Sunday, April 23, 2017

temperament edge

Temperament edge and time horizon edge are mostly commonly cited moats in the value investing world. I agree both are advantageous, but it becomes more and more clear to me they are not very advantageous, maybe just a little bit advantageous.

I am not saying temperament is not important. In fact, I think it is a prerequisite to be a great value investor. But temperament is genetic and we know that somewhere between 1% to 3% of the population is wired to have that genetic temperament advantage. It is genetic, but also at the same time generic – everybody born with the temperament edge have similar temperaments and most genuine value investors have it. If you have the right temperament, you can outperform the market by 1% to 2% a year just like if you buy a basket of low price-earnings (P/E), low price-book (P/B) stocks you can outperform the market by 1% to 2% a year statistically speaking, but no more than 2%. I do not think outsized returns can be generated just because one has this temperament edge, except in extreme cases.

Temperament edge has a few dimensions:

Contrarian
Patience
Concentration
Rationality
Calmness

Most people with the temperament edge can check two or three boxes out of the five, but very few check all of them. For instance, many value investors recognized that Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) and Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) were undervalued a few years back, but only a few acted on it and very few concentrated their investments on them like Munger did.

Sunday, April 02, 2017

How overvalued are stocks?

The bull market entered a new phase last year when it broke solidly above S&P 2,100 and bounced off that level after the election. The subsequent 10%+ rally is justified by accelerating economic and earnings growth, with Q1 expected to hit a 9% EPS advance, the highest since Q4 of 2011.

But with the trailing P/E multiple hitting nearly 22 times -- S&P 2350 / $108 EPS for 2016 = 21.75 -- many investors are looking for the end of the bull market based on valuation alone.

Given this pricey picture, it's a very good time to take a step back and get a read on just how over-valued the market might be.

Historically Speaking 

We all know about the great Nasdaq Tech Bubble of 1999. Just how far away from a fair value P/E of 15X were big cap stocks then? 

While the Nasdaq P/E was much higher, at the end of 1999 the S&P 500 flashed a trailing 12-month P/E multiple of over 29X. It had peaked even higher near 31X in July of that year. 

And for broader context, the last six bull market tops all saw the S&P 500 trailing P/E ratio hit an average peak of 30X earnings. I doubt we get that high again after the lessons learned in the two bear markets of the previous decade, but it's certainly still possible. 

Bottom line: Historically speaking, we aren't even close to a bubbly valuation peak that would have me concerned about the end of the bull market. Especially with 2-3% GDP growth, attractive interest rates, and the return of nearly 10% earnings growth.

-- Kevin Cook, Weekend Wisdom