Reflections & Predictions
This year wonât be last year, that much we know. Nor indeed will it be the inverse, which is inconvenient. So, starting this year as last year, but simply turned face down on the desk, is a trap.Read more
WHAT DO THEY KNOW OF ENGLAND?
Let us look at tech, private equity and this seeming market bounce, driven by those sectors. The NASDAQ is up almost 10% at 11,320 after a trio of twelve-month lows in the mid 10,300âs, the latest of those lows just this week. Meanwhile it looks like the US Elections have delivered both gridlock and a rebuff for Trump, which some see as a perfect mix.
Todayâs post title is derived from Rudyard Kipling at his most sanguine and reflective.
I HAVE FLUNG YOUR STOUTEST STEAMERS TO ROOST
The true horror of the tech wreck has also been concealed for UK investors, by the climb in the dollar, a move that seems to be going into reverse. In terms of closing prices sterling has rallied hard from 1.08 to 1.18 in a little over a month. This has left the NASDAQ collapse, from touching 16,000 - brutally exposed, now without much of the concealing currency appreciation.
Where is the Nasdaq headed?
We suspect that the NASDAQ is heading lower still, but accept that is a big call.
From this page on Tradingeconomics
It remains a crowded space for a lot of unprofitable companies to jostle, as they build market share. This disguises the possibility that in some spaces, even owning the entire market will still be loss making.
However, market sentiment has perhaps turned, the tech rubbish generally got chucked out early. The subsequent switching out of the tech majors probably had to be into Treasuries, where their recent price rises suggest some demand, or into cash.
It remains a crowded space for a lot of unprofitable companies to jostle, as they build market share. This disguises the possibility that in some spaces, even owning the entire market will still be loss making. Bumping up against that is the second phase of the market collapse, as the multiples on profitable tech giants returned to earth.
And cash (and oddly apparently the S&P) has also been seeing inflows from China and crypto, as those areas have sold down hard. There is also the unpleasant negative impact of holding cash, on returns. Put this together with sentiment, and this may well help the NASDAQ bounce into the year end. However, many fund managers cite the dotcom bust as meaning this is now starting a multi-year sideways recovery phase, not a quick bounce at all.
LONG BACKED BREAKERS CROON
A concurrent look at Private Equity is important. NASDAQ multiples drive much of their values and are falling, and with such a recent twelve-month low, Q3 valuations (private equity valuations are always lagged) have further losses built in. And a sprinkling of those will now also be based on a significantly higher dollar too. That wonât be pretty either.
Plus, as we know there are some spectacular blow ups lurking in there, the insolvent FTX was a big investor in, and investee company for, some well-known PE names. Overall, despite solid reports, I am still expecting some fair-sized holes in quoted private equity, as either the NASDAQ rises and the dollar falls, causing currency losses, or the NASDAQ falls and the dollar rises and the one again masks the other.
Access to distress financing, has it seems largely vanished, as it does at times like this, making the chance of highly damaging wipe outs, not just down rounds, much greater.
A possible dollar sterling parity?
But those talking of dollar sterling parity are surely way off now. So, regardless of future disasters, I want more information before seeing UK Quoted Private Equity Investment Trusts as a buy. About six months after the NASDAQ bottom, will be a good valuation point, and that likely means Q3 2023. At that point we will know what the current large discounts really refer to; I donât expect them to look anything like as generous.
THE UK - UNDER A SHRIEKING SKY
There is a lot of market optimism about the next UK budget, based on Hunt being really nasty. That may overstate his hand, as the Government has long abandoned reform, it can only support out of control spending by harsh tax rises, which will certainly kill jobs, but probably the wrong ones.
Nor can it do much to enhance investment and has foresworn labour market reforms, so both of those, with existing policies and more rate rises, must encourage the persistence of poor productivity.
Although of course the real budget numbers will be barely mentioned; energy, rate rises, and inflation are largely out of Huntâs hands. He is lucky all three do look a lot better than when he was installed. So, the need for harsh medicine is rather reduced, and may even disappoint.
But just as the rally helped US risk assets, so it helped others, like property, come off a deeply oversold floor. TR Property Investment Trust has jumped 30% in a month, for example, and still yields over 4%.
Post Mid-term elections for the US
And coming full circle, although slowing inflation took a lot of the credit, at least some of the post Mid Term bounce came from realising that the Federal Reserve now has an ally in the legislature. It can be less vigorous in steering the economy, just relying on the brake pedal, as Biden and Congress are no longer able to simultaneously hammer the accelerator.
Overall, however we still remain cautious, we expect this pre-Christmas rally to fade, rate rises to persist into at least Q2 2023 and rate cuts to be a 2024 feature. And peak gloom lies ahead as those rate rises conclude and then start to actually bite.
Looking ahead
In general markets have had a solid look at the worst case this year, from famine to invasion and nuclear war, to out-of-control Central Banks and deluded politicians, and nothing terribly dramatic has transpired. So even with bad things still happening, we donât see a repeat of this yearâs dramatic falls either.Â
Charles Gillams
- The Kipling Society meets on November 16th, at the Royal Overseas League.
Tech Wreck or Much Ado
Talking Tech today - We think that market cycles are longer and far less repetitive than we like to assume.
Asset price ramps - the tech story
But each speculative ramp up and blow off in assets shares much the same features. Our view is the faster they go up, the less likely they are to recover having come back down. And a lot are pretty well back where they started, in price terms at least.
Yet the avarice of founders and sponsors in exploiting, seemingly without consequences, these destabilizing bubbles seems oddly popular, helped by the vast tax hauls they often create, themselves inflaming the process. The media of course delight in hyping them, somehow immune from the sin of market manipulation, which profits them mightily.
I suspect most investors have a âmarker stockâ, to indicate where we are in the cycle, to me it has been the Amati AIM VCT. It has a fair range of stocks, competent fund managers, a reasonable yield. It topped out first in about April last year, had another go at the top in late August or so, and has been downhill all the way since. About ÂŁ200m of assets, a discount control in place, generally real companies, not concept stocks.
So not an obvious spoof.
This was unlike the SPACS, which we first highlighted in late 2020, and where they have been far more destructive, in most cases, even when containing a real business (and many did not).
Sometimes governments get pulled in too. All those profits make for flush lobbyists, generous donations. The London Stock Exchange, a quasi-regulator, bends easily to any wind that blows an irregular but ripe bounty to its coffers.
So, of all the myriad useful potential reforms and regulations, making SPACS easier was depressingly to the fore in ministerial recommendations. Likewise funny voting rights, which stop the founders getting hoofed out when it all goes south.
And what about crypto currencies?
We can debate whether crypto was the same, a lot of the crypto universe clearly was, and itself it was inflated by that same goldrush mentality. Indeed, plenty of market professionals tired of the chore of marketing real companies with real data are entranced by the lure of money for nothing.
Bitcoin is almost the perfect vehicle in this hyper speculative world, and yet we are ambivalent on it. It is very clean (once the dirty mining is done) and it produces carbon rather than arsenic (unlike gold) as a by-product. It canât be tainted or doctored or indeed intercepted, so it is quite a pure asset. Of course, you can mislay it, and once lost it is rather elusive, it slips back into the great money sea and is lost quickly in the waves.
Some say it is too hard to turn into real money, dollars in the main, but nearly every investment is tough to realise, certainly most âalternativesâ are and far too often the fees investors are charged are based on inflated values.Â
Tech valuations
So, back in the tech wreck. We donât believe the high valuations were ever anything but the flush through of extreme greed, created by an industry still able to sell duff product, to its heartâs content, for colossal fees, along with skilled media manipulation. Or as a recent Hendersonâs fund manager report said âinvestment bankers, greedy management teams and ruthless private equity vendorsâ are to blame.
Judging the product in tech is always really hard. But judging what a reasonable value for the optionality of many of these shares is, should usually be far easier. A good rule of thumb is see how in ânormal timesâ they are valued, both because that is when you will almost inevitably need to sell, but also it reflects the funderâs ability to keep propping up losses. That is typically not measured in decades, but at most a few years.
COVID did not help, it closed the new issue pipeline, devasted large areas of the existing market and of course washed torrents of hot cash over everything. Less to buy, more to buy it with, a bit of a feeding frenzy and away we went. But thatâs now over.
Nor do I really think this vast pump and dump enterprise was undone, as the market wisdom is, just by the threat of rising rates. The idea you can precisely discount some pie in the sky projection also feels slightly odd. The precision of diamond to cut the substance of weak custard, seldom produces a sharp, solid, edge.
How might we regard âconceptâ tech stocks now?
Seen as driven by supply and demand, bulked up by liquidity and the âgreater foolâ argument should you unload the stock, means you should beware of the belief that many of these stocks are anywhere near a bottom, until either they produce real cash flow, or a period of years allows them to de-risk their valuations. Â
Seen in that light, and given the overhang of listing, taxation and scrutiny they now face, it should be more about how much should you discount their cash pile by, not what premium to NAV do they merit. Oh, and Iâm talking about real Net Asset Value, not capitalized losses, (however you bottle it), a loss is not an asset, whatever the craven auditor says.
Nor is looking for a trade buyer sensible, buyers have to buy the whole thing, not a little slice where the value can easily be frothed up.
My preference is good active specialist tech managers. There are a few, at a nice discount, but pick your entry point with care, at this stage of the game.Â
A lot of the late 2020 and 2021 excitement turns out to be Much Ado About Nothing, a startling production (above) of which closed recently at the RSC.