Weekly Recap: Confirmation Bias

Equities

world equity markets 2014-05-30.2014-06-06

The Nifty ended the week +4.89% (+4.60% in USD terms.)

Major
DAX(DEU) +0.44%
CAC(FRA) +1.36%
UKX(GBR) +0.20%
NKY(JPN) +3.04%
SPX(USA) +1.49%
MINTs
JCI(IDN) +0.88%
INMEX(MEX) +2.62%
NGSEINDX(NGA) +0.13%
XU030(TUR) +1.61%
BRICS
IBOV(BRA) +3.24%
SHCOMP(CHN) -0.45%
NIFTY(IND) +4.89%
INDEXCF(RUS) +3.69%
TOP40(ZAF) +0.64%

Commodities

Energy
Brent Crude Oil -0.69%
Ethanol -8.35%
Heating Oil -0.22%
Natural Gas +3.56%
RBOB Gasoline -1.71%
WTI Crude Oil +0.19%
Metals
Copper -2.55%
Gold 100oz +0.61%
Palladium +1.12%
Platinum +0.08%
Silver 5000oz +1.60%

Currencies

USDEUR:-0.04% USDJPY:+0.73%

MINTs
USDIDR(IDN) +1.38%
USDMXN(MEX) +0.58%
USDNGN(NGA) +1.02%
USDTRY(TUR) -0.89%
BRICS
USDBRL(BRA) +0.16%
USDCNY(CHN) +0.06%
USDINR(IND) +0.14%
USDRUB(RUS) -1.38%
USDZAR(ZAF) +0.12%
Agricultural
Cattle +2.21%
Cocoa +0.15%
Coffee (Arabica) -3.32%
Coffee (Robusta) +1.98%
Corn -1.71%
Cotton -1.01%
Feeder Cattle +1.85%
Lean Hogs +1.59%
Lumber -2.47%
Orange Juice +2.25%
Soybean Meal -2.38%
Soybeans -2.43%
Sugar #11 -2.25%
Wheat -1.51%
White Sugar -2.15%

Nifty Heatmap

CNX NIFTY.2014-05-30.2014-06-06

Index Returns

index performance.2014-05-30.2014-06-06

Top Winners and Losers

ONGC +23.14%
RELCAPITAL +23.77%
SAIL +24.00%
HCLTECH -6.40%
DRREDDY -4.33%
BOSCHLTD -3.54%
SAILed away…

ETFs

JUNIORBEES +6.30%
PSUBNKBEES +5.43%
NIFTYBEES +5.24%
BANKBEES +4.98%
INFRABEES +3.03%
GOLDBEES -0.75%
Another week of negative performance for Gold. Midcap stocks rallied…

Investment Theme Performance

High Beta and Quality-to-Price have consistently made the charts…

Sector Performance

sector performance.2014-05-30.2014-06-06

Yield Curve

Bonds got bid up, yields compressed across the curve…

yield Curve.2014-05-30.2014-06-06

Thought for the weekend

There are some people in the financial industry that look at both sides of an argument and make their decisions using realistic probabilities. The problem is you won’t hear many of this level-headed reasoning because it will get drowned out by the overconfident prognosticators that make their forecasts with complete certainty.

Source: Perma-Arguments

Public Sector vs. MNCs

On the NSE, you can find two indices: CNX PSE and CNX MNC. They have been around since Jan-1995 – providing a quantifiable glimpse into how badly Nehruvian socialism has fared in modern India.

Cumulative Returns

CNX PSE: +247.69%
CNX MNC: +619.05%

CNX PSE-returns

CNX MNC-returns

Value traps

There has been a lot of talk recently about reforming PSEs. The SEBI wants the 25% public shareholding rule to apply to all public sector companies as well. The earlier (UPA-2) government, finding no takers for PSE stock, got Goldman to form an ETF to put some lipstick on the sector. The Rajiv Gandhi Equity Savings Scheme gave out tax sops to get retail investors into “Maharatna, Navratna, or Miniratna” stocks.

As much as I would like to believe that things are going to be different this time, you can’t dismiss the fact that PSEs have only lost money for investors. Once the crutches come off, these firms will anyway have to go through gut-wrenching transformations to compete in the real world. That would be a better trigger to enter these stocks (if and when they happen) rather than now when all we have are promises.

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/-