Leutehold : S&P a 1.100 - gz
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By: GZ on Lunedì 02 Dicembre 2002 13:17
copio e incollo qui lo scenario che sabato su "Barron's" ha tracciato un vecchio lupo della borsa (vedi foto) Steve Leutehold, che era orso da parecchio tempo. Indica un altro +25-30% da qui per gli indici e S&P a 1.100, ma quello che conta sono i ragionamenti di Leutehold perchè è uno molto rispettato.
Notare due cose :
i) il P/E Mediano (cioè non pesato per la capitalizzazione, quello che calcoli su tutti i titoli pesati uguali) è solo di 13 volte gli utili per le Small Cap in America. Con inflazione al 2% e tassi di interesse a 10 anni al 4% è un valore molto basso. Con la ripresa può salire a 18-20 volte gli utili come massimo
==> BUY SMALL CAP
ii) lo studio che cita per il quale una DEFLAZIONE leggera (dell'ordine del -1% o -2% di variazione dei prezzi) storicamente per le borse americane è stata positiva, quindi la preoccupazione per la deflazione è esagerata come minimo.
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Barron's: You turned bullish in October. Why?
Leuthold: Our major-trends index has about 180 different components to it, and in the early part of October there were more positives than negatives for the first time in a long time. On a valuation basis, though the market wasn't cheap, it was no longer overvalued. It was roughly around median valuation levels. On 3,000 stocks we track internally, the median P/E is now about 17. The cap-weighted P/E is, of course, higher.
If we take the median P/E on the top 300 stocks in terms of market cap, it is about 19.7. If we put any credence at all in First Call consensus estimates for next year, the median P/E would fall to 13.4, and the top 300 large caps are still 15.7. Those are not outrageous valuations, nor are they terribly cheap. Historically, the average P/E on the S&P has been about 15.5, so if you take the top 300 and if the First Call consensus is right -- which I can't recall it ever has been -- then 15.7 is right in line with historical levels.
But we could be in an environment in which analysts may be underestimating earnings, especially in technology, conditioned as they have been for the past 2½ years to expect the worst.
At any rate, historically, buying at median valuation levels hasn't been all that bad. About 75% of bear markets stop around median valuation levels.
Q: Are you prepared to say this bear market has ended?
A: Yes. It's a new bull market. It is not a super bull market, but a bull market nonetheless. In our core fund and in the portfolios we manage, we lifted the equity portion of our asset-allocation models to 50% on Oct. 1 from 38%. We went to 60% on Oct. 9. It could be the first time I've ever bought at a bottom. Now we are 70% invested in equities, and that's our normal maximum.
Q: Is it a cyclical bull within a bear market?
A: It is not a bear-market rally. It is more like the bull markets we had after the secular bear market in 1973-74. Before the market really got going again then, it moved up about 75% from the lows. This time the market might advance 50% from the lows, which is more typical. That would get the S&P 500 to 1200. We've had a secular bear market -- the decline in the Nasdaq was 77% peak to trough, and that compares just about exactly with the decline in the Value Line Index back in 1973-74 from its peak in 1968.
This time, however, we didn't get to the super-low valuations of 1973-74. After all, we don't have 12% inflation and 13% rates on the long bond like we had back then, either.
There have been a couple of extended periods where the market's gone to the bottom quartile of valuations. One of those periods was from 1974 to 1982, where we had P/E multiples of 10-12 because inflation was raging and interest rates were high.
The only other time we've seen another extended period like that was in the aftermath of World War II, from 1946 to 1951-52, where multiples stayed low because the prevailing attitude was that we were heading back into a depression. People were just scared to death of stocks.
Q: People see a lot of parallels with the 'Thirties and today's environment. They're concerned about corporate profits and deflation. Do you draw the same parallel?
A: No. In the 'Thirties, corporate profits were completely eradicated and the Cowles Commission Index, the predecessor agency to the S&P, was showing zero earnings and even losses for the 400-500 stocks in the index.
We've been redoing a study we first did in 1980 on deflation, and it shows mild deflation -- that is, deflation that doesn't run higher than minus 2½ -- has actually been pretty constructive for the stock market. Stocks have typically outperformed, up an average of 18% in those years in which deflation runs between zero and minus 2½%. Only years of big deflation, such as existed in the Great Depression, are hugely negative for stocks.
Q: Where are we on the spectrum now?
A: The consumer-price index is around 2.7%. That's inflationary, not deflationary. If the CPI moves up by just two-tenths of a percent in the next two months, we'll end the year at 3% inflation in the CPI. That's our projection: 3% by year end, and that's merely because we are knocking off two months, November and December of 2001, which were deflation months. People are concerned about deflation next year, but I don't think you are going to see it. I expect we'll see relative price stability somewhere between 2%-3% inflation next year but nothing in a deflation mode.
This economy is not in tough shape. Year-to-date we have 3% real GDP [gross domestic product] growth and we could see as much as 4% in the fourth quarter. One of these days the double-dip crowd is all going to retire and go back into their caves.
Q: So why the disconnect? Why doesn't the market reflect the growth or stability you see in the economy?
A: We have never seen a period like this where in the first year of an economic expansion the market has just continued to go down as it did until Oct. 9.
That is very unusual. There were two factors probably at work: No. 1 was 9/11 and concerns about terrorist activities, and the other is that the late 'Nineties was an unprecedented period of overvaluation -- even more overvalued than 1929. That might explain why the market came down so much as the economy was actually improving.
Q: If the market had become more overvalued than at any other time, isn't it a little unreal to think the unwinding would play itself out in such a short period?
A: People lost more money in this bear market than they ever had before. It's been bad. About 52% of households owned mutual funds at the peak while back in 1929 it is estimated that only about 6% of the public was involved in the stock market. The public is still very upset. The latest figures we have show fund redemptions of about $5 billion in November. They're redeeming into this rally, and that is very similar behavior to what the public showed in the mid-'Seventies. Then, redemptions ran for 12 years.
Q: Do you think redemptions could be problematic for the market going forward?
A: It could be. I would expect we are going to see net redemption in mutual funds generally for the next three or four years.
But it's important to remember that prior to 1997, the public was never the driving force in the stock market. Prior to that it was the professionals. I think we will see that again.
Q: With redemptions running high, where's the money going?
A: We have seen a lot of cash flowing into bond funds. Already, $150 billion has flowed into bond funds this year, which is a one-year record. But there have been net redemptions in small-investor money-market funds. This is one of the reasons why consumer spending has held up so well. When people look at the alternatives to the stock market, they think it makes sense to buy a car or a house. Even if the car depreciates 50% in the first two years, you are still probably better off than if you had your money in the stock market.
But all these underfunded pension funds are likely to be making contributions in 2003, some of them for the first time in 10 years, and it isn't going to go into the bond market and it isn't going to go into short-term stuff because the funds are still making long-term assumptions of 8½%-9%, and so a lot of it will flow into the stock market. It ought to be enough to replace the missing public as a source of demand.
Q: Is it wise for people to be still thinking of the bond market as a haven?
A: No. You really have to feel sorry for people. They bought the stock market at the top, especially the tech stocks in first quarter of 2000.
Now there are net redemptions in the stock market and it is all flowing into the bond market at probably the peak there as well. We were bullish on the bond market from 1981 up until four-five months ago. The secular bull market in the bond market is all over. We sold the last of our high-quality corporates about three weeks ago.
Treasuries seem to be outrageously expensive. The only part of the bond market we like are the high-yield bonds. About 15% of our assets are now in high-yield bonds -- that's up from 5% at the beginning of the year.
The spreads we see today, although they've narrowed somewhat, are still close to the widest in history. The economy is improving. A lot of the bankruptcies in the telecom area are out of the way. High-yield is the only really attractive part of the fixed-income spectrum at this point.
The jury is still out on telecom issues, so we would look carefully at a fund's concentration to that sector before investing. Including income, we are getting 10%-11% yields now, and in the next two years we could make total returns of close to 20% per year. The fact that so many people are still cautious about the high-yield sector makes me feel pretty good about it as a contrarian.
Q: Getting back to the stock market, are there certain asset classes that look more attractive than others? Is large cap more attractive than small cap, for instance?
A: In October, the large caps led the small caps, and that's typical in the early stage of a bull market. Now we are starting to see smaller-cap stocks shine quite a bit more. I would expect that this cyclical bull market will favor small- and mid-cap stocks, not large caps.
Our large-cap set, even if we smooth out earnings, is trading at 18-20 times earnings, and that's not cheap. But if we smooth out the earnings for smaller-cap stocks, the multiple there is around 13. There is a significant P/E discount differential between large and small, and the smaller caps are likely to do better over the cyclical bull market and small-cap growth stocks may outshine small-cap value stocks. Value stocks have been leaders now for the past 2½ years, and some of our momentum work shows the trends are shifting in favor of growth.
Q: What are your favorite sectors?
A: We have abnormal concentrations relative to the S&P in three areas. One is technology, where we have about a 21% weighting versus the S&P's 15%-16%. Some might call our holdings "chicken" technology because our holdings are in office technology companies such as Canon and Xerox. But we also have a pretty good chunk -- about 10% -- in the networkers, and Cisco leads that. Another area of overconcentration, but one we might be paring back in the next six to nine months, is in the consumer cyclicals.
The consumer is still alive and well, getting a kick from refi and the fact there is no good place to put your money from a savings standpoint. We have about 11% in specialty stores such as Williams-Sonoma, Linens 'n Things, Pier 1 Imports and Borders Group. Then we have about a 10% position in consumer electronics, companies such as Philips Electronics and Sony and Matsu****a.
The third area we are overweight is energy. We have about 18% in the drillers and exploration companies, mostly as a hedge in the event of war against Iraq. There is at least a 50% chance we never attack Iraq, but we are keeping a hedge going just in case.
Q: Why are you likely to pare back on the consumer side?
A: We are going to have to see some improvement in terms of capital expenditures coming on next year in order to keep this economic expansion going -- because the consumer won't be the prime mover of the economy the next two years. We are going to have some support here pretty quick. That said, retailers are going to have a better Christmas this year than most people think, and the year-over-year comparisons are going to be pretty darn good.
Q: Is there any evidence to suggest business spending will pick up? What did you think of the last interest-rate cut? Did we need one at all and did we need one as deep as it was -- and where does it lead?
A: In the short term, it was a big negative because people, including most professionals, thought there must be something the Fed sees that isn't visible to anyone else. But nothing surfaced and I've come to see it as unnecessary. It created all kinds of problems in, say, the commercial paper market, which has dried up because people aren't going to invest in commercial paper for a 1¼% yield no matter how good the credit is. From the savers' standpoint, he stuck it to all the retired people that depend on certificates of deposits to supplement their Social Security.
And obviously the first 11 cuts didn't stimulate any rush toward the bank to borrow money to build plants and expand. It certainly had an impact on the housing market by bringing mortgage rates down. But other than that, it was pushing on a string.
Q: Do you think it was designed to give some legs to the consumer and buy some more time for capital spending to kick in?
A: Perhaps, but there's the risk of creating the same kind of bubble in housing valuations we had in the stock market. We've seen what has happened to the prices of homes, although it seems to be slowing a bit now. These interest-only mortgages are a real bomb waiting to go off, because as soon as interest rates go up again, those people are going to be in really tough shape.
Q: What are some of the positive indicators that make you confident we're in a bull market?
A: We are seeing a mild uptick in inflation, which most people don't perceive at this point. It is still at very low levels, but anything below 3% is very, very positive, as we look at it. The trend there is that it stays flat and moves sideways. The leading economic indicators are still coming in on the positive side as far as we're concerned.
There's also profit momentum. Even though no one knows how to calculate earnings these days, we do know that they are going up. The momentum has shifted and earnings are going up, and that's great. Labor costs have held steady. And interest rates are certainly low, maybe they went too low. But nevertheless they are low, so that's positive.
We also view the mutual-fund redemptions as a positive in the sense they are a contrary indicator of investor psychology. In that sense, it confirms for us this is probably a bottom.
Q: You run a short fund -- the Grizzly Fund. Are you still finding lots of short opportunities?
A: The mandate for that fund is to be 100% short always. The fund has lost 8% in November because of that. But personally and from our money-management accounts we lifted our last hedges Sept. 30. In my letter to shareholders of the Grizzly Fund, I suggested they do the same thing and some of them did. We've had a pretty good run off of assets since that...
Modificato da - gz on 12/2/2002 14:28:7