Author: shyam

Weekly Recap: Workcation vs. Post-Work

world.2015-06-19.2015-06-26

Equities

Major
DAX(DEU) +4.10%
CAC(FRA) +5.06%
UKX(GBR) +0.64%
NKY(JPN) +2.64%
SPX(USA) -0.64%
MINTs
JCI(IDN) -1.24%
INMEX(MEX) +0.72%
NGSEINDX(NGA) -1.22%
XU030(TUR) +1.24%
BRICS
IBOV(BRA) +0.80%
SHCOMP(CHN) -6.37%
NIFTY(IND) +1.90%
INDEXCF(RUS) -1.12%
TOP40(ZAF) +1.91%

Commodities

Energy
Brent Crude Oil +0.09%
Natural Gas -1.49%
Ethanol +6.91%
RBOB Gasoline -0.81%
Heating Oil -0.54%
WTI Crude Oil -0.12%
Metals
Gold 100oz -2.46%
Silver 5000oz -2.48%
Copper +2.32%
Palladium -3.99%
Platinum -0.14%

Currencies

USDEUR:+1.72% USDJPY:+1.04%

MINTs
USDIDR(IDN) -0.18%
USDMXN(MEX) +1.53%
USDNGN(NGA) +0.03%
USDTRY(TUR) -1.32%
BRICS
USDBRL(BRA) +1.09%
USDCNY(CHN) +0.00%
USDINR(IND) +0.13%
USDRUB(RUS) +1.40%
USDZAR(ZAF) +0.35%
Agricultural
Cattle -2.18%
Cocoa +2.03%
Coffee (Arabica) +4.49%
Corn +8.84%
Lean Hogs -0.33%
Lumber -2.14%
Soybean Meal +5.26%
Soybeans +3.09%
Wheat +14.64%
White Sugar +3.04%
Coffee (Robusta) +2.71%
Cotton +5.93%
Feeder Cattle -2.65%
Orange Juice -1.33%
Sugar #11 +4.05%

Credit Indices

Index Change
Markit CDX EM +0.20%
Markit CDX NA HY +0.37%
Markit CDX NA IG -1.17%
Markit iTraxx Asia ex-Japan IG -3.62%
Markit iTraxx Australia -5.28%
Markit iTraxx Europe -8.32%
Markit iTraxx Europe Crossover -40.54%
Markit iTraxx Japan -6.79%
Markit iTraxx SovX Western Europe -3.42%
Markit LCDX (Loan CDS) -0.02%
Markit MCDX (Municipal CDS) -0.92%
Alexis Tsipras want the Greek to decided if they want to accept the bailout terms set by the creditors. Referendum is set on the 5th of July. What will happen if they reject it?

Nifty Heatmap

CNX NIFTY.2015-06-19.2015-06-26

Index Returns

For a deeper dive into indices, check out our weekly Index Update.
index.performance.2015-06-19.2015-06-26

Sector Performance

sector performance.2015-06-19.2015-06-26

Market Cap Decile Performance

Decile Mkt. Cap. Adv/Decl
1 -1.35% 62/69
2 +4.31% 70/60
3 +2.18% 69/61
4 +3.60% 70/61
5 +3.14% 70/59
6 +2.60% 74/56
7 +2.74% 69/62
8 +2.48% 64/66
9 +1.59% 62/68
10 +2.66% 72/59
Rally ho!

Top Winners and Losers

UNIONBANK +6.94%
UPL +7.20%
BAJAJHLDNG +8.33%
INFRATEL -6.49%
TECHM -4.11%
CANBK -4.10%
Is Infratel going to feel the heat of Airtel’s OneWeb investment?

ETF Performance

BANKBEES +2.86%
PSUBNKBEES +2.17%
NIFTYBEES +1.94%
INFRABEES +1.67%
JUNIORBEES +1.11%
CPSEETF +0.92%
GOLDBEES -1.48%
PSU banks: caught between dilution and survival.

Yield Curve

yield Curve.2015-06-19.2015-06-26

Bond Indices

Sub Index Change in YTM Total Return(%)
GSEC TB -0.20 +0.20%
GSEC SUB 1-3 -0.16 +0.60%
GSEC SUB 3-8 -0.22 +1.25%
GSEC SUB 8 -0.24 +2.11%
Rally on the long-end…

Investment Theme Performance

Equity Mutual Funds

Bond Mutual Funds

Thought for the weekend

Technology is on track to permanently replace a great deal of human work. No job is truly safe. Cultural destruction goes hand-in-hand with job destruction. The expectation that work will be a central feature of adult life is going to dissipate for a significant portion of society.

However, while we wait for this future, a small but growing number of workers are instead petitioning the boss to combine work and vacation: time away from the office that includes a few days working from an exotic locale.

Sources:
A World Without Work
This Summer, How About a Workcation?

Investing in European Equities

Why Now?

Here are the top 5 reasons why investors should look at European equities:

  1. The ECB’s $1.1 trillion bond-buying program is beginning to kick in.
  2. The slide in the euro’s value against the dollar has also made European exports more competitive.
  3. Valuations appear attractive.
  4. Eurozone corporates are less leveraged, and their profitability has remained resilient.
  5. Greece is a source of uncertainty. Investing during uncertain times bears outsized returns.

How?

Unless you have a foreign equities trading account, the only way you can invest in European equities are through feeder funds or international funds. Feeder funds are just a wrapper around another fund. One such fund is the Religare Invesco Pan European Equity Fund. It feeds into the Invesco Pan European Equity Fund (MorningStar.)

It can be argued that investing in a narrow geographic is riskier compared to investing in a broad international fund. We had highlighted one such fund, the Birla Sun Life International Equity Fund Plan A, in our post about investing in non-rupee assets. If you compare the two, between 2014-03-03 and 2015-06-25, Religare’s fund gave an IRR of 1.27% vs. Birla’s 7.14%download Although this blows when compared to the CNX Midcap (IRR of 48.41% in the same period), remember that investing is all about prospective returns.

Risks

There is always the risk that Greece will blowup and drag Italy down with it, causing the Eurozone to implode. Tack on the risk of active management and currency risk (the rupee might appreciate against the euro), it becomes a pretty scary proposition. But remember, investing during uncertain times bears outsized returns.

Call us to discuss whether this fund is right for you.

Momentum should be part of every portfolio

The Two Anomalies in Finance

Momentum and Value remain the two “anomalies” in finance. The Efficient Market Hypothesis cannot explain why value investing, where investors pick up “under-priced” stocks, and momentum investing, where investors bet on stocks that have already run up, give out-sized returns compared to the rest of the market. After all, aren’t markets supposed to discover the “right” price and negate these effects?

Investing in Momentum

Value investors get a lot of face-time in media – people like to hear about stocks that are “hidden gems” that can suddenly come alive and give out-sized returns. However, very little is spoken about momentum investing. This results in investment portfolios that are underweight momentum.

The problem with momentum investing are the large draw-downs. When momentum stocks tank, they do so spectacularly. The draw-down keeps away most mutual funds from seriously pursuing this strategy: a) they can’t get out easily, and b) if they show too much volatility, investors will revolt.

But individual investors don’t have these constraints if they learn to embrace volatility.

Comparing Momentum Returns

Our FundCompare tool allows you to see how momentum investing has fared over different time-frames and compare their returns to whatever mutual fund you own. For example, if you compare Momentum with the ICICI Value Discovery Fund, here’s how the monthly returns compare:

Between 2014-01-01 and 2015-06-18, Momentum has had an IRR of 70.16% vs. ICICI Prudential Value Discovery Fund’s IRR of 50.05%download

How much should you invest?

Risk, at the end of the day, is whatever allows you to sleep at night. You could start with a 10% allocation and scale till you reach your limit. Whichever way you choose to go bout it, our Momentum Theme will be ready for you.

Weekly Recap: What is Life?

world.2015-06-12.2015-06-19

Equities

Major
DAX(DEU) -1.40%
CAC(FRA) -1.75%
UKX(GBR) -1.10%
NKY(JPN) -1.14%
SPX(USA) +0.75%
MINTs
JCI(IDN) +1.00%
INMEX(MEX) +0.60%
NGSEINDX(NGA) -1.08%
XU030(TUR) +2.55%
BRICS
IBOV(BRA) +0.89%
SHCOMP(CHN) -13.32%
NIFTY(IND) +3.03%
INDEXCF(RUS) +0.65%
TOP40(ZAF) +0.09%

Commodities

Energy
Brent Crude Oil -1.87%
Ethanol +0.88%
Heating Oil -2.07%
Natural Gas +2.32%
RBOB Gasoline -3.63%
WTI Crude Oil -1.28%
Metals
Palladium -3.98%
Silver 5000oz +1.90%
Copper -3.70%
Gold 100oz +1.74%
Platinum -0.96%

Currencies

USDEUR:-0.67% USDJPY:-0.66%

MINTs
USDIDR(IDN) -0.03%
USDMXN(MEX) -0.38%
USDNGN(NGA) +0.05%
USDTRY(TUR) -0.77%
BRICS
USDBRL(BRA) -0.53%
USDCNY(CHN) +0.02%
USDINR(IND) -0.78%
USDRUB(RUS) -2.09%
USDZAR(ZAF) -1.78%
Agricultural
Coffee (Arabica) -4.41%
Coffee (Robusta) +6.65%
Lean Hogs -6.93%
Lumber +1.63%
Orange Juice -2.23%
Corn +0.00%
Cotton -0.84%
White Sugar +0.40%
Feeder Cattle -0.04%
Cattle -0.30%
Cocoa +0.62%
Soybean Meal +1.86%
Soybeans +3.33%
Sugar #11 -5.12%
Wheat -3.07%

Credit Indices

Index Change
Markit CDX EM -0.21%
Markit CDX NA HY -0.84%
Markit CDX NA IG +4.06%
Markit iTraxx Asia ex-Japan IG +2.43%
Markit iTraxx Australia +3.39%
Markit iTraxx Europe +9.01%
Markit iTraxx Europe Crossover +36.53%
Markit iTraxx Japan +4.22%
Markit iTraxx SovX Western Europe +2.81%
Markit LCDX (Loan CDS) +0.00%
Markit MCDX (Municipal CDS) +0.97%
China is going through whatever India went through in the 90’s. Europe is going through their quarterly Greece-related gyrations. And Indian markets woke up…

Index Returns

index.performance.2015-06-12.2015-06-19
For a deeper dive into indices, check out our weekly Index Update.

Market Cap Decile Performance

Decile Mkt. Cap. Adv/Decl
1 (micro) +1.32% 68/58
2 +2.63% 64/62
3 +2.92% 67/59
4 +4.06% 65/60
5 +3.86% 67/59
6 +3.84% 76/50
7 +2.58% 66/59
8 +2.74% 63/63
9 +2.69% 68/58
10 (mega) +2.70% 63/63
Rally across the board…

Top Winners and Losers

EICHERMOT +11.73%
RELIANCE +12.00%
GLENMARK +12.36%
MCDOWELL-N -6.31%
VEDL -4.87%
CONCOR -4.65%
This stopped making sense a long time ago…

ETF Performance

NIFTYBEES +2.96%
JUNIORBEES +2.60%
CPSEETF +2.39%
BANKBEES +2.12%
PSUBNKBEES +1.52%
GOLDBEES +0.51%
INFRABEES -1.00%
There is talk about #gold #bonds being floated around by the RBI. After the tepid reaction to inflation-linked bonds and gold-deposits, you would think they would approach this topic with a bit more humility…

Yield Curve

yield Curve.2015-06-12.2015-06-19

Bond Indices

Sub Index Change in YTM Total Return(%)
GSEC TB +0.13 +0.11%
GSEC SUB 1-3 +0.07 +0.20%
GSEC SUB 3-8 -0.16 +0.99%
GSEC SUB 8 -0.03 +0.59%
A smart recovery at the middle…

Investment Theme Performance

Equity Mutual Funds

Bond Mutual Funds

Thought for the weekend

Mutual Fund Performance Chasing

Introduction

Mutual fund sales brochures and distributors often highlight past performance. Why? Because performance sells. The disclaimer that “past performance is not an indicator of future returns” is buried in small-print at the back of the book.

To see how bad a predictor past performance is of future returns, we came up with a novel idea. We used the Relative Strength Spread that we wrote about recently and applied it to mutual fund returns. This gave us three things:

  1. Normalized returns with respect to CNX 500 irrespective of the fund’s benchmark.
  2. A visualization of the performance gap between the best and the worst funds. And,
  3. A parade of top-10 and bottom-10 funds across different periods of time.

Relative Performance

Here’s how the spread between the top and bottom-decile looks like with a 100-day lookback:
CNX 500.mf.relative-spread-index.100

And with a 365-day lookback:
CNX 500.mf.relative-spread-index.365

When the broad markets go up, the performance gap between the best and the worst funds widen. Some managers wring more out the markets than the others. However, during the bear phase, the relative performance between different funds compress. If the market is bad, they all look beige.

Longevity of returns

Is the out-performance sustainable? If you picked the best performing fund this year, will it retain its position the next? Click to embiggen:

mutual fund relative performance decile

None of the top performers in 2010 retained their spot in 2011; same as in 2013 vs. 2014. There were a few cases where funds in the top-decile slipped to the bottom decile the next year. It is a total crap-shoot.

Conclusion

There is absolutely no connection between past performance and future returns. If fund managers require a broad-based rally in the markets to out-perform, then they are in effect, chasing momentum.