Monthly Recap: Rationality vs. Institutional Imperative

Equities

world equity markets 2014-04-30.2014-05-30

The Nifty pitched in with a +7.97% bump (+10.35% in USD terms)

Major
DAX(DEU) +3.54%
CAC(FRA) +0.72%
UKX(GBR) +0.95%
NKY(JPN) +2.29%
SPX(USA) +2.40%
MINTs
JCI(IDN) +1.11%
INMEX(MEX) +2.27%
NGSEINDX(NGA) +7.77%
XU030(TUR) +7.85%
BRICS
IBOV(BRA) -0.25%
SHCOMP(CHN) +0.63%
NIFTY(IND) +7.97%
INDEXCF(RUS) +9.65%
TOP40(ZAF) +1.91%

Commodities

Energy
Brent Crude Oil +1.35%
Ethanol +4.87%
Heating Oil -1.51%
Natural Gas -5.54%
RBOB Gasoline -1.18%
WTI Crude Oil +3.40%
Metals
Copper +3.96%
Gold 100oz -3.39%
Palladium +3.27%
Platinum +1.79%
Silver 5000oz -2.08%

Currencies

USDEUR:+1.73% USDJPY:-0.42%

MINTs
USDIDR(IDN) +0.99%
USDMXN(MEX) -1.73%
USDNGN(NGA) -1.36%
USDTRY(TUR) -0.88%
BRICS
USDBRL(BRA) +0.13%
USDCNY(CHN) -0.20%
USDINR(IND) -2.04%
USDRUB(RUS) -2.15%
USDZAR(ZAF) +0.52%
Agricultural
Cattle -5.59%
Cocoa +6.21%
Coffee (Arabica) -13.98%
Coffee (Robusta) -10.70%
Corn -9.49%
Cotton -9.02%
Feeder Cattle +8.98%
Lean Hogs -3.53%
Lumber -7.36%
Orange Juice +2.80%
Soybean Meal -0.75%
Soybeans -2.53%
Sugar #11 +0.58%
Wheat -11.99%
White Sugar -1.45%

Nifty Heatmap

CNX NIFTY.2014-04-30.2014-05-30

Index Performance

index performance.2014-04-30.2014-05-30

Top Winners and Losers

DLF +49.91%
SSLT +51.31%
PFC +58.80%
DRREDDY -9.07%
GLENMARK -8.61%
DIVISLAB -7.68%
Pharma got whacked badly… it was a real estate and industrial show…

ETFs

INFRABEES +28.66%
PSUBNKBEES +23.23%
JUNIORBEES +14.23%
BANKBEES +13.71%
NIFTYBEES +7.57%
GOLDBEES -10.54%
Like a rocket…

Investment Theme Performance

Every single investment strategy ended in the green…

Sector Performance

sector performance.2014-04-30.2014-05-30

Yield Curve

yield Curve.2014-04-30.2014-05-30

Interbank lending rates

mibor.30days.2014-05-30

Thought to sum up the month

Warren Buffett:

My most surprising discovery: the overwhelming importance in business of an unseen force that we might call “the institutional imperative.”

For example:

  1. As if governed by Newton’s First Law of Motion, an institution will resist any change in its current direction;
  2. Just as work expands to fill available time, corporate projects or acquisitions will materialize to soak up available funds;
  3. Any business craving of the leader, however foolish, will be quickly supported by detailed rate-of-return and strategic studies prepared by his troops; and
  4. the behavior of peer companies, whether they are expanding, acquiring, setting executive compensation or whatever, will be mindlessly imitated.

Source: Warren Buffett: These were my biggest early mistakes

Public Sector Banks: Is this time different?

A tale of three indices

The NSE has three financial indices listed that provides a rare window into how different parts of the financial sector has performed over the years.

Index Inception Date
CNX PSU BANK 2004-01-01
CNX FINANCE 2004-01-01
CNX BANK 2000-01-01

Return profiles

Returns in the financial sector comes with some very fat tails. If one could consult an oracle on the timing of these big swings, there’s a pretty packet for them.

CNX FINANCE-returns-histogram

CNX BANK-returns-histogram

CNX PSU BANK-returns-histogram

Cumulative returns

If you had stayed invested since 2004-01-01, here’s how much you would have made:

Index Cumulative returns
CNX FINANCE 495%
CNX BANK 455%
CNX PSU BANK 265%

Note: These are cumulative numbers, not annualized returns

CNX FINANCE-returns

CNX BANK-returns

CNX PSU BANK-returns

If you notice, PSU banks are yet to recover from the draw-down that occurred August-2013.

Investors have been on a PSB binge ever since the Modi effect took shape. Will this time be different for investors?

[stockquote]PSUBNKBEES[/stockquote] [stockquote]BANKBEES[/stockquote]

Why do NRIs/FPIs pay more?

Regulatory gotchas

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) publishes a list of securities that are off-limits for NRIs and FPIs. This list can be found here.

As you can tell, the process is very unstructured and adhoc. The execution risk (the risk of buying a security that is off-limits) rests on the broker (StockViz). We have attempted to quantify that risk in terms of higher fees.

Operational friction

Typically, there are 3 parties to a transaction: the client, StockViz and Composite Investments. Composite provides margin, client executes trades through StockViz and the pay-in goes directly to Composite.

However, with NRIs, there is an additional party: the bank that manages the NRI’s PIS account. Here, Composite has to present the contract note to the bank, who will then transfer money from the client’s account to Composite. If there were any transactions that were deemed “off-limits” by the RBI, StockViz will only get to know about it at this stage. Also, with the additional cog in the wheel, there is an element of payment risk that we have attempted to quantify in terms of higher fees.

Account opening charges

All documents provided by the NRI/FPI needs to be notarized in India. These docs typically run into 20-30 pages. Plus, the account opening docs need to be couriered to the prospective client. We have quantified these charges in our upfront account opening fee of Rs. 5000/-

 
 

Weekly Recap: Certainty Is an Illusion

Equities

world equity markets 2014-05-23.2014-05-30

The Nifty ended -1.86% this week (-2.78% in USD terms)

Major
DAX(DEU) +1.79%
CAC(FRA) +0.59%
UKX(GBR) +0.42%
NKY(JPN) +1.18%
SPX(USA) +1.28%
MINTs
JCI(IDN) -1.59%
INMEX(MEX) -1.18%
NGSEINDX(NGA) +4.12%
XU030(TUR) +1.71%
BRICS
IBOV(BRA) -2.77%
SHCOMP(CHN) +0.23%
NIFTY(IND) -1.86%
INDEXCF(RUS) -0.48%
TOP40(ZAF) -0.56%

Commodities

Energy
Brent Crude Oil -0.96%
Ethanol +1.89%
Heating Oil -2.16%
Natural Gas +3.59%
RBOB Gasoline -1.41%
WTI Crude Oil -1.32%
Metals
Copper -0.94%
Gold 100oz -3.32%
Palladium +0.85%
Platinum -1.42%
Silver 5000oz -3.09%

Currencies

USDEUR:-0.01% USDJPY:-0.17%

MINTs
USDIDR(IDN) +0.53%
USDMXN(MEX) -0.04%
USDNGN(NGA) +0.19%
USDTRY(TUR) +0.73%
BRICS
USDBRL(BRA) +0.81%
USDCNY(CHN) +0.18%
USDINR(IND) +1.02%
USDRUB(RUS) +2.17%
USDZAR(ZAF) +2.57%
Agricultural
Cattle +0.99%
Cocoa +2.42%
Coffee (Arabica) -2.23%
Coffee (Robusta) -3.10%
Corn -2.77%
Cotton +0.17%
Feeder Cattle +2.26%
Lean Hogs -2.89%
Lumber -2.02%
Orange Juice +0.79%
Soybean Meal -0.75%
Soybeans -1.67%
Sugar #11 -0.46%
Wheat -3.76%
White Sugar -0.13%

Nifty Heatmap

CNX NIFTY heatmap 2014-05-23.2014-05-30

Index Returns

index performance 2014-05-23.2014-05-30

Top winners and losers

HINDUNILVR +7.45%
TECHM +7.65%
MPHASIS +10.16%
IDFC -11.83%
BANKBARODA -11.72%
CANBK -11.58%
Banks were hit by a wave of profit taking…

ETFs

INFRABEES +0.44%
NIFTYBEES -2.21%
GOLDBEES -2.31%
BANKBEES -3.29%
JUNIORBEES -4.32%
PSUBNKBEES -6.24%
Pretty much all in the red…

Investment Theme Performance

It was brutal for most investment strategies this week…

Sector Performance

sector performance 2014-05-23.2014-05-30

Yield Curve

Yields continue to trend lower. Is the market pricing in a rate cut?

yield Curve 2014-05-23.2014-05-30

Thought for the weekend

In an uncertain world, we cannot plan everything ahead. Here, we can only cross each bridge when we come to it, not beforehand. The very desire to plan and organize everything may be part of the problem, not the solution.
 
Small children often need security blankets to soothe their fears. Yet for the mature adult, a high need for certainty can be a dangerous thing. It prevents us from learning to face the uncertainty pervading our lives.
 
At the same time, a psychological need is not entirely to blame for the illusion of certainty. Manufacturers of certainty play a crucial role in cultivating the illusion. They delude us into thinking that our future is predictable, as long as the right technology is at hand.

Source: Certainty Is an Illusion

ETFs vs. Indices

ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) offer investors a convenient way to gain exposure to a particular index. Since these funds are not actively managed, they are measured by their how cheap they are (in terms of asset management fees) and their tracking error. Before we begin, some key terms:

Kurtosis

Kurtosis is a measure of “peakedness” of a distribution. For a normal distribution, Kurtosis is 3. Positive excess Kurtosis indicates fat tails while negative indicates peakedness.

Skew

Skewness is a measure of asymmetry of a distribution. Positive skew indicates a long right tail while a negative skew indicates a long left tail.

How effective have Indian ETFs been? Lets pull up some histograms and see for ourselves.

NIFTYBEES vs. CNX Nifty

NIFTYBEES-returns-histogram

CNX NIFTY-returns-histogram

The Nifty ETF actually shows a -ve skew and a lower kurtosis compared to the index. This is how tracking error and fees manifests itself in daily returns. However, their impact on cumulative returns is minimal. The story for less liquid and higher-fee ETFs are different.

PSUBNKBEES vs. CNX PSU BANK

PSUBNKBEES-returns-histogram

CNX PSU BANK-returns-histogram

Notice the big difference in kurtosis and skewness? This is tracking error personified. The story for the Juniors’ are not that different.

JUNIORBEES vs. CNX NIFTY JUNIOR

JUNIORBEES-returns-histogram

CNX NIFTY JUNIOR-returns-histogram

Given that there really isn’t much of a push either from investors or from asset management firms on ETFs, the dynamics are unlikely to change in the short term.