralbankirer till och med intervenerar på grund av enstaka dagars kursrörelser! Draghi kanske inte ämnar att blåsa upp börserna direkt, men genom att sänka Euron stiger generellt börserna? Spelar det någon roll vad Draghi egentligen ämnar göra? Under kriser så har historiskt centralbanker varit förhållandevis aktiva, men bör man definiera detta tillståndet som en kris?

Fast borde jag blivit förvånad givet vad Bernanke sa 2010?

"With short-term interest rates already about as low as they can go, the FOMC agreed to deliver that support by purchasing additional longer-term securities, as it did in 2008 and 2009. The FOMC intends to buy an additional $600 billion of longer-term Treasury securities by mid-2011 and will continue to reinvest repayments of principal on its holdings of securities, as it has been doing since August.

This approach eased financial conditions in the past and, so far, looks to be effective again. Stock prices rose and long-term interest rates fell when investors began to anticipate the most recent action. Easier financial conditions will promote economic growth. For example, lower mortgage rates will make housing more affordable and allow more homeowners to refinance. Lower corporate bond rates will encourage investment. And higher stock prices will boost consumer wealth and help increase confidence, which can also spur spending. Increased spending will lead to higher incomes and profits that, in a virtuous circle, will further support economic expansion." (Ben Bernanke november 4, 2010, inlägg finnes här).

Nu har jag förstås inte diskuterat den marknad som centralbankerna manipulerar mest (obligationsmarknaden) och jag kommer låta det ämnet passera. Vad man kan notera är att centralbankerna globalt blivit mer villiga att göra direkta "stödköp" på börserna.

Man kan förstås fråga sig vad ovanstående har för betydelse, eftersom en stockpicker ska bara bry sig om enskilda aktier. Om man inte kan begripa vad ovanstående har för relevans och vilka implikationer de ständiga interventionerna kan få så har man ganska dålig fantasi. Den största problematiken i denna miljön är att man inte riktigt vet vad som är "riktigt". Eller som Klarman beskrivit det:

"underpinnings of our economy and financial system are so precarious that the un-abating risks of collapse dwarf all other considerations"

Eller som John Hussman beskrivit det:
"If the Fed cannot force people to abandon saving behavior with zero interest rates, some members of the FOMC have openly talked about driving interest rates to negative rates to “stimulate” spending. This is not economics, it is megalomaniacal sociopathy. Centuries of economic history warn that this speculative episode, too, will end in a collapse." (http://www.hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc151109.htm)

Nedan har jag två intressanta investerares tankar om denna öppna manipulationen. Varför läsa mina tankar när man kan läsa betydligt mer kompetenta individers synpunkter? Först ut kommer Bill Gross (investment outlook 3 december 2015):



"More breaking news – this time on the investment side: central banks are casinos. They print money as if they were manufacturing endless numbers of chips that they’ll never have to redeem. Actually a casino is an apt description for today’s global monetary policy. There is a well-known “foolproof” system in gambling circles that is sophisticatedly called the “Martingale”. I used to call it “double up to catch up” at my fraternity’s poker table where I was consistently frustrated (loser) – not because I used Martingale but because I wasn’t a good bluffer. Today’s central bankers use both tactics to their success – at least for now. They bluff or at least convince investors that they will keep interest rates low for extended periods of time and if that fails, they use Quantitative Easing with a Martingale flavor. Martingale theorizes that if you lose one bet, you just double the next one to get back to even, but if you lose that one you do it again and again until you win. Given an endless pool of “chips”, the theory is nearly mathematically certain to succeed, and in today’s global monetary system, central bankers are doing just that. Japan for years has doubled down on its QE and Mario Draghi’s statement of several years past, “Whatever it takes” – is a Martingale promise in disguise. It vows to get the Euroland economy back to “even” and inflation up to 2% by increasing QE and the collateral it buys until the Euro currency declines, the EZ economy improves, and inflation approaches target. Currently the ECB buys nearly 55 billion Euros a month, and this Thursday they will up the ante – Martingale or bust!

How long can this keep going on? Well, theoretically as long as there are financial assets (including stocks) to buy. Practically the limit is really the value of the central bank’s base currency. If investors lose faith in a reasonable range for a country’s currency, then inflation will quickly hit targets and then some. Venezuela, Argentina, and Zimbabwe are modern day examples. Germany’s Weimar Republic is a great historical one. Theoretically, if the whole developed global economy did this at the same relative pace and stopped at the right time, they could successfully reflate and produce a little bit of inflation and a little bit of growth and save the globe from the dreaded throes of deflation. That is what they are trying to do – Quantitative Easing, Martingale style – and so far, so good, I guess – although no rational observer would call these post Lehman efforts a success.


That they haven’t really succeeded is a testament to what I and others have theorized for some time. Martingale QE’s and resultant artificially low interest rates carry distinctive white blood cells,not oxygenated red ones, as they wind their way through the economy’s corpus: they keep alive zombie corporations that are unproductive; they destroy business models such as insurance companies and pension funds because yields are too low to pay promised benefits; they turn savers into financial eunuchs, unable to reproduce and grow their retirement funds to maintain expected future lifestyles. More sophisticated economists such as Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart label this “financial repression”. Euthanasia of the saver is the result if it continues too long.

But this is theorizing much like Schrödinger’s cat. How many people care about the existence of a quantum feline? (A few, thankfully, but not many.) Market observers say “show me the money” and when they look inside the box, they want to see some, so let’s get down to business.

How does all this play out? Timing is the key because as gamblers know there isn’t an endless stream of Martingale chips – even for central bankers acting in unison. One day the negative feedback loop on the real economy will halt the ascent of stock and bond prices and investors will look around like Wile E. Coyote wondering how far is down. But when? When does Martingale meet its inevitable fate? I really don’t know; I’m just certain it will. Doesn’t help you much, does it. Except to argue that much like time is relative to the speed of light, the faster and faster central bankers press the monetary button, the greater and greater the relative risk of owning financial assets. I would gradually de-risk portfolios as we move into 2016. Less credit risk, reduced equity exposure, placing more emphasis on the return of your money than a double digit return on your money. Even Martingale casinos eventually fail. They may not run out of chips but like Atlantic City, the gamblers eventually go home, and their doors close." (https://www.janus.com/bill-gross-investment-outlook)

Sedan kommer Hugh Hendrys tankar (2014):

"There are times when an investor has no choice but to behave as though he believes in things that don't necessarily exist. For us, that means being willing to be long risk assets in the full knowledge of two things: that those assets may have no qualitative support; and second, that this is all going to end painfully. The good news is that mankind clearly has the ability to suspend rational judgment long and often." 

(...)But here's the thing. Every now and then asset classes transmutate. And recently I have been asking myself if the equity market might have taken on the characteristics of the gold market. As I see it, investors have been living in a world in which markets have transcended reality since early 2009. In the first three years - until Draghi’s "do whatever it takes" speech in the summer of 2012 - gold was the poster child of this phenomenon. For me it became the financial equivalent of Disneyland or perhaps a Platonic simulacrum (a false likeness). It is real and tangible, but it only represents reality when viewed from a particular perspective; in this case, what its believers saw as the inevitable inflationary consequences of central banks printing money. However since Draghi spoke, the role of market Disneyland has increasingly been taken on by the equity and fixed income markets. So the S&P has massively outperformed what has proven to be a tepid recovery in nominal GDP and a global real economy that is beset by deflation; just this month, European swaps contracts began to price in near term deflation. Yet equity markets are ignoring that reality in favour of the idea that the deflationary fall out from the collapse in the oil price will almost certainly mean even more monetary accommodation. The worse the reality of the economy becomes, the more we take on the reflexive belief in further and dramatic monetary expansion and the more attractive the stock market looks.
What is one to do with such a situation? In my view there are really only two responses. On one hand we have today's bears. Remember the film The Matrix? Morpheus offered Neo the choice of two pills - blue, to forget about the Matrix and continue to live in the world of illusion, or red, to live in the painful world of reality. They, as the "enlightened", chose red, and so are convinced that they understand everything which has become illusory about today's markets. Their truth is Austrian economics. They know that today's central bankers are spinning a falsehood of recovery; they steadfastly refuse to be suckered in by the euphoria of a monetary boom; and they are convinced that they will therefore be spared the consequences of the inevitable crash. Everyone else, currently drugged by the virtual simulation of prosperity and its acolyte QE, will be destroyed, leaving them alone, to re-invest when markets finally get cheap. They will once again be masters of the universe.
The truth? You have to reject it
This sounds good. Really good. I have long thought of myself as one of the enlightened. My much thumbed copy of Kindelberger's Manias, Panics and Crashes aided and abetted my thinking as I correctly anticipated and monetised profits from the crisis of 2008 for example. But it isn't always good. Kindelberger has been absolutely detrimental to my investment performance for the last six years and as a result I have changed. I still believe that the attempt by central bankers to prevent the private sector from deleveraging via a non-stop parade of asset price bubbles will end in tears. But I no longer think that anyone can say when. Look back on the last five years and I think that it is indisputable that mass injections of loose monetary policy have both fuelled asset prices and staved off further crisis. I am also absolutely persuaded that the global economy remains so fragile that modern monetary interventions are likely to persist, if not accelerate. They will therefore continue to overwhelm all qualitative factors in determining the course for stock prices in the year ahead.
So I have come to embrace the French philosopher Baudrillard's insight. "Truth is what we should rid ourselves of as fast as possible and pass it on to somebody else," he wrote. "As with illness, it's the only way to be cured of it. He who hangs on to truth has lost." The economic truth of today no longer offers me much solace; I am taking the blue pills now. In the long run we will come to rue the central bank actions of today. But today there is no serious stimulus programme that our Disney markets will not consider to be successful. Markets can be no more long term than politics and we have no recourse but to put up with the environment that gives us; the modern market is effectively Keynesian with an Austrian tail.
My suspension of disbelief on all this has won me many detractors. These investors reject my notion of imagined realities and prefer to speculate instead on movements in capital markets in a manner similar to making propositions about chemistry, biology, or physics: they describe a cold, rational, mind-independent reality and focus on the inevitable outcomes; they have no interest in fanciful flight paths. I think they are missing the key to success: the fact that markets are vulnerable to forces far more variable and subjective than the tenets of stock valuation. In this new imagined reality there is every chance that risk markets grind higher for much longer. The Fund, you will be pleased to hear was up another 5% in November. Year to date returns are now almost 8%."(http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-31/hugh-hendry-embraces-central-planning-matrix-i-am-taking-blue-pills-now)

6 kommentarer:

  1. Keep up the good work!

    Jag gillar dina inlägg skarpt!

    SvaraRadera
    Svar
    1. Tackar, alltid kul med positiv feedback, såväl som det är nyttigt med negativ feedback.

      Radera
  2. Vad tror du själv gällande hur länge experimenten kan fortsätta? Eller kommer det bara leda till att den som står utanför marknaden får sina slantar urholkade?

    SvaraRadera
    Svar
    1. Oerhört svårt att säga och därför brukar jag avhålla mig från att uttrycka min specifika åsikt. Dock diskuterade jag detta tidigare med en läsare i nedanstående kommentarsfält.

      http://jordholmen.blogspot.se/2015/10/tur-att-man-har-draghi.html

      Där blev väl min ståndpunkt typ nedanstående:
      "För tillfället befinner jag mig i "deflation och större kris först, sedan inflation, även om jag lär ha fel på denna punkten.

      De två stora scenarion som jag begrundat under längre tid är huruvida vi står vid slutet på konjunkturcykeln (+1år) och centralbankerna tappar kontrollen, eller vi ser fortsatt uppbyggnad av en gigantisk bubbla kommande 2-3 åren. Jag kan bara säga att jag inte vet, men jag tror slutresultat på sikt blir detsamma. Som jag ser det ser man tydliga tecken på att konjunkturförsämras och man får se om detta är tillfälligt och sedan återställs "lugnet". Jag kan bara följa upp hur utvecklingen fortsätter och sedan dra en slutsats, nu lutar jag mot konjunkturuppgång över."

      Kanske ger en viss bild, men bygger man sina investeringsbeslut enbart på makrofaktorer överskattar man sina förmågor. Det handlar mer om att reflektera över riskerna och försöka komma på vad som kan potentiellt ske. Nu är historien ganska tydlig med hur sådana marknader slutar, men historien säger inget direkt om timing!

      Radera
  3. intressant läsning som vanligt, ett annat citat från Hussman:

    While every economy is different, investors should recognize that suppressed interest rates have never supported permanently rich stock market valuations anywhere. Recall, for example, that Japanese stocks plunged by -62% in 2000-2003 and -61% in 2007-2009 despite interest rates that never exceeded half of one percent.

    SvaraRadera
    Svar
    1. Tackar så mycket!

      Jag gillar Hussman väldigt mycket just för att han fokuserar på historien och statistik! Historien bör anses vara en god vägledare på marknaden om än ej perfekt.

      "Another lesson I learned early is that there is nothing new in Wall Street. There can't be because speculation is as old as the hills." Livermore

      Radera