Grant's is bearish on Walmart

A quarter-century ago, Walmart could almost be said to deserve the valuation that Mr. Market is assigning it today.  In the high-cotton fiscal year ended Jan. 31, 2000, the retailer expanded its top line by 20% and earnings per share by 26% in the context of 8% same-store sales growth and 11% store-base growth.  A growth stock, WMT might have been mistaken for a bubble stock...  At a then peak split-adjusted price of $23.15 on Dec. 27, 1999, Walmart commanded a 57.9 times trailing earnings multiple.

[...]

[Today] Wall Street is virtually 100% bullish on the shares (out of 45 recorded analyst opinions, there's just one "sell")...  Certainly, the good news has registered on the share price.  Up 51.7% in the year to date, WMT trades at 33.5 times trailing earnings, a generational high.  "To meet expectations," [Evan] Lorenz observes, "management must somehow compound EPS growth at an 11.1% rate between fiscal 2025 and 2028, an acceleration from 9.8% posted in the second quarter this year."

[...]

No need to preach to the choir of the Walmart insider: Since the start of the year, top executives and the Walton family have sold a whopping 63.9 million shares for proceeds of $4.2 billion.  Save money, live better - as they perhaps understand as well as anyone.

~ Grant's Interest Rate Observer, "Tale of two decades," October 11, 2024

The Economist on China's success in emerging markets

Since the end of the cold war the rich world’s corporate giants have been the dominant force in global commerce.  Today consumers and workers in almost every country are touched in some way by the world-spanning operations of multinational firms from America, Europe and, to a lesser extent, Japan.  These leviathans are now under threat, as Chinese firms in industries from cars to clothing expand abroad with startling speed.  A new commercial contest has begun.  Its battleground is neither China nor the rich world, but the fast-growing economies of the global south.

~ The Economist, "Chinese companies are winning the global south," August 3, 2024

August 3, 2024

Scott Bessent: "If anything, defense spending needs to rise"

In the history of the world, there have been six reserve currencies.  Tell me what all the former reserve currencies have in common: Portugal, Spain, Holland, France, UK.  They were also security zones.  How did they lose currency reserve status?  Especially Spain, they got highly leveraged and could no longer support their military...  If anything, defense spending [in the U.S.] needs to rise.  You can't keep your reserve currency status if you lose the defense umbrella.

~ Scott Bessent, "The Fallacy of Bidenomics: A Return to Central Planning," Manhattan Institute, 30:30 mark, June 13, 2024

Scott Bessent compares Donald Trump to Ronald Reagan

Both immediately went for tax cuts.  They both focused on the biggest external threat.  Reagan spent the Soviet Union into oblivion.  I think Trump had a different idea for how to deal with China and make up for a lot of bad historical trade agreements...  Even "Make America Great Again" was a Reaganesque saying.  It's an optimistic vision of America instead of managed decline which I think Biden 2.0 would be.

~ Scott Bessent, "The Fallacy of Bidenomics: A Return to Central Planning," Manhattan Institute, 22:10 mark, June 13, 2024

Robert Murphy on free trade and the fallacy of reciprocating trade

In general, the case for free trade does not assume the other trading partners are reciprocating...  Just like, you're the coach of a basketball team who says, "Hey guys, I want to pass a lot.  That's how we're going to improve our competitiveness.  And we're going to be more successful on the court if we pass a lot rather than always just giving the ball to our star player and him trying to drive all by himself and just go shoot."  And you wouldn't say, "I don't know, coach, what if we're playing against some other team and they just always give it to their star players?  Does that mean we should reciprocate?"...  No, there are lots of situations where, if something makes sense to do, it doesn't matter if the other team's being stupid.  The smart thing for you to do is still the smart thing for you to do.  That's what the standard case for free trade is.  You're not making your people richer by imposing an extra tax in between them and potential sources of supply.

~ Robert Murphy, "Correcting Vivek Ramaswamy & Charlie Kirk on Tariffs," infineo, November 8, 2024

Wall Street Journal: "Do Republicans want to rein in the regulatory state or unleash it?"

Do Republicans want to rein in the regulatory state or unleash it?  It’s hard to tell these days, and the contradiction comes into sharp focus in J.D. Vance’s embrace of Lina Khan, Elizabeth Warren’s favorite regulator who runs the Federal Trade Commission.  At a Bloomberg technology forum in February, Mr. Vance called Ms. Khan “one of the few people in the Biden administration that I think is doing a pretty good job.”

~ WSJ editorial board, "J.D. Vance, Lina Khan and the GOP’s Economic Contradictions," The Wall Street Journal, July 18, 2024

Michael Lewitt on this week's expected Fed rate cut

The Fed is almost certain to commit another policy error this week by cutting interest rates by another 25 basis points with stock, housing & other financial asset prices at or near all-time highs.  Financial conditions are already loose so lowering rates will only further loosen them & feed the speculation pushing stock & other financial asset prices beyond reasonable valuations.  Gold & Bitcoin are also flashing warning signs that inflation is not contained (confirmed by recent data).  Nonetheless the Fed seems hellbent on its current easing path. 

As I’ve written all year, there is one compelling reason to cut rates - the cost of servicing the rising federal deficit.  If that is the reason the Fed is cutting, however, the plan is backfiring. Treasury yields have risen by roughly the same amount that the Fed has cut the Federal Funds rate since cutting began a few months ago.  As such, the market is telling the Fed it will demand higher compensation to fund the government under a lower rate regime.  This is entirely logical because lower rates enable higher spending & higher, not lower, deficits (as well as unproductive government spending & speculative private sector activity).  In short, the market thinks interest rate cuts are unnecessary.  The only market players seeking lower rates are private equity & private credit players who have little interest in what’s best for the economy.

~ Michael Lewitt, The Credit Strategist, December 16, 2024

Marc Faber on tariffs and onshoring

Now they have this brilliant idea to impose tariffs.  It's an absurd idea because the tariffs will increase the prices of just about everything.  And the employment gains will be very minimal because companies will pay the tariffs rather than move production into the U.S. where there is not sufficient technological skills, nor are there enough people to do the jobs that the Chinese or the Indians or the Vietnamese do.

~ Marc Faber, "High Risk of Market Crash as Smart Investors Sell with Marc Faber," WTFinance, 5:45 mark, December 11, 2024

Cyrus Janssen on the real China vs. conception of most Americans

This summer we went back to China, we traveled two months throughout China.  We were sharing videos on Instagram with our friends back in America and no one could believe.

This is China?  This is what China looks like?  The roads are this clean?  The cities this good?  The malls are this well?  The meals are this great?  The food is this fresh?  The people are this friendly?

This is the sad thing.  I think for most Americans their conception of China is still stuck in 1970.  It's still Chairman Mao suits, bicycles, poor country, underdeveloped, communism, no freedom, totalitarian society.  This is what the stereotypes about China are.  I lived in China for 10 years.  There's not really many freedoms that I didn't have.  There's not really a huge difference between the United States and China.

~ Cyrus Janssen, "Shocking Truth About China Told by an American," Max Chernov, 1:05 mark, October 14, 2024

Hans Hermann-Hoppe on idolizing politicians

Idolizing a politician is like believing that the stripper actually loves you.

~ Hans Hermann-Hoppe

Cyrus Janssen: "I don't believe that China is the biggest threat to the United States"

One fundamental belief that has really guided me a lot is be the change you want to see in the world.  It's very simple...  So I want to see a change between the U.S. and China.  Maybe I'm too small.  Maybe I'm just one person.  Maybe I can't really influence this, but I'm going to go try.  I'm going to try to be that change that I want to see in the world.

I don't believe that China is the biggest threat to the United States.  That is something that I'm going to die on.  It's a fundamental belief of mine that's something that I'm going to continue to preach on.  So when I talk to people, when I speak in conferences around the world, when I speak to anybody, from the side of the street to...  I went to a local pharmacy and there were two guys talking about China.  "Oh, China's taking all our jobs, there's no manufacturing anymore in America because of China.  China's the problem!"  And I thought, "What's interesting is that, what phone do you have?"  

"Oh, I have an iPhone."  

"Okay, well, if we bring that factory back to America, we're going to have to hire Americans for about $50 to $60 an hour because they won't work for less than that in a factory.  They don't want to do that job.  So are you willing to pay $5,000 to $6,000 for an iPhone?"  

"$5,000 to $6,000?  That's insane."

"Exactly, that's why we need China, because there's also a fundamental reason why Apple's gone to China, is because they're able to produce the best quality phones, at the best prices and they do so because it's China...  And as a result, Apple's become one of the most valuable companies in the world.  So if anything, just go buy some Apple stock and enjoy the tangible benefits that come from dealing with China,"

~ Cyrus Janssen, "Shocking Truth About China Told by an American," Max Chernov, 38:15 mark, October 14, 2024

Cyrus Janssen on the possibility of a hot war between the US and China

Many people don't realize how important China is to the United States economy and just to how Americans live their average life.  Without China we couldn't function.  And so the trade still goes on, though the tensions have ramped up significantly since [2008].

[...]

As for tensions, unfortunately, if I had to make a prediction, I think that they're going to increase.  I think that we're going to see more tensions between the United States and China, but we're going to see this increase because there is a fundamental problem happening in the United States where we are experiencing a very difficult time politically...  The U.S. democracy has never been weaker than at this moment right now.  So our government has a tremendous amount of internal problems.  And the problem right now is that we're distracted by other countries.  For example, you often hear many U.S. politicians say, "the greatest threat to the future of the United States is China."  But in reality, it has nothing to do with China.  Everything is by looking in the mirror.  The biggest threat to the United States is the United States itself...  How do we fix our own house?

[...]

So I think that what you're going to see between the United States and China is China continuing its influence around the world, for example when we look at Africa, we look at other countries in Asia, many of them are shifting towards China.  I think that the United States is going to continue wanting to sanction China, wanting to impose trade tariffs, wanting to limit Chinese technology.  And we're going to see this continuous battle for the next few years.

[...]

I'm an optimist, I'm always an optimist, so I will always say that I'm positive about the future of the world.  And I always say this, I don't believe that the United States and China will get involved in a confrontation.  I don't believe that they will go to war because I don't think many people understand this, is that if the United States and China get involved in a hot war, that is the end of the economy.  That is the end of the world.  That literally will wreck every stock market, all of the industries.  We're talking absolute chaos for the entire globe.  No country will be unscathed from that wrath if the United States and China get into a hot war.  I do think that both sides understand that...  I do believe in humanity.  I do believe that at the end of the day that cooler heads will prevail and that peace will happen.

~ Cyrus Janssen, "Shocking Truth About China Told by an American," Max Chernov, 18:00 mark, October 14, 2024

Jeffrey Sachs on China's success in electric vehicles

Q: One of the underlying themes or conclusions that I'm reading from the various media reports criticizing the health of the Chinese economy it that the China model, which worked for the past few decades, is not working anymore.  And the Chinese leadership, by sticking to that model, is stifling the Chinese economy.  What exactly are they trying to get at?  And what exactly is the Chinese model that they believe is not working anymore?

A: I think if I could interpret it, maybe the claim is that there's too much government intervention in the economy or China's stifling entrepreneurship.  Again, I think that this is Western rhetoric, not reality.  Let me take a very pertinent and quantitatively important example.  China is now the world's leader in electric vehicles.  During the past 10 years, there were around 400 electric vehicle companies in China.  They were competing like crazy.  Of course, there's now kind of a shaking-out process where a few companies are becoming dominant.  But the competition and the entrepreneurship has been absolutely intense.  And the result is that China is taking the leadership in worldwide sales of electric vehicles.  Also, China's domestic market now is remarkable in that more than 40 percent, I believe, of new car sales, are electric vehicles.  And when I recently visited Beijing, you see them everywhere with the green license plates and you see a tremendous change in a short period of time.

Since this is the direction that the entire world is moving towards because of the need for zero-emission vehicles, China's in a very strong position.  What is happening?  The U.S. is putting on tariffs.  Europe is putting on tariffs.  Is that a sign of failure of China?  No, quite the contrary, it's a sign of remarkable success.

~ Jeffrey Sachs, "Jeffrey Sachs on 'China collapse' theory," CGTN, December 8, 2024

William Pesek on possible retaliation by China to Trump's trade war

All this means Team Trump might not grasp the numerous ways Xi could choose retaliation over the art of the deal. 

One of Xi’s options is to weaken the yuan before Trump can devalue the dollar.  China’s economy has had a rocky 2024, as dueling crises in property, local-government finances, and weak consumer demand fuel deflation.  Nothing would hasten growth faster than weaker exchange rates.  Or, it follows, offset the 60% tariffs Trump threatens to slap on Chinese goods. 

Xi could restrict exports of key inputs Trumponomics will need to thrive.  Surely, Elon Musk and his Silicon Valley bros can explain to Trump the risks of depriving the U.S. of rare earths and other materials.  Less access to gallium, germanium, graphite, and other ingredients would rock the semiconductor, telecommunications, and electric-vehicle industries. 

Chinese leaders could sell large blocks of Beijing’s $730 billion of U.S. Treasuries.  They could target companies most on the frontlines of decoupling tensions.  What’s to stop Xi from taxing or even seizing assets of Apple, Microsoft, Tesla, and others?  Or slapping taxes on Amazon, Walmart and others.

Finally, Trump is allowing China to position itself as the protector of free trade and globalization in 2025, while MAGA tries to drag markets back to 1985.  Ironically, that will only lead to stepped up efforts by the BRICS nations—Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa—and the “Global South” to replace the dollar in trade and finance.

~ William Pesek, "A Trade War May Not Go Trump’s Way. China Has His Number.," Barron's.com, December 3, 2024

Winston Churchill on diplomacy

Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions.

~ Winston S. Churchill

Bill Fleckenstein on Trump 2.0

I am most likely going to have plenty of negative things to say about some of Trump's policies, and positives things to say about others, but it's going to be based on economic and financial analysis.  Hopefully, we can keep the political histrionics out of the comments I get.  Despite my thinking that the Trump administration will be a vast improvement over the Biden administration, that doesn't mean that the problems we face aren't serious or that they will be solved easily.  I can root for progress and be skeptical about easily achieving it at the same time.  The bottom line is, the Trump administration will be a big improvement, but their policies may not work as they envision them.

~ Bill Fleckenstein, November 11, 2024

Liu Xueliang on Trump's tariff policies

The tariff policies ultimately harm consumers, not us.  BYD will still endeavor to offer quality products at reasonable prices in all countries based on their own tariff guidelines.

~ Liu Xueliang, general manager of BYD Asia Pacific auto sales division, "China's BYD not afraid of Trump tariffs: 'They harm consumers, not us'," Korea Joongang Daily, November 24, 2024

Michael Lewis on knowledge

In the arenas of human ambition, in Hollywood or Silicon Valley, or Washington or Wall Street, there's a knowingness about people.  They don't want to seem like they don't know.  They think that if they don't know, they're going to seem stupid.  And that leads to greater stupidity.

~ Michael Lewis, "Michael Lewis on what he learned by studying the elites," Brief But Spectacular, November 4, 2024

Marc Faber on China's rise as a manufacturing superpower (2002)

I'll start with emerging markets, where valuations are attractive and expectations are very low.  Since 1990 the markets in the developed countries of Western Europe and the U.S. are up, say, five times.  In emerging economies most markets are down 80% in dollar terms, and earnings are bottoming out.  Money has been flowing out of emerging-market funds for 2-3 years. 

One concern is that Chinese competition will continue to erode the market share of other Asian exporters to Western Europe and the U.S.  In the long run, very few emerging economies will be able to compete with China.  I wouldn't rule out, in 5-10 years' time, the possibility that China becomes the workshop of the world, the way Lancashire [England] did in 1830s.  But China will also become the customer of other emerging economies.  China has a population of 1.2 billion people.  Today less than 1% of the population is outbound, but 5%-10% could be traveling over the next 10-15 years.  That would mean a meaningful influx of tourists into the surrounding countries of Asia, and Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Western Europe.  Food and plantation companies will benefit from Chinese demand.  Companies that cater to domestic consumer demand -- cigarette companies, pharmaceutical companies, software companies -- will also be helped.

~ Marc Faber, "Past and Presents Four pros speak their minds on history, science and compelling stocks," interview by Laura Rublin, Barron's, January 21, 2002

(Emphasis mine.)

Richard Lawrence on active investing

We're just going to keep doing what we're doing.  There's no real reason for us to change.  My dad was a stockpicker, John Bush [my mentor] was a stockpicker, I'm a stockpicker, my younger colleagues are stockpickers.  In 20 years, the world is going to need stockpickers.  The financial market, Wall Street, might want to turn us all into obsolete things with AI and ETFs and whatnot, but I can tell you it's not going to happen.

~ Richard Lawrence, "Betting Big on China & Lessons from Bear Markets," We Study Billionaires, 1:11:20 mark, September 19, 2024

Richard Lawrence on China's competitiveness

In the U.S., there's a certain arrogance that China's weak and has been brought to its knees and doesn't have technology and is massively overlevered and I think that's not really realistic.  If you look carefully at the semiconductor [industry], which is something I've been tracking for nearly 24 years, we can try to restrict advanced semiconductors from China, but China takes a very long view of this stuff.  And I guess in 8-10 years they're going to have similar levels of technology.  And that will have happened faster than if we had really sat down and talked about what are the uses in China for the advanced technology, the advanced chips, how to keep them out of the military.  

Well, if we ask them to keep the advanced chips out of the military, well then they're going to ask us to keep our chips out of our advanced military.  So that just hits loggerheads because our military in the U.S., there's a certain arrogance that comes with it.  So those are complicated problems that need to be resolved.

But to me I would say there are five semiconductor markets and the advanced one that goes into military equipment is really probably the smallest of all of them.  And so let's talk about the other four markets and see what we can do on that.  But there's basically no talking at this point.

~ Richard Lawrence, "Betting Big on China & Lessons from Bear Markets," We Study Billionaires, 59:30 mark, September 19, 2024

Richard Lawrence on the macro situation in China

Q: How would you describe the current macro situation in China?

A: Let's start off with the stuff that really matters, which is things like balance sheets.  They've got $3 trillion of Forex reserves.  The household bank deposits are double the size of market capitalization of the stock markets and it nearly tripled the size of annual retail sales.  So the individual Chinese consumer has a lot of firepower in the bank deposit...  Loan-to-deposit ratios are conservative, the capital adequacy ratio at the banks is okay.  So those balance sheet items are all in very good order.  Current account surplus, small government deficit.  So that's not the problem.  The problem is really a lack of confidence.

~ Richard Lawrence, "Betting Big on China & Lessons from Bear Markets," We Study Billionaires, 54:30 mark, September 19, 2024

Edwin Dorsey on the importance of long-term thinking in business

The single idea, and we've touched on this a little bit, is I believe there's a lot of things that businesses can do to make the numbers better in the short-term, but hurt the long-term value.  You can raise prices, you can make it more difficult to cancel, you can make it more difficult to get refunds, you can cut corners on content moderation.  All these things help the numbers in the short-term, so they make the stock more attractive in the short-term while harming long-term value.  And seeing that disconnect when it occurs is where I think a lot of investors can profit.

The final idea is businesses can easily do things that help the short-term numbers and hurt long-term value.

~ Edwin Dorsey, "Simple Yet Powerful Tips for Short Selling - Exposing the Red Flags," Stansberry Investor Hour, 57:30 mark, November 4, 2024

The Economist on growing anxiety in America

Ordinary Americans are anxious.  Gallup, a polling firm, regularly asks Americans if they are satisfied with how things are going.  From 1980 until the early 2000s, a little more than 40%, on average, said they were.  Over the past two decades that has dropped to 25%.

~ "The envy of the world: The American economy has left other rich countries in the dust. Expect that to continue...," The Economist, October 19, 2024

Harris Kupperman on the hedge fund business

It's a lifestyle business.  I'm going to be doing this for the rest of my life probably.  I actually enjoy it.  Like I said, this is my hobby.  Made a bunch of money.  I don't do it because I want to make more money.  I make it because I want to be in the game.  I want to beat the S&P 500, but more important, I want to beat all my friends who I think are top-notch, 0.1% hedge fund managers.  I want to beat them, too.  That's what I'm passionate about.

~ Harris Kupperman, "How to Scale a Hedge Fund | Harris Kupperman on Praetorian Capital," The Monetary Matters Network, November 6, 2024

Harris Kupperman on politics and investing

I tend to wear my politics on my sleeve; I hate both parties.  I don't like government regulation.  I don't like rules.  I'm more of a Ron Paul kind of guy.

[...]

We're going to own gun stocks, we're going to own oil and gas, we don't do ESG.

[...]

It's a trust-based business.  You can't really hide who you are.

~ Harris Kupperman, "How to Scale a Hedge Fund | Harris Kupperman on Praetorian Capital," The Monetary Matters Network, November 6, 2024

Kevin Duffy on Donald Trump, the "new boss," and the left-right political spectrum

The problem is that people choose a side and lose their objectivity. Trump started the vaccines under Operation Warp Speed.  He also got the stimulus ball rolling with the CARES Act (which sent out stimmie checks directly to people).  The Fed under his watched expanded its balance sheet 68% in 6 months to pay for it. 

What did the Biden administration do?  Did it change course?  No, it added to the stimulus, rolled out the vaccines using an intense marketing campaign, and kept printing money (Fed assets grew 20% in year 1).  Biden also expanded Trump's tariffs on trade with China.

Objectively, how well did these policies work?  1) The vaccines at best were ineffective.  At worst they led to an inordinate number of adverse reactions.  2) The stimulus drug wore off.  3) Inflation was unleashed.

All we have to show for this orgy of government intervention into our lives is a 50% jump in the national debt, higher interest rates, and interest expense on that debt that now exceeds the entire military budget.  So of course the incumbent party lost!

"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."

~ Kevin Duffy, Facebook post, November 9, 2024

YouTube comment on anti-China western media headlines since 1990

Here's what western magazines have been saying about China since 1990: 

1990. The Economist: China's economy has come to a halt. 

1996. The Economist: China's economy will face a hard landing. 

1998. The Economist: China's economy entering a dangerous period of sluggish growth. 

1999. Bank of Canada: Likelihood of a hard landing for the Chinese economy. 

2000. Chicago Tribune: China currency move nails hard landing risk coffin. 

2001. Wilbanks, Smith & Thomas: A hard landing in China. 

2002. Westchester University: China Anxiously Seeks a Soft Economic Landing. 

2003. New York Times: Banking crisis imperils China. 

2004. The Economist: The great fall of China? 

2005. Nouriel Roubini: The Risk of a Hard Landing in China. 

2006. International Economy: Can China Achieve a Soft Landing? 

2007. TIME: Is China's Economy Overheating? Can China avoid a hard landing? 

2008. Forbes: Hard Landing In China? 

2009. Fortune: China's hard landing. China must find a way to recover. 

2010: Nouriel Roubini: Hard landing coming in China. 

2011: Business Insider: A Chinese Hard Landing May Be Closer Than You Think. 

2012: American Interest: Dismal Economic News from China: A Hard Landing. 

2013: Zero Hedge: A Hard Landing In China. 

2014. CNBC: A hard landing in China. 

2015. Forbes: Congratulations, You Got Yourself A Chinese Hard Landing. 

2016. The Economist: Hard landing looms for China. 

2017. National Interest: Is China's Economy Going To Crash. 

2018. The Daily Reckoning: China's Coming Financial Meltdown. 

2019. BBC: China's Economic Slowdown: How worried should we be? 

2020. New York Times: Coronavirus Could End China's Decades-Long Economic Growth Streak. 

2021. Bloomberg: Chinese economy risks deeper slowdown than markets realize. 

2022. Bloomberg: China Surprise Data Could Spell RECESSION. 

2023. Bloomberg: No word should be off-limits to describe China's faltering economy. ... 

Yet it's already 2024 and China's economy is still going strong.

~ @Shenzhou, "Harvard Economist Reveals Shocking SECRET About China in 2025," YouTube, November 8, 2024

Connor O'Keeffe on the Trump election victory

Trump’s win represents another major and well-deserved repudiation of the Washington establishment. In 2016, Republican voters decisively rejected Jeb Bush—the establishment’s chosen GOP candidate—and sent Donald Trump to the White House on a refreshingly anti-establishment platform. 

While he largely governed like an establishment Republican in his first term, his occasionally anti-establishment rhetoric was enough to prompt a full-court press from the political class to first force him out of office and later to disqualify him from ever holding power again. In the realm of public opinion, the establishment’s chosen tactic was to label Trump a racist, misogynist, wanna-be fascist whose supporters back him simply because they hate everyone who isn’t straight, white, and male.

~ Connor O'Keeffe, "Why Trump's Victory Matters, and Why It Doesn't," Mises Wire, November 8, 2024

Lao Tzu on living in the present

If you're depressed, you're living in the past. 

If you're anxious, you're living in the future. 

If you're at peace, you're living in the present. 

~ Lao Tzu

The Economist on the U.S. economy

In the history of modern economics America's three-decade outperformance is remarkable.  Can it continue?  Throughout this report we will consider reasons for pessimism, from poisonous politics to fiscal frailties.  Set against these are a relentless dynamism, the essential characteristic of the American economy and the ultimate force propelling it forward.

~ "The envy of the world: The American economy has left other rich countries in the dust. Expect that to continue...," The Economist, October 19, 2024

In summing up the Trump and Harris proposals, we point out again that neither candidate knows how to deal with stagflation.  Instead, they call for more government intervention - Trump for tariffs and Harris for more individual and business taxes and for energy policies that will rapidly make life much more difficult for most Americans.

The stagflation of the 1970s was ended by Jimmy Carter's deregulation initiatives, Paul Volcker's end to inflation, and Ronald Reagan's income tax rate cuts.  The economy rebounded nicely and grew to astounding levels.  Unfortunately, the lessons of the early 1980s have been lost, and all of us will pay a price.

~ William L. Anderson, "The Great Retreat: How Trump and Harris Are Looking Backward," The Misesian, September-October 2024

Kevin Duffy on investing in China

Long-term, China is hated for all the right reasons: economically successful, minds its own business, refuses to kowtow to the U.S. and is too big to attack.  In addition, China boasts a smart, hard-working, entrepreneurial culture that values education and has avoided some of the toxic ideologies of the West, like wokeness.  China represents a key control group and geopolitical diversifier.  And it’s on sale.

~ Kevin Duffy, "Portfolio Review," The Coffee Can Portfolio, p. 19, October 22, 2024

Kevin Duffy on being a long-term investor

As a long-term investor, I get far more excited about the quality and number of seeds being planted than the size of the annual harvest.

~ Kevin Duffy, "Portfolio Review," The Coffee Can Portfolio, pp. 15-16, October 22, 2024

Kevin Duffy on competitive edges in the investment business

The keys to the investment business are developing competitive edges and finding clients who will allow you to apply those edges over time.

~ Kevin Duffy, "Fade to Black," The Coffee Can Portfolio, p. 14, October 22, 2024

Kevin Duffy on the Dalbar effect

The dirty little secret of the asset management business is that the sophistication level of one’s clients is paramount.  If they constantly chase what’s hot and panic out of what’s not, all the hard work by the portfolio manager can be negated.  I refer to this pesky boat anchor as the “Dalbar effect,” after an annual study by Dalbar, Inc.  In it, they document how actual investor returns deviate significantly from published returns due to the poor timing of a firm’s clients.  

Aggressive marketing and client quality are inversely related, although Dalbar is unlikely to admit this to their institutional investor clientele.  BlackRock is no doubt an asset gathering machine, but where are the customers’ yachts?  According to my calculations, over the past ten years BLK’s all-important equity iShares franchise (32.5% of base fees in Q3) suffered a headwind (Dalbar effect) of 5.3% per year.  This effectively cut published returns in half.

~ Kevin Duffy, "Fade to Black," The Coffee Can Portfolio, p. 12, October 22, 2024

Kevin Duffy on the passive bubble

Over [the past 10 years], a staggering $6.0 trillion has poured into passively managed funds, with $2.3 trillion pulled from active funds.

~ Kevin Duffy, "Fade to Black," The Coffee Can Portfolio, p. 10, October 22, 2024

Kevin Duffy on technology waves

Technology waves are like hurricane warnings: those who go through them suffer from recency bias.  As the most recent experience is seared into their brains, they swing from underprepared to overprepared for the next one.  The internet altered the economic landscape, wreaking havoc on some and heaping fortunes on others.  (Many of the big winners, including Google, Facebook, Netflix and Salesforce, weren’t even public companies in 2000.)  No one can fault the current crop of high-tech CFOs for clamoring to ride the current AI wave.

~ Kevin Duffy, "Countervailing Forces," The Coffee Can Portfolio, p. 5, October 22, 2024

Kevin Duffy on investing: using the past to inform the future

But enough about the past.  Investing, to paraphrase Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, must be understood backwards, but lived forward. 

Where some see randomness and others statistical certainty, the economic historian and forward-looking investor sees patterns and probabilities, motivations and biases, individual calculation and group error.  At times, and to no one’s surprise, guesses about the future can diverge wildly.

~ Kevin Duffy, "Countervailing Forces," The Coffee Can Portfolio, p. 3, October 22, 2024

Kevin Duffy on writing about politically sensitive topics

I realize taking on politically sensitive topics like Covid, wokeness, China and the Israel-Palestine conflict risks turning away subscribers, but it is a risk I’m willing to take. The last thing the world needs is another conventional, politically-neutered investment letter.

~ Kevin Duffy, "Mailbag," The Coffee Can Portfolio, p. 22, October 22, 2024

2024

Henry Hazlitt on government spending

Everything we get, outside of the free gifts of nature, must in some way be paid for.  The world is full of so-called economists who in turn are full of schemes for getting something for nothing.  They tell us that the government can spend and spend without taxing at all; that it can continue to pile up debt without ever paying it off, because ‘we owe it to ourselves.’ 

~ Henry Hazlitt

William Casey on the CIA

We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.

~ William J. Casey, CIA Director (1981)

Phil Grant on declining profitability in the asset management industry

Profitability at asset managers has slipped for the past two years and is likely to decline further through 2028 as investors increasingly opt for products with lower fees, such as exchange-traded funds (ETFs), according to a new study. 

The study of 40 global asset managers including BlackRock, State Street, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs by German financial strategy advisor zeb Consulting showed their profits in 2023 slipped to 8.2 basis points (0.082%) of assets under management from 10.1 basis points in 2021 and 9.4 points in 2022.

"The good years are over for now," zeb senior consultant Fränk Hamelius, one of the study's authors, said on Monday.

Over the past five years, the assets under management of the firms studied have risen by 8.8% annually on average, but their operating profits have only gone up by 0.7% per annum, it said.

~ Phil Grant, Almost Daily Grant's, October 21, 2024

Brad Gerstner on ChatGPT

We've seen a big lift, the fastest growth at any company I've ever seen at OpenAI, so it's clear it offers value.  200 million weekly average visitors are saying about ChatGPT, "you're valuable enough to me that I'm going to open this thing every week... and I'm going to use it to help me with whatever task I need to complete."  If I look out onto my floor here, all my analysts - every single one of them - they have three screens in front of them and one of the screens is open to ChatGPT.  That is their co-pilot...

I've lived through four super-cycles.  We've lived through internet, lived through mobile, lived through cloud and now we're at the start of the fourth one which is AI.  I have zero doubt it will be bigger than any one of those, and maybe bigger than them combined over the next two decades.  When we go from computers and AIs that really co-pilot our lives to auto-pilot our lives.  They're going to be machines interacting with machines on things like airline maintenance that just do it better than humans.

~ Brad Gerstner, "Why This Investor Doesn't Just Dabble In the Market," The Meb Faber Show, 22:50 mark, October 4, 2024

David Gordon on the Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian visions of America

Most readers of the Mises Wire will be familiar with the account of American history developed in many books by Mises Institute President Thomas J. DiLorenzo.  According to him, American history since our founding as a nation has been shaped by two conflicting traditions: one, begun by Alexander Hamilton, favoring a centralized government and the other, best personified in Thomas Jefferson, supporting decentralized government and the rights of the states and local communities.  Hamilton favored building up American industry artificially through high tariffs, as well as a national bank and a system of costly “national improvements.”  He also supported high government debt to stimulate industry.  Jefferson opposed all of these measures.  Henry Clay’s “American System” continued the Hamiltonian plan, as did Clay’s follower Abraham Lincoln.  In the twentieth century, Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal” fits into this paradigm. 

~ David Gordon, "Alexander Hamilton's poisoned legacy," Mises Wire, July 19, 2024

Abby Joseph Cohen on highly educated immigrants in the U.S.

Two-thirds of the Ph.Ds working in the U.S. in medicine and engineering are immigrants.

~ Abby Joseph Cohen, business professor at Columbia University, Barron's Mid-Year Roundtable, July 13, 2024

Tianchen Xu on expected fiscal stimulus measures in China

Our overall take is quite positive in that MoF is willing to tackle China’s many economic challenges by leveraging its borrowing room.  The immediate benefits to the economy will be limited, as the MoF avoided large-scale direct cash handouts to households.  However, its commitment to restoring local public finances through fiscal transfer and debt replacement is highly commendable. 

In the medium term, it will put an end to the aggressive deleveraging by local governments and ease the resulting deflationary pressure.  And as their financial position stabilises, local governments will be better positioned to support the economy by providing public services and embark on public investments.

~ Tianchen Xu, Senior Economist, Economist Intelligence Unit, "China's briefing on stimulus gets lukewarm investor reception," Reuters, October 12, 2024

(Xu reacted to news conference with Finance Minister Lan Foan announcing more "counter-cyclical measures" this year without providing details on size of fiscal stimulus.)

Lauren Templeton and Scott Phillips on bargain hunting in the stock market

The thrill of locating more bargains should be far more rewarding than sitting back and relishing your recent successes.  This idea is embedded in the notion that focusing on the future is more important than focusing on the past.

~ Lauren Templeton and Scott Phillips, Investing the Templeton Way

2008

Jim Grant on value investing

It's an arithmetic truism that bearishness prepares the ground for bullishness; nothing succeeds in the long run like a low entry point.

~ Jim Grant, "Tale of two decades," October 11, 2024

Brendan Ahern on how global investors are underweight Chinese equties

Bank of America does a global portfolio manager survey and they say to mutual fund managers, "what are your favorite trades?"  The #1 trade was [long] Mag 7 and the #2 trade was short China.  And so a lot of that short selling was in Hong Kong and ADRs.  So offshore China...  So those investors who were short China just got run over...  But more importantly, why you're seeing this reaction is that investors globally have been very underweight China.  China's economy is $18 trillion GDP, but India at $3.5 trillion actually was a bigger part of global indices...  It makes no sense, but it just shows there's this incredible underweight Chinese equities globally.  Some of that money that came out of China went into U.S. tech or India or Japan and what you're seeing is a re-rating back in...  That supertanker of underweight doesn't turn on a dime.

~ Brendan Ahern, "Don't Believe the China Boogeyman Narrative," Stansberry Investor Hour, October 7, 2024