Tag Archives: Nygren

Poking Holes in the Market Bubble Hypothesis

Nygren Commentary September 30, 2017

CSInvesting: We can’t increase our IQ but we can try to improve our critical thinking skills by seeking out opposing views to the now current din of pundits screaming that this “over-valued market is set to crash.”  1987 here we come.  What do you think of his arguments?  I certainly agree about how GAAP accounting punishes growth investments.  

At Oakmark, we are long-term investors. We attempt to identify growing businesses that are managed to benefit their shareholders. We will purchase stock in those businesses only when priced substantially below our estimate of intrinsic value. After purchase, we patiently wait for the gap between stock price and intrinsic value to close.

“All the company would have to do is raise prices 50% and the P/E ratio would fall to the low-teens.”   -Analyst recommending a new stock purchase

We are nine years into an economic and stock market recovery and P/E ratios are elevated somewhat beyond historic averages. So when an experienced portfolio manager hears a young analyst make the above comment, he hears alarm bells. But instead of seeing this as a sign that the market has peaked, we purchased the stock for the Oakmark Fund. But, more on that later.

For several years, the financial media has been dominated by pronouncements that the bull market is over. Throughout my career, I can’t remember a more hated bull market. Many state that a recession is “overdue” since past economic booms have almost never lasted as long as this one. But do nine years of sub-normal economic growth even constitute a recovery, much less a boom? If recessions occur to correct excesses in the economy, has this recovery even been strong enough to create any? Maybe recessions are less about duration of the recoveries they follow and more about the magnitude. If so, earnings might not even be above trend levels.

Bears will also point to the very high CAPE ratio—or the cyclically adjusted P/E. That metric averages corporate earnings over the past decade in an attempt to smooth out peaks and valleys. But remember that the past decade includes 2008 and 2009, frequently referred to as the “Great Recession” because of how unusually bad corporate earnings were. I’ll be the first to say that if you think an economic decline of that magnitude is a once-in-a-decade event, you should not own stocks today. But if it is more like a once-in-a-generation event, then that event is weighted much too heavily in the CAPE ratio. If the stock market and corporate profits maintained their current levels for the next two years—an outcome we would find disappointing—simply rolling off the Great Recession would result in a large decline in the CAPE ratio.

Higher P/E ratios are also caused by near-zero short-term interest rates because corporate cash now barely adds to the “E” in the P/E ratio. When I started in this business in the early 1980s, cash earned 8-9% after tax. Consider a simple example of a company whose only asset is $100 of cash and the market price is also $100. In the early 1980s, the $8 or $9 of interest income would generate a P/E ratio of about 12 times. Today, $100 would produce less than $1 of after-tax income, driving the P/E ratio north of 100 times. There is, of course, uncertainty as to whether that cash will eventually be returned to shareholders or invested in plants or acquisitions, but it seems that making a reasoned guess about the value of cash is more appropriate than valuing it at almost nothing.

A less obvious factor that is producing higher P/E ratios today is how accounting practices penalize certain growth investments. When a company builds a new plant, GAAP accounting spreads that cost over its useful life—often 40 years—so the cost gets expensed through 40 years of depreciation as opposed to just flowing through the current income statement.

But when Amazon hires engineers and programmers to help it prepare for sales that could double over the next four years, those costs get immediately charged to the income statement. When Facebook decides to limit the ad load on WhatsApp to allow it to quickly gain market share, the forgone revenue immediately penalizes the income statement. And when Alphabet invests venture capital in autonomous vehicles for rewards that are years and years away, the costs are expensed now and current earnings are reduced.

The media is obsessed with supposedly bubble-like valuations of the FANG stocks—Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google (Alphabet). The FANG companies account for over 7% of the S&P 500 and sell at a weighted average P/E of 39 times consensus 2017 earnings. In our opinion, the P/E ratio is a very poor indicator of the value of these companies. Alphabet is one of our largest holdings, and our valuation estimate is certainly not based on its search division being worth 40 times earnings. If one removed the FANG stocks from the S&P multiple calculation—not because their multiples are high, but because they misrepresent value—the market P/E would fall by nearly a full point. And, clearly, more companies than these four are affected by income statement growth spending.

In addition, no discussion of stock valuations would be complete without some consideration of opportunities available in fixed income. Many experts argue that investors should sell their stocks because the current S&P 500 P/E of 19 times is higher than the 17 times average of the past 30 years. By comparison, if we think of a long U.S. Treasury bond—say, 30 years—in P/E terms, the current yield of 2.9% results in a P/E of 34 times. The average yield on long Treasuries over the past 30 years has been 5.5%, which translates to a P/E of 18 times. Relative to the past 30 years, the long bond P/E is now 90% higher than average. We don’t think the bond market at current yields is any less risky than equities.

The point of this is not to advance a bullish case for stocks, but rather to poke holes in the argument that stocks are clearly overvalued.

We think our investors would also fare best by limiting their in-and-out trading. We suggest establishing a personal asset allocation target based on your financial position and risk tolerance. Then limit your trading to occasionally rebalancing your portfolio to your target. If the strong market has pushed your current equity weighting above your target, by all means take advantage of this strength to reduce your exposure to stocks.

Now, back to the P/E ratio distortions caused by investing for growth. This highlights a costly decision we made six years ago. In 2011, when Netflix traded at less than $10 per share, one of our analysts recommended purchase because the price-per-subscriber for Netflix was a fraction of the price-per-subscriber for HBO. Given the similarity of the product offerings and Netflix’s rapid growth, it seemed wrong to value the company’s subscribers at less than HBO’s. But, at the time, streaming was a relatively new technology, HBO subscribers had access to a much higher programming spend than Netflix subscribers and Netflix was primarily an online Blockbuster store, providing access to a library of very old movies. Netflix had only one original show that subscribers cared about, House of Cards, and churn was huge as they would cancel the service after a month of binging on the show. Despite the attractive price-per-sub, we concluded that the future of Netflix was too uncertain to make an investment.

Today, Netflix trades at $180 per share and has more global subscribers than the entire U.S. pay-TV industry. Netflix provides its subscribers access to more than two times the content spending that HBO offers, making it very hard for HBO to ever match the Netflix value proposition. Finally, Netflix is no longer just a reseller of old movies. The company has doubled its Emmy awards for original programming in each of the past two years and now ranks as the second most awarded “network.” On valuation, Netflix is still priced similarly to the price-per-subscriber implied by AT&T’s acquisition of HBO’s parent company Time Warner, despite Netflix subscribers more than quadrupling over the past four years while HBO subscribers have grown by less than one third.

Last quarter, when our analyst began his presentation recommending Netflix, selling at more than 100 times estimated 2017 earnings, I was more skeptical than usual. His opening comment was that Netflix charges about $10 per month while HBO Now, Spotify and Sirius XM each charge about $15. “All the company would have to do is raise prices 50% and the P/E ratio would fall to the low teens,” he argued. Anecdotally, those who subscribe to several of these services tend to value their Netflix subscription much higher despite its lower cost. Quantitatively, revenue-per-hour-watched suggests Netflix is about half the cost (subscription fees plus ad revenue) of other forms of video. Netflix probably could raise its price to at least $15 without losing many of its subscribers. For those reasons, Netflix is now in the Oakmark portfolio.

So, is Netflix hurting its shareholders by underpricing its product? We don’t think so. Like many network-effect businesses, scale is a large competitive advantage for content providers. Scale creates a nearly impenetrable moat for new entrants to cross. With more subscribers than any other video service, Netflix can pay more for programming and still achieve the lowest cost-per-subscriber. As shareholders of the company, we are perfectly amenable to Netflix’s decision to forfeit current income to rapidly increase scale.

Because we are value investors, when companies like Alphabet or Netflix show up in our portfolio, it raises eyebrows. Investors and advisors alike are full of questions when investors like us buy rapidly growing companies, or when growth investors buy companies with low P/Es. Portfolio managers generally don’t like to be questioned about their investment style purity, so they often avoid owning those stocks. We believe our portfolios benefit from owning stocks in the overlapping area between growth and value. Therefore, we welcome your questions about our purchases and are happy to discuss the shortcomings of using P/E ratio alone to define value.

Bill Nygren’s OakMark: The Flight to Safety

http://www.oakmark.com/

Oakmark and Oakmark Select Funds
6/30/2012

“Big price changes occur when market participants are forced to reevaluate their    prejudices, not necessarily because the world changes that much.”– Hedge fund manager Colm O’Shea as quoted in Hedge Fund     Market WizardsBeing a big fan of Jack Schwager’s Wizard series of     investment books, I eagerly read his newest book, Hedge Fund Market Wizards, and
At Oakmark, we are long-term investors. We attempt to identify growing businesses that are managed to benefit their shareholders. We will purchase stock in those       businesses only when priced substantially below our estimate of intrinsic       value. After purchase, we patiently wait for the gap between stock price       and intrinsic value to close.

was not disappointed. In 1992, shortly after we had started   the Oakmark Fund, I read Schwager’s first book, Market Wizards.  Despite having been in the investment business for over a decade at that point, most of my reading had been about other value managers, so I was   excited about learning from traders who used completely different investment philosophies than we used at Oakmark. It made me feel my age when many of the   managers interviewed in Hedge Fund Market Wizards said how   inspirational it was to read Market Wizards when they were in school!

Like Market Wizards, Hedge Fund Market Wizards is   a compilation of interviews with highly successful money managers. These   managers range from those whose time horizon is measured in minutes to those   who hold positions for years; from those who knew they wanted to invest when   they were back in grade school to those who still aren’t sure investing is   their calling; and from those with impeccable academic credentials to those   without any degrees. But despite their many differences, their similarities   were most striking: good intuitive math skills, intense competitive drive,   strong work ethic, well-defined investment philosophy and disciplined risk   management. And as in Market Wizards, most every chapter discussed   early career struggles followed by the discovery of an investing approach   that better fit the individual’s personality. I find the Wizard books   so thought-provoking because, rather than being just a collection of stories   about past investments, they provide insights into how each manager thinks.

The quote at the top of this letter was one of my favorites   from this book. As value managers, we often explain that we aren’t   forecasting a giant change in the fundamentals of companies we invest in, but   rather we expect the stock price to increase significantly when investors   change how they think about our companies. When we bought Disney, investors were   worried about its theme parks; we were focused on the growth of its most   valuable asset, ESPN. When we bought eBay, investors were worried about its   market share relative to Amazon; we thought PayPal was so valuable that we   were getting its Marketplaces business for free. Today we are focused on the   growth of Dell’s non-PC businesses, whereas investors are worried about   declining sales of PCs, a division we don’t think we are even paying for. In   each case, if we are right, the fundamentals will force investors to   reevaluate their prejudices, and we will profit from the repricing of the   stock.

Investor prejudice can also cause large sectors of the market   to be mispriced. Investors have been taught that large-cap equities tend to   be less risky investments than small-cap equities. Big companies generally   have longer histories and more diversified businesses that combine to produce   less volatile earnings than small companies that are often selling a single   product in a single country. That is why large companies have generally been   lower risk stocks. But in the late 90s, when small technology companies with   excessive valuation premiums displaced big businesses from the large-cap   universe, investors who thought large caps were low risk got a double whammy   – large-cap stocks’ earnings and P/E multiples both declined sharply. The   belief that large cap implied low risk was a prejudice that needed to be   reevaluated – lower risk came from the size of the business, not the size of   its market cap. The world didn’t change that drastically in 2000, but stock   prices did, as investors had to adjust their beliefs. We think that   adjustment has gone too far because today large businesses tend to be priced   at a discount.

Last month I attended the Morningstar mutual fund conference   in Chicago and had a chance to catch up with many of the advisors who have   recommended our Funds. A comment many   of them made was that they believed long-term bonds were way overpriced, yet   they felt forced to own them to lower the risk in their clients’ portfolios.   In our finance courses, we all learned that bonds are less risky than stocks.   Their returns, if held to maturity, are certain, whereas equity returns   remain uncertain regardless of the holding period. But just like we had   relatively little history of large-cap stocks that weren’t large businesses,   we have relatively little history of bond yields being so close to zero.   And when valuations are at extremes, as we believe bonds are today, historical   price volatility might not shed much light on future risk.

The 30-year U.S. Treasury Bond today yields about 2.7%. Just   10 years ago, its yield was 5.8%. If five years from now the yield simply   returned to its level of a decade ago (and just in case you think I’m cherry   picking, over the past 25 years it has   averaged a 7.5% yield and at the low in 1981 was twice that), bond investors   would suffer a meaningful loss of capital. The principal of the bond would   decline by 43%, which would swamp the 14% interest income received over five   years, leaving a total loss of 29%. That’s a high price to pay for reducing a   portfolio’s risk level.

Contrast that to the S&P   500, which yields just a fraction of a percent less than the bond and we   expect will grow earnings at about 6% per year for the next five years.   If that growth rate is achieved, the current P/E multiple of 12.9 times would   have to fall to 10 times for the S&P price to stay unchanged. The P/E   would have to fall to about 7 times to match the loss that the bond investor   would sustain if yields reverted to their decade ago level. With a historical   average P/E of about 15 times, a 7 times multiple seems like quite an   outlier.

That’s just a quantitative way to say that we believe   valuation levels today trump the historical analysis of stock and bond   volatility. We believe that investors   who are trying to reduce risk by selling stocks and buying bonds are probably   increasing their risk of losing money. Investors have developed a   prejudice about riskiness of asset classes that ignores valuation levels.   Prices of stocks and bonds will need to change if investors are forced to   reevaluate that prejudice.

I think equity investors are making the same mistake today   when they look to the alleged safety of high-yield stocks. Mike Goldstein of   Empirical Research Partners http://www.empirical-research.com/research.htm has a graph showing that, over the past 60 years,   the 100 highest yielding stocks in the S&P 500 have on average sold at   about three-quarters of the S&P 500 P/E multiple. The high yielders are   typically more mature, slower growth businesses that deserve to sell at a   discount P/E. Effectively, a high yield (D/P) is just the inverse of a low   price-to-dividend ratio (P/D), a cheapness measure similar to a low   price-to-earnings or low price-to-book ratio. Historically, high-yield stocks   have been cheap stocks.

Today’s   high-yield stocks are quite a different story. The 100 highest   yielders in the S&P 500 have a much higher yield than the index – 4.1%   vs. 2.5%. The S&P 500 today sells at 12.9 times expected 2012 earnings.   If the high yielders sold at their 60-year average discount, they would be   priced at less than 10 times earnings. Instead, today’s top 100 yielding   stocks sell at 13.9 times expected earnings, more than a 40% relative premium   to their historic average. The only reason they yield more than the rest of   the S&P is that they pay out so much more of their income – 57% vs. 32%.

Another statistic courtesy of Mike Goldstein is that utility   stocks, a high-yield group I call the most bond-like of all stocks, today   sell for almost the same P/E multiple as the S&P 500. Since 1970, their   average P/E multiple has been about two-thirds of the S&P, and 90% of the   time utility stocks have sold at a larger discount than they do today. We   believe that investors who are now stretching to get more income from their   equity investments are making the same mistake as bond investors – they are ignoring valuation and instead   have a misplaced prejudice that high yields will protect them against loss.

At Oakmark, we aren’t avoiding stocks because they have   above-average yields, but our expectation is that a high yielder is more   likely to be fully priced. We like companies that return capital to   shareholders, rather than just accumulate their excess cash. But unlike the   bias of many of today’s investors, we are just as happy to see that capital   returned through share repurchase as through a large dividend payout. The   result of a share repurchase is the same as if the company paid us a dividend   and we used it to buy more shares. It’s actually a little better because it   defers income tax. Perhaps if the scheduled 2013 tax changes actually become   law and dividends are again taxed at a premium to long-term capital gains,   investors will become more interested in companies that repurchase their own   shares. The world wouldn’t have to change that much for high-payout companies   to lose their luster.
William C. Nygren, CFA
Portfolio Manager
oakmx@oakmark.com
oaklx@oakmark.com

The Oakmark Fund – Holdings
6/30/2012

Equities and Equivalents

% of
Net Assets

1 Capital One Financial

2.7 %

2 Comcast Cl A

2.5 %

3 JPMorgan Chase

2.5 %

4 Oracle

2.4 %

5 eBay

2.4 %

6 FedEx

2.3 %

7 Medtronic

2.3 %

8 Wells Fargo

2.3 %

9 TE Connectivity

2.3 %

10 Time Warner

2.2 %

11 Intel

2.2 %

12 Apple

2.2 %

13 Discovery Comm Cl C

2.2 %

14 Exxon Mobil

2.2 %

15 Omnicom Group

2.1 %

16 MasterCard Cl A

2.1 %

17 Illinois Tool Works

2.1 %

18 Texas Instruments

2.1 %

19 Home Depot

2.0 %

20 Microsoft

2.0 %

21 Merck

2.0 %

22 Unilever

1.9 %

23 Bank of America

1.9 %

24 3M

1.9 %

25 Liberty Interactive Cl A

1.9 %

26 Dell

1.9 %

27 State Street

1.8 %

28 DIRECTV Cl A

1.8 %

29 Cenovus Energy (US shs)

1.8 %

30 Aflac

1.7 %

31 Covidien

1.7 %

32 Parker Hannifin

1.7 %

33 Franklin Resources

1.7 %

34 Goldman Sachs

1.6 %

35 Disney

1.6 %

36 Best Buy

1.6 %

37 Wal-Mart Stores

1.6 %

38 Google Cl A

1.6 %

39 Viacom Cl B

1.6 %

40 Bank of New York Mellon

1.5 %

41 Northrop Grumman

1.4 %

42 Applied Materials

1.3 %

43 Devon Energy

1.3 %

44 Kohl’s

1.3 %

45 Diageo ADR

1.3 %

46 Automatic Data Process

1.2 %

47 Delphi Automotive

1.1 %

48 American Intl Group

1.1 %

49 McDonald’s

1.0 %

50 Aon PLC

1.0 %

51 Boeing

1.0 %

52 Baxter International

1.0 %

53 Harley-Davidson

0.8 %

54 HJ Heinz

0.6 %

Devon Energy (DVN-$58)
Devon is a North American oil and natural gas exploration and production company. The stock has been a poor performer, down from a high of $94 last year and an all-time high of $127 in 2008. With nearly 60% of its reserves in natural gas, Devon is widely perceived to be a gas company, and its stock price has traded down with natural gas prices. However, 80% of Devon’s revenues and over 80% of our business value estimate stem from the company’s oil and liquids business. Based on our estimates, the stock is now trading at just over half of its 2013 asset value. And we are not assuming any oil price recovery in our numbers. An additional reason we are attracted to Devon is the way management allocates capital. It seems that most oil and gas managements have a “bigger is better” mentality. Devon instead focuses on per-share value. In the past two years, Devon has used excess cash to reduce its share base by 10%. Selling at less than 10x expected earnings, at half of estimated asset value, and with a history of repurchasing its shares, we are pleased to add Devon to our portfolio.