Why stocks are good hedges for inflation.

I was quoted yesterday in the Wall Street Journal on why stocks are good hedges for inflation.
Article is here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/which-is-the-better-inflation-hedge-stocks-or-gold-11560132361?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=8

Quoting from the article:

The reason stocks are a decent inflation hedge is because corporate earnings grow faster when inflation is higher, and grow more slowly when inflation is lower, according to Richard Warr, a finance professor at North Carolina State University. Consider the growth rate of corporate earnings over all 10-year periods since 1871, according to data compiled by Yale University finance professor (and Nobel laureate) Robert Shiller. The volatility of those growth rates was 21% less on an inflation-adjusted basis than it was on a nominal basis, which Prof. Warr says is a good indication of the extent to which equities are able to hedge inflation.

To be sure, Prof. Warr adds, higher inflation does reduce the present value of the otherwise higher future earnings. But these two effects should more or less cancel each other out over time.

Prof. Warr acknowledges that, over shorter periods of a year or two, stocks often suffer when inflation heats up. His research suggests that is because many investors are guilty of what economists refer to as “inflation illusion.” That is, they focus only on the reduction in the present value of future earnings to which inflation leads, while ignoring the tendency for nominal earnings to grow faster when inflation is higher. So when inflation spikes upward, they sell stocks.

Since the inflation illusion is irrational, it is difficult to predict whether investors will be guilty of it the next time inflation heats up. But Prof. Warr says that if they do and their selling causes the stock market to drop, investors should treat it as a buying opportunity."

Bogle and the genius of indexing.

Jack Bogle passed away this week and the investing world lost one of the most important figures in modern history.   Bogle's contribution to investing is simple but of profound importance.  He showed that an index fund, run entirely passively, could outperform most actively managed funds in the long run. 

I've long been a very strong proponent of indexing.  I've posted heavily on the topic here in this blog, but a quick recap of why indexing is so brilliant is probably in order.

In any given year (ignoring costs), about 50% of all active equity managers will beat the market, while 50% or so will trail the market.   This has to be the case.  It cannot be the case that the majority of equity managers beat the market, because the market is largely actively managed.  Simply put - there has to be winners and losers. 

In reality however, more than 50% of active managers trail the market because of trading costs and fees.  These costs can easily be 1-3% or more per year, enough to cause a significant drag on performance.  Bogle realized that if you just bought "the market" and didn't trade and didn't spend money on active management, you could reduce the total costs to a nearly trivial amount, less that 1/10 of a percent.   The simple outcome of this strategy is that the "indexed" fund will beat more than 50% of all active funds in a given year, and in the long run will beat most active funds.

You might be thinking, surely 1 or 2 percent isn't that much?   Well, consider an investor with a million dollars: 1% is $10,000 per year every year.  This is a significant performance drag.

Or consider if you take $1,000 and compound for 40 years at 8% you'll end up with about $21,724.  But if you compound only at 7%, just 1% less per year, your original $1,000 will only grow to $14,974.   The 8% investment is worth 45% more than the 7% investment. 

This is why, in the long run, indexing always wins.  It's why I personally am 97% indexed and why I strongly advocate it for all investors (including pension funds).

And this is Bogle's legacy.  He's enabled many ordinary investors to be much wealthier than they would have bee had they stuck with active managers.

As Mark Hulbert says:

"... he bet his entire career and his mutual-fund firm on the notion that the vast majority of active fund managers would be unable to beat a simple index fund. And there was hardly a single calendar year since 1976, when he created the Vanguard 500 Index Fund in which he was wrong."

IBM to buy Redhat.

An interesting deal.  IBM has a strong presence in this area, and of course Redhat is a Raleigh based company.   Details of the deal are here: https://www.marketplace.org/2018/10/29/business/ibm-bets-34-billion-cloud-computing-red-hat-purchase.

A back of the envelope analysis suggests that there's about $7bn in merger gains.

GE cuts dividends

Dividend cuts are quite rare and even rarer for a stallwart stock like GE.  But yesterday, GE cut it's dividend to a penny a share.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/30/general-electric-earnings-q3-2018.html

There wasn't much of a price reaction, the stock had been on a downward trend, but the dividend cut certainly didn't help.

A dividend cut signaled that GE is struggling, but I don't think that was news to anyone.  Even an analyst upgrade didn't help the stock price.
https://www.barrons.com/articles/ge-has-problems-but-analyst-sees-upside-for-the-stock-1540998708

A lower dividend payout means that the company can retain more cash and invest in growth, but as basic finance theory would state, dividend policy should be largely irrelevant in firm value.

Do pro-diversity policies lead to greater corporate innovation?

That's the question that we (myself, Roger Mayer of NC State and Jing Zhao at Portland State) recently studied in a paper that's forthcoming in the finance journal: Financial Management.

The answer is YES.   We found that firms that promote diversity have more new products, more patents and more influential patents.

You can read the paper here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/fima.12205/full

Here's the summary on the NC State news page. https://news.ncsu.edu/2018/01/diversity-boosts-innovation-2018/

And here's a nice write up on WUNC radio's website, together with some additional links that talk about the benefit of diversity in teams.  http://wunc.org/post/study-diverse-companies-are-more-innovative

Bitcoin is a fraud says JPM boss

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/13/bitcoin-fraud-jp-morgan-cryptocurrency-drug-dealers

It should be remembered however, that this is coming from the CEO of the company that received a $12bn government bailout.  https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/jpmorgans-12-billion-bailout/

The problem with Bitcoin, as I see it, is that it is a commodity and not a currency.   It's largely like gold, except that gold has some use outside of being a means of speculation.

While I wouldn't be surprised if Bitcoin remains marginalized, what is more important is the role that blockchain technology will play in finance in the future.

The stupidest thing you can do with your money.

In a recent episode, the Freakanomics podcast talks about why you should index.  It's a great show - check it out: http://freakonomics.com/podcast/stupidest-money/


Interestingly, Anthony Scaramucci is interviewed as being an advocate of active management (he's the guy who ended up being fired by Trump after 10 days).  Scaramucci's arguments for active management don't really make any sense - they are based on the idea that financial advisors and active management are the same thing.   They are not.  A good financial advisor who understands indexing is well worth the fees.  Such an advisor can help in tax planning, retirement, college savings etc and provide real value to clients without ever selling an actively managed product.