The Bear Market Has Just Begun

September 4, 2015 jackbassteam asset protection, Commodities, Consumer Stocks, Dividends, DJIA, Drug Stocks, Dry Bulk Shipping, Economic cycles, Economic Recovery, Federal Reserve, Finance, forecasts, Housing, Industrials, inflation, Interest Rates, Investments, Jack A. Bass, M&A. Mergers and Aquisitions, Manufacturing, NASDAQ, New Issues, Offshore Investing Bear Market, DJIA, economy, Euro Zone, GDP, Jack A. Bass Managed Accounts, Market forecast, S&P, wealth management

Today the narrow-minded canyons of Wall Street are littered almost entirely of trend-following bulls and cheerleaders who don’t realize how little there is to actually cheer about. Stock values are far less attractive than they were on that day back in 2009 and this selloff has a lot longer to run. There are hordes of perma-bulls calling for a V-shaped recovery in stocks, even after multiple years of nary a downtick.

Here are six reasons why I believe the bear market in the major averages has only just begun:

1) Stocks are overvalued by almost every metric.One of my favorite metrics is the price-to-sales ratio, which shows stock prices in relation to the company’s revenue per share and omits the financial engineering associated with borrowing money to buy back shares for the purpose of boosting EPS growth. For the S&P 500 (INDEX: .SPX), this ratio is currently 1.7, which is far above the mean value of 1.4. The benchmark index is also near record high valuations when measured as a percentage of GDP and in relation to the replacement costs of its companies.

2) There is currently a lack of revenue and earnings growth for S&P 500 companies. Second-quarter earnings shrank 0.7 percent, while revenues declined by 3.4 percent from a year earlier, according to FactSet. The Q2 revenue contraction marks the first time the benchmark index’s revenue shrank two quarters in a row since 2009.

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Virtually the entire global economy is either in, or teetering on, a recession. In 2009, China stepped further into a huge stimulus cycle that would eventually lead to the largest misallocation of capital in the history of the modern world. Empty cities don’t build themselves: They require enormous spurious demand of natural resources, which, in turn, leads to excess capacity from resource-producing countries such as Brazil, Australia, Russia, Canada, et al. Now those economies are in recession because China has become debt disabled and is painfully working down that misallocation of capital. And now Japan and the entire European Union appear poised to follow the same fate.

This is causing the rate of inflation to fall according to the Core PCE index. And the CRB Index, which is at the panic lows of early 2009, is corroborating the decreasing rate of inflation.

But the bulls on Wall Street would have you believe the cratering price of oil is a good thing because the “gas tax cut” will drive consumer spending – never mind the fact that energy prices are crashing due to crumbling global demand. Nevertheless, there will be no such boost to consumer spending from lower oil prices because consumers are being hurt by a lack of real income growth, huge health-care spending increases and soaring shelter costs.

4) U.S. manufacturing and GDP is headed south. The Dallas Fed’s manufacturing report showed its general activity index fell to -15.8 in August, from an already weak -4.6 reading in July. The oil-fracking industry had been one of the sole bright spots for the US economy since the Great Recession and has been the lead impetus of job creation. However, many Wall Street charlatans contend the United States is immune from deflation and a global slowdown and remain blindly optimistic about a strong second half.

Unfortunately, we are already two-thirds of the way into the third quarter and the Atlanta Fed is predicting GDP will grow at an unimpressive rate of 1.3 percent. Furthermore, the August ISM manufacturing index fell to 51.1, from 52.7, its weakest read in over two years. And while gross domestic product in the second quarter came in at a 3.7 percent annual rate, due in large part to a huge inventory build, gross domestic income increased at an annual rate of only 0.6 percent.

GDP tracks all expenditures on final goods and services produced in the United States and GDI tracks all income received by those who produced that output. These two metrics should be equal because every dollar spent on a good or service flows as income to a household, a firm, or the government. The two numbers will, at times, differ in practice due to measurement errors. However this is a fairly large measurement error and it leads one to wonder if that 0.6 percent GDI number should get a bit more attention.

5) Global trade is currently in freefall. Reuters reported that exports from South Korea dropped nearly 15 percent in August from a year earlier, with shipments to China, the United States and Europe all weaker. U.S. exports of goods and general merchandise are at the lowest level since September of 2011. The latest measurement of $370 billion is down from $408 billion, or -9.46 percent from Q4 2014. And CNBC reported this week that the volume of exports from the Port of Long Beach to China dropped by 10 percent YOY. The metastasizing global slowdown will only continue to exacerbate the plummeting value of U.S. trade.

6) The Fed is promising to no longer support the stock market. Back in 2009, our central bank was willing to provide all the wind for the market’s sail. And despite a lackluster 2 percent average annual GDP print since 2010, the stock market doubled in value on the back of zero interest rates and the Federal Reserve ‘s $3.7 trillion money-printing spree. Thus, for the past several years, there has been a huge disparity building between economic fundamentals and the value of stocks.

But now, the end of all monetary accommodations may soon occur, while markets have become massively over-leveraged and overvalued. The end of quantitative easing and a zero interest-rate policy will also coincide with slowing U.S. and global GDP, falling inflation and negative earnings growth. And the Fed will be raising rates and putting more upward pressure on the U.S. dollar while the manufacturing and export sectors are already rolling over.

I am glad Ms. Yellen and Co. appear to have finally assented to removing the safety net from underneath the stock market. Nevertheless, Wall Street may soon learn the baneful lesson that the artificial supports of QE and ZIRP were the only things preventing the unfolding of the greatest bear market in history.

Michael Pento produces the weekly podcast “The Mid-week Reality Check,” is the president and founder of Pento Portfolio Strategies and author of the book “The Coming Bond Market Collapse.”

Stock Market Top ? : The Q Ratio Indicator Says Watch Out Below

May 18, 2015 jackbassteam asset protection, Economic cycles, Economic Recovery, Federal Reserve, forecasts, Investments, Mutual funds, NASDAQ, Offshore Investing, Portfolio Management, S&P, stocks, Trading Alert economic cycles, Market forecasts, Q Ratio. James Topin, S&P, Stock market forecasts, Stock market Top

If you sold every share of every company in the U.S. and used the money to buy up all the factories, machines and inventory, you’d have some cash left over. That, in a nutshell, is the math behind a bear case on equities that says prices have outrun reality.

The concept is embodied in a measure known as the Q ratio developed by James Tobin, a Nobel Prize-winning economist at Yale University who died in 2002. According to Tobin’s Q, equities in the U.S. are valued about 10 percent above the cost of replacing their underlying assets — higher than any time other than the Internet bubble and the 1929 peak.

Valuation tools are being dusted off around Wall Street as investors assess the staying power of the bull market that is now the second longest in 60 years. To Andrew Smithers, the 77-year-old former head of SG Warburg’s investment arm, the Q ratio is an indicator whose time has come because it illuminates distortions caused by quantitative easing.

“QE is a very dangerous policy, in my view, because it has pushed asset prices up and high asset prices, we know from history, are very dangerous,” Smithers, founder of Smithers & Co. in London, said in a phone interview. “It is very strongly indicated by reliable measures that we’re looking at a stock market which is something like 80 percent over-priced.”

Dissenting Views

Acceptance of Tobin’s theory is at best uneven, with investors such as Laszlo Birinyi saying the ratio is useless as a signal because it would have kept you out of a bull market that has added $17 trillion to share values. Others see its meaning debased in an economy whose reliance on manufacturing is nothing like it used to be.

Futures on the S&P 500 expiring next month slipped 0.1 percent at 9:36 a.m. in London.

To Smithers, the ratio’s doubling since 2009 to 1.10 is a symptom of companies diverting money from their businesses to the stock market, choosing buybacks over capital spending. Six years of zero-percent interest rates have similarly driven investors into riskier things like equities, elevating the paper value of assets over their tangible worth, he said.

Standard & Poor’s 500 Index members last year spent about 95 percent of their profits on buybacks and dividends, with stock repurchases exceeding $2 trillion since 2009, data compiled by S&P Dow Jones Indices show.

In the first four months of this year, almost $400 billion of buybacks were announced, with February, March and April ranking as three of the four busiest months ever, according to data compiled by Birinyi Associates Inc.

Slow Spending

Spending by companies on plants and equipment is lagging behind. While capital investment also rose to a record in 2014, its growth was 11 percent over the last two years, versus 45 percent in buybacks, data compiled by Barclays Plc show.

With equity prices surging and investment growth failing to keep pace, the Q ratio has risen to 58 percent above its average of 0.70 since 1900, according to data compiled by Birinyi and the Federal Reserve on market and asset values for non-financial companies. Readings above 1 are considered by some to be too high and the ratio has exceeded that threshold only 12 percent of the time, mostly between 1995 to 2001.

That’s nothing to be alarmed about because the American economy has become more oriented around services than manufacturing, according to George Pearkes, an analyst at Harrison, New York-based Bespoke Investment Group LLC. Nowadays, companies like Apple Inc. and Facebook Inc. dominate growth, while decades ago, it was railroads and steelmakers, which rely heavily on capital.

Mean Reversion

“Does that necessarily mean that the Q ratio should be as high as it is right now? I don’t know,” Pearkes said by phone. “With those sorts of long-term indicators, they can sometimes mean that the market is overvalued. But the reversion to the mean on them is usually going to take a lot longer than most people’s time frame.”

Any investors who based their investment decisions on the Q ratio would have missed most of the rally since 2009, according to Jeffrey Yale Rubin, director of research at Birinyi’s firm. The measure rose above its historic mean three months into this bull market and since then, the S&P 500 has climbed 131 percent.

“The issue we have with Tobin Q is that it does a very poor job at timing the market,” Rubin said from Westport, Connecticut. “The followers of Tobin Q never told us to buy in 2009, yet now we are warned that we should sell. Our response is sell what? We were never told to buy.”

Bond Yields

Everyone from Janet Yellen to Warren Buffett has spoken cautiously on stock valuations in the past month. Both the Fed chair and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said prices are at risk of getting stretched should bond yields increase. The rate on 10-year Treasuries slipped last week to 2.14 percent while the S&P 500 gained 0.3 percent.

“It’s probably a sensible configuration for the stock market to be overvalued because competing investments are so poor,” Robert Brusca, president of Fact & Opinion Economics in New York, said by phone. “As an investor, you’re not just looking at the value of the firm, but the value of the firm relative to other things you can do with your money.”

At 2,260 days, the bull market that began in March 2009 this month exceeded the 1974-1980 rally as the second longest since 1956. While measures such as price-to-earnings ratios are holding just above historical averages, the bull market’s duration is sowing anxiety among professionals who watched the previous two end in catastrophe.

“We’re still close enough to that prior experience and that hold-over effect is still there,” Chris Bouffard, chief investment officer who oversees more than $10 billion at Mutual Fund Store in Overland Park, Kansas, said by phone. “When you start to see prior cycle peaks on the chart like Tobin Q and any other valuation metrics that people are putting up there, it looks dramatic, stark and scary.”

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Avago Technologies Limited iPhone Upgrade Target price $97

October 6, 2014 jackbassteam Apple, Mobile, NASDAQ, Semiconductors, Smartphones, software, Tech stocks, Telecommunications Apple, Avago Technologies Limited, AVGO, iPhone 6

AVGO : NASDAQ : US$83.47
BUY 
Target: US$97.00

COMPANY DESCRIPTION:
Avago Technologies Limited is a designer, developer and
global supplier of analog semiconductor devices. Avago
offers products in three primary target markets: wireless
communications, wired infrastructure, and industrial and
automotive electronics. Applications for Avago products
include smartphones, connected tablets, consumer
appliances, data networking and telecom equipment, and
enterprise storage and servers.

Technology — Communications Technology — Semiconductors
RAISING ESTIMATES BASED ON STRONG IPHONE 6 CONTENT SHARE AND INCREASED IPHONE 6 ESTIMATES
Investment recommendation: Based on our analysis, industry
conversations, and recent iPhone 6 teardown reports, we believe Avago has
roughly doubled its dollar content in the recently launched iPhone 6/6 Plus
smartphones versus the iPhone 5s/5c models and has the highest RF dollar
content share among the RF suppliers. With our recent surveys indicating
extremely strong demand for the new iPhone 6 products, we anticipate very
strong Q4/14 iPhone sales and high-end smartphone market share gains for
Apple versus high-tier Android OEMs, particularly Samsung. Given Avago’s
strong dollar content in the new iPhones and our recently raised iPhone
estimates, we are raising our Avago estimates. We reiterate our BUY rating
and raise our PT to $97.
Investment highlights
 Our recent surveys and analysis indicate very strong iPhone 6 demand,
and we anticipate a record iPhone 6 upgrade cycle. Please see our
separate Apple note, published Sept. 22, titled “Monthly surveys
indicate record iPhone 6 upgrade cycle, strong market share gains,” for
our updated iPhone estimates.
 We estimate the RF front-end content in the iPhone 6/6 Plus increased
to roughly $15.25-15.50 per device versus $11.25-11.50 in the iPhone
5s/5c models due to increased LTE band support and features such as
envelope tracking and carrier aggregation. Due to the increased
number of higher-frequency bands supported that require FBAR filters,
we believe Avago increased its RF dollar content to roughly $6/iPhone 6
models versus roughly $3 in the iPhone 5s/5c.
 While we believe Avago has growing dollar content in other flagship
Android smartphones such as Galaxy Note 4, Avago has stronger dollar
content share in the iPhone 6 devices given Android smartphones tend
to support more regional LTE SKUs. Therefore, we believe Avago will
benefit from strong iPhone 6/6 Plus sales despite our recently lowered
Android estimates due to share losses to the iPhone 6 products.
 Given these trends, we raise our F2014/15 Wireless business sales
estimates, resulting in our F2014/15 pro forma EPS estimates
increasing from $4.63/$6.35 to $4.65/$6.45
Valuation:

Our $97 price target (was $95) is based on shares trading at
roughly 15x our F2015 pro forma EPS estimate.

Oracle : Analyst Day Update

October 3, 2014 jackbassteam NASDAQ, Networking, software, Tech stocks, Telecommunications application software, applications software, Enterprise software, NASDAQ, Oracle, ORCL, tech stocks

ORCL : NASDAQ : US$38.27

BUY 
Target: US$48.00

COMPANY DESCRIPTION:
Oracle develops, licenses and services database and
middleware software, applications software, and
hardware systems worldwide. The firm is the world’s
second largest application software firm, and a top five
systems vendor. Oracle was founded in 1977 and is
headquartered in Redwood City, CA.
All amounts in US$ unless otherwise noted.

Technology — Enterprise Software — Infrastructure
A MYTHBUSTER-THEMED ORACLE ANALYST DAY
Investment thesis
Our view on Oracle is simple: the company is not as troubled as the stock’s
valuation reflects. There are enough good things – new products, new
markets, new business models – coming down the pipe that we expect ORCL
shares to see a 1-2 multiple point expansion over the next year, which implies
10-20% upside from here. For a large cap stock, that is more than sufficient to
justify our BUY rating.
Investment highlights
 Oracle’s analyst day as part of its OpenWorld
User Conference. A couple hundred financial types were in the room.
 Incremental takeaways. The firm outlined and explained multiple
attributes that are better than consensus opinion – in other words, Oracle
was busting myths. The firm’s near-term ARR cloud pipeline tops $2
billion and is growing 30%+, meaningful upgrades in the firm’s core,
highly profitable database are on tap, and financial engineering in terms
of share count repurchases will remain material and fairly aggressive.
 Why the stock works. One way to make money in stocks is to buy shares
of companies on which investors soften too bearish opinions. This is the
crux of our BUY rating on ORCL. Yes, Oracle has vibrant competition, but
the firm simply is not as endangered, at least in the next year or so, as
hyperventilating cloud competitors assert. We have seen meaningful
rallies for Microsoft and HP as investor perception went from dire to at
least neutral. We believe a similar transformation awaits ORCL shares.
Valuation and price target
Our unchanged $48 price target is based on a 13x multiple applied to our
F2016 non-GAAP EPS estimate of $3.26 plus approximately $5.00 in
prospective net cash per share

Stocks Slide With Portugal Bonds as Treasuries, Gold Gain

July 10, 2014 jackbassteam Federal Reserve, Finance, forecasts, Investments, Mutual funds, NASDAQ Euro, Europe, Portugal, Recovery, Wall Street

European stocks fell and Portuguese bonds dropped as concern deepened over missed debt payments by a company linked to the nation’s second-largest bank. Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures signaled a selloff earlier this week will resume, while the yen, Treasuries and gold gained.

The Stoxx Europe 600 Index lost 1.3 percent at 8:35 a.m. in New York, led by a gauge of banks dropping to this year’s low. Financial bond risk increased in Europe for a fifth day. Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures fell 0.9 percent. Portugal’s 10-year bond yield rose 11 basis points to 3.88 percent while Treasuries gained and the yen advanced against all but one of its 16 major peers. Indonesian stocks climbed to a one-year high as polls showed Jakarta’s Governor Joko Widodo won the presidency. West Texas Intermediate oil slid 0.3 percent to $101.62 a barrel while gold climbed 1.1 percent.

Bonds of Europe’s most-indebted nations declined as speculation resurfaced that the euro region remains vulnerable to shocks as it emerges from the sovereign debt crisis. The sell-off comes after minutes of the Federal Reserve latest meeting showed yesterday some policy makers were concerned investors may be growing too complacent. The value of global equities climbed to a record $66 trillion last week, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Photographer: Dimas Ardian/Bloomberg
One-month rupiah forwards added 0.2 percent as unofficial counts showed Jakarta… Read More
“The concern of an event like this is always determining whether it’s occurring in isolation or whether it’s the first domino,” said Lawrence Creatura, a fund manager at Federated investors Inc. in Rochester, New York. His firm manages about $363.8 billion. “People will shoot first and ask questions later when news like this hits. It’s a classic flight to safety across the equity, commodities and bond markets. Portugal has been perceived as a weaker link so it’s not a particular surprise they’re encountering this kind of trouble now.”

Fewer Americans than forecast filed applications for unemployment benefits last week, a sign the labor market is strengthening, a government report showed today.

Peripheral Bonds

Portuguese bonds fell for a fourth day. The yield on 10-year Italian notes rose six basis points to 2.94 percent and Spain’s rate jumped six basis points to 2.82 percent. The Markit iTraxx Europe Senior Financial Index of credit-default swaps on 25 European banks and insurers rose two basis points to 71 basis points, the highest since June 4.

While Portugal’s central bank said Banco Espirito Santo SA, the nation’s second-largest lender, is protected after its parent missed debt payments, Moody’s Investors Service downgraded a company in the group citing a lack of transparency and links to other companies.

Banco Espirito Santo tumbled 17 percent before the Portuguese securities regulator said it stopped trading in the shares pending an announcement. Espirito Santo Financial Group SA, which owns 25 percent of the lender, fell 8.9 percent before the company suspended trading earlier in stocks and bonds, saying it’s “currently assessing the financial impact of its exposure” to Espirito Santo International, which has missed payments on short-term paper.

Fugro Tumbles

More than nine shares declined for every one that advanced in the Stoxx 600, with trading volumes 72 percent higher than the 30-day average, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The gauge of banks tumbled 2.7 percent to the lowest since Dec. 18.

Banco Popular Espanol SA (POP) dropped 4.8 percent. The Spanish lender said it postponed a planned issue of the riskiest bank debt because of “heightened volatility” in credit markets.

Fugro NV (FUR) sank 20 percent, the most since November 2012, after the Dutch deepwater-oilfield surveyor forecast a drop in profit margin and writing off of as much as 350 million euros ($477 million). Skanska AB lost 2.5 percent after the Nordic region’s biggest construction company by global revenue said it will scale down operations in Latin America after booking 500 million kronor ($73.7 million) in project writedowns and restructuring costs.

Jobless Claims

The S&P 500 index (SPX) rebounded 0.5 percent yesterday following two days of losses.

Jobless claims declined by 11,000 to 304,000 in the week ended July 5, the fewest in more than a month, a Labor Department report showed today in Washington. The median forecast of 45 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for 315,000.

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said yesterday that a surprisingly fast decline in unemployment will fuel inflation and back the case for higher interest rates.

The Jakarta Composite Index added 1.4 percent to 5,095.20, heading for its highest close since May 2013. The rupiah gained 0.7 percent to 11,555 per dollar, according to prices from local banks, after touching the strongest level since May 22.

Both Widodo, known as Jokowi, and his opponent Prabowo Subianto claimed victory in yesterday’s presidential vote. Jokowi had about a five percentage point lead in the poll, according to unofficial counts from two survey companies that declared him the winner. Official results aren’t due for about two weeks. Bank Indonesia will probably hold its reference rate at 7.5 percent today, according to the median of 21 estimates from economists surveyed by Bloomberg.

The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index of mainland companies listed in Hong Kong advanced 0.3 percent, after losing 1.6 percent yesterday, its biggest decline in two weeks. The Shanghai Composite Index slipped less than 0.1 percent, extending yesterday’s 1.2 percent retreat.

China Exports

China’s overseas shipments fell short of the 10.4 percent expansion that was the median of 47 economists’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Imports grew by 5.5 percent in June, less than the 6 percent increase projected. The trade surplus fell to $31.6 billion for June, from $35.92 in May. Data yesterday showed producer prices fell last month at the slowest pace in more than two years.

“Extreme cautiousness towards China’s economy has receded overall, with the government showing signs it will step in to support growth when needed,” said Mari Oshidari, a Hong Kong-based strategist at Okasan Securities Group Inc.

West Texas Intermediate oil dropped to $102.01 a barrel. Gasoline inventories increased by 579,000 barrels last week as a measure of consumption slid, the Energy Information Administration said yesterday. Brent declined 0.2 percent to $108.10 a barrel, the ninth consecutive decline in the longest streak since May 2010. The crude closed at a two-month low yesterday amid signs that Libya, the holder of Africa’s largest crude reserves, will boost exports, while Iraqi production remains unaffected by an insurgency.

Treasury Sale

Gold for immediate delivery jumped to $1,342.23 an ounce, the highest since March 19. Palladium rose 0.3 percent to $876.25 an ounce, the 14th consecutive advance and the longest streak since June 2000. Cotton fell 0.4 percent to the lowest price since July 2012 on ample supplies.

The yield on 10-year Treasuries dropped five basis points to 2.50 percent. The rate on 30-year notes declined five basis points to 3.33 percent as the U.S. prepares to sell $13 billion of the debt.

Greece’s five-year note yield increased 11 basis points 4.33 percent. The government sold 1.5 billion euros of three-year notes via banks, priced to yield 3.5 percent. That’s higher than forecasts earlier this week for a rate of about 3 percent from HSBC Holdings Plc and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc.

The yen strengthened 0.3 percent to 101.36 per dollar and gained 0.3 percent to 138.31 per euro.

Australia’s dollar retreated from the highest in a week, falling against all of its 16 major counterparts after the nation’s jobless rate climbed. The Aussie weakened 0.4 percent at 93.74 U.S. cents.