Category: Your Money

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.

Index Update 27.06.2015

MOMENTUM

We run our proprietary momentum scoring algorithm on indices just like we do on stocks. You can use the momentum scores of sub-indices to get a sense for which sectors have the wind on their backs and those that are facing headwinds.

Traders can pick their longs in sectors with high short-term momentum and their shorts in sectors with low momentum. Investors can use the longer lookback scores to position themselves using our re-factored index Themes.

You can see how the momentum algorithm has performed on individual stocks here.

Here are the best and the worst sub-indices:

index momentum best 365 2015-06-26 png

index momentum best 50 2015-06-26 png

index momentum worst 365 2015-06-26 png

index momentum worst 50 2015-06-26 png

Relative Strength Spread

CNX_500 relative-spread-index 50 2015-06-26 png

Refactored Index Performance

50-day performance, from April 17, 2015 through June 26, 2015:

Trend Model Summary

Index Signal % From Peak Day of Peak
CNX AUTO LONG
7.17
2015-Jan-27
CNX BANK LONG
10.62
2015-Jan-27
CNX ENERGY LONG
25.82
2008-Jan-14
CNX FMCG LONG
11.66
2015-Feb-25
CNX INFRA LONG
47.92
2008-Jan-09
CNX IT LONG
88.10
2000-Feb-21
CNX MEDIA LONG
24.66
2008-Jan-04
CNX METAL LONG
58.47
2008-Jan-04
CNX MNC LONG
3.71
2015-Mar-12
CNX NIFTY LONG
6.84
2015-Mar-03
CNX PHARMA LONG
12.76
2015-Apr-08
CNX PSE LONG
24.69
2008-Jan-04
CNX REALTY SHORT
90.21
2008-Jan-14
A perk up in momentum metrics: RS-Spread has reverted to mean; bank and financials are showing some green shoots.

Correlation Update 27.06.2015

Nifty one year daily return correlations

Nifty one year daily return correlations

Nifty one month daily return correlations

Nifty one month daily return correlations

Bank Nifty one year daily return correlations

Bank Nifty one year daily return correlations

Bank Nifty one month daily return correlations

Bank Nifty one month daily return correlations

Midcap one year daily return correlations

Midcap one year daily return correlations

Midcap one month daily return correlations

Midcap one month daily return correlations

A lot of thick blue squares mean that positive correlations are high. Red squares mean negative correlations are high. Whites are the doldrums.

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.