onsdag 4 maj 2016

Lite länkar

Jesse Felders blogg är en av de mer högkvalitativa bloggarna jag läser. Jag föreslår att man läser samtliga nedanstående korta inlägg. 

http://jessefelder.tumblr.com/post/143536935815/what-hath-the-fed-wrought

https://www.thefelderreport.com/2016/01/05/if-youve-been-wondering-whats-driven-the-recent-bull-market-in-stocks/

https://www.thefelderreport.com/2016/01/27/what-follows-the-most-epic-reach-for-yield-episode-in-history/

https://www.thefelderreport.com/2016/02/02/dont-dismiss-the-systemic-risk-of-a-corporate-credit-bust/

"Stanley Druckenmiller: Corporate America, China And The Fed Are Stuck… Buy Gold

“I have argued that the myopic policy makers have no endgame,” billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller said towards the end of a scathing twenty minute romp through all of the world’s economic problems. The U.S. debt is out of control, China is even worse, but the biggest offender of all is the Federal Reserve, Druckenmiller said.

Corporations in the United States are stuck in the mud, forlorn of growth, unwilling to invest, and addicted to share buybacks to gin up their stocks. It is a sentiment Druckenmiller has had for years, but the famed hedge fund manager indicated he really means it now. Eleven years ago, Druckenmiller warned the Sohn audience of then-Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan’s blunders in inflating an epic mortgage bubble, which was sure to crash.

On Wednesday, he said the bubble inflated by former chair Ben Bernanke and current chairwoman Janet Yellen is many magnitudes worse. The Fed, Druckenmiller said, is using low interest rates to ease borrowing costs and smooth over growing problems in the global economy. And this radical Central Bank accommodation is leading to unproductive investment, and is an issue that is even worse in China, an engine of global demand.

Whether it is S&P 500 Index corporations, U.S. households or the state-managed economy in China, Druckenmiller believes cheap money is borrowing from future growth, and will backfire spectacularly. ”While policy makers have no endgame, markets do,” he said.

Druckenmiller is increasingly nervous about risk assets and recommended investors take refuge in gold. "(http://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2016/05/04/battered-hedge-fund-stars-offer-up-new-ideas-at-sohn-investment-conference/#243cc90924c0)

Jag får kontinuerligt uppdatering om vad David Einhorn och Bill Ackman köper. För en tid sedan tog Ackman en enorm position i Valeant och Einhorn tog en stor position i Sunedision. Jag betraktade både Sunedision och Valeant och valde efter någon minut att inte göra ett köp. Balansräkningen var miserabel för båda bolagen och bolagen gick med förlust. Efter en initial uppgång började analytiker allt mer ifrågasätta de bägge bolagen och bolagens redovisning.

(pil anger approximativt när jag betrakta båda bolagen. Att jag inte köpte aktier i dessa bolag är inget tecken på briljans, utan jag undvek endast att köpa förlustgående bolag med enorma skulder. 

Dock kommer jag ihåg hur jag initialt ångra mig att jag inte följt med Einhorn in i Sunedision.)

 Valeant

Sunedison



Nedanstående blogg beskriver hur Sunedision utnyttjade finansiell ingenjörskonst för att blåsa upp ett luftslott. Goda lärdomar för alla placerare för att undvika att ryckas med i klassiska spekulationer kring förvärvande bolag.

http://basehitinvesting.com/lessons-from-the-fall-of-sunedison/

Valeant är också ett intressant case kring finansiell manipulation.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/valeant-an-accounting-pioneer-too-1450202504

"Data show an unusually wide gap between Valeant’s GAAP earnings and its cash-earnings figure. Under GAAP, the company posted $70 million in net income for the first nine months of 2015. Under its own cash-earnings measure, the company reported a profit of $2.7 billion. The cash-earnings measure strips out a host of costs, including acquisition expenses, inventory adjustments and stock payments to employees."

Cornucopia

Nedanstående inlägg från Cornucopia diskuterar antagandet att ekonomin ska gå mot en jämvikt? Vad händer om denna jämviktsnivå sjunkit de senaste åren eller inte finns överhuvudtaget? Risken är att stater/centralbanker stimulera för att försöka få ekonomin att återgå till en jämvikt som inte existerar och gör mer skada än nytta i sina försök att "stimulera".

http://cornucopia.cornubot.se/2016/05/industriarbetsgivarna-systematiskt.html

Trots massiva åtgärder från stater/centralbanker de senaste åren har de misslyckat att få "igång" ekonomin. Ingen normalbegåvad individ bör ha något förtroende för centralbankerna idag. Centralbankernas stimulanser har däremot varit verkningsfulla på marknaden och vad händer när även marknaden slutar gå i den riktningen "centralbankerna" önskar?

"Centuries later social psychologists have given the phenomenon an educated name: pluralistic ignorance. Put simply, it is where no one believes, but everyone believes that everyone else believes. A classic example is in a classroom setting where, after having presented the students with difficult material, the teacher asks them whether they have any questions. Even though most students do not understand the material, they may remain silent. The students interpret the lack of questions as a sign that the other students understood the material and, to avoid being publicly exposed as the stupid one, are reticent to ask questions themselves. Each student is aware of his or her ignorance with respect to some facts—but believes that other students are not ignorant of those same facts.

Pluralistic ignorance understandably can lead to errors on a grand scale. It’s a social phenomenon for people to make systematic errors in judging other people’s private attitudes. Nowhere is this more apparent today than in the public’s perception of the U.S. Federal Reserve System, a secretive and largely unaccountable monopoly, with an unprecedented experimental monetary policy of driving the price of credit to zero for the last eight years and counting. Even though we ordinary folk grasp the illusion of the proverbial “free lunch,” the Fed’s material is infinitely more imposing than that presented by the aforementioned teacher. We assume that others are privy to the special powers that the Fed possesses, and thus we suspend our disbelief. No one believes, but everyone believes that everyone else believes."( Frank K Martin, Martin Capital Management annual report 2015).

Personligen anser jag Bill Gross tankar ligger närmare verkligheten än den optimism som präglar ekonomers prognoser.

"Policymakers and asset market bulls, on the other hand speak to the possibility of normalization – a return to 2% growth and 2% inflation in developed countries which may not initially be bond market friendly, but certainly fortuitous for jobs, profits, and stock markets worldwide.

(...) But for the global economy, which continues to lever as opposed to delever, the path to normalcy seems blocked. Structural elements – the New Normal and secular stagnation, which are the result of aging demographics, high debt/GDP, and technological displacement of labor, are phenomena which appear to have stunted real growth over the past five years and will continue to do so. Even the three strongest developed economies – the U.S., Germany, and the U.K. – have experienced real growth of 2% or less since Lehman. If trillions of dollars of monetary lighter fluid have not succeeded there (and in Japan) these past 5 years, why should we expect Draghi, his ECB, and the Eurozone to fare much differently?

(...)At the Grant’s Conference, and in prior Investment Outlooks, I addressed the timing of this “ending” with the following description: “When does our credit based financial system sputter / break down? When investable assets pose too much risk for too little return. Not immediately, but at the margin, credit and stocks begin to be exchanged for figurative and sometimes literal money in a mattress.” We are approaching that point now as bond yields, credit spreads and stock prices have brought financial wealth forward to the point of exhaustion. A rational investor must indeed have a sense of an ending, not another Lehman crash, but a crush of perpetual bull market enthusiasm.

(...) I wish to still be active in say 2020 to see how this ends. As it is, in 2015, I merely have a sense of an ending, a secular bull market ending with a whimper, not a bang. But if so, like death, only the timing is in doubt. Because of this sense, however, I have unrest, increasingly a great unrest. You should as well." (http://jordholmen.blogspot.se/2015/06/hur-man-loser-en-skuldkris.html)

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