Month: March 2020

Balanced Fund Bear Market and the benefits of Rebalancing

/ Kiwi Investor / 1 Comment

Balanced Funds are on track to experience one of their largest monthly losses on record.

Although this largely reflects the sharp and historical declines in global sharemarkets, fixed income has also not provided the level of portfolio diversification witnessed in previous Bear markets.

In the US, the Balanced Portfolio (60% Shares and 40% Fixed Income) is experiencing declines similar to those during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and 1987.

In other parts of the world the declines in the Balance Portfolio are their worst since the   1960s.

As you will be well aware the level of volatility in equity markets has been at historical highs.

After reaching a historical high on 19th February the US sharemarket, as measured by the S&P 500 Index, recorded:

  • Its fastest correction from a peak, a fall of 10% but less than 19%, taking just 6 days; and
  • Its quickest period to fall into a Bear market, a fall of greater than 20%, 22 days.

The S&P 500 entered Bear market territory on March 12th, when the market fell 9.5%, the largest daily drop since Black Monday in October 1987.

The 22 day plunge from 19th February’s historical high into a Bear market was half the time of the previous record set in 1929.

Volatility has also been historical to the upside, including near record highest daily positive returns and the most recent week was the best on record since the 1930s.

 

Volatility is likely to remain elevated for some time. The following is likely needed to be seen before there is a stabilisation of markets:

  • The Policy response from Governments and Central Banks is sufficient to prevent a deepening of the global recessions;
  • Coronavirus infection rates have peaked; and
  • Cheap valuations.

Although currently there are cheap valuations, this is not sufficient to stabilise markets. Nevertheless, for those with a longer term perspective selective and measured investments may well offer attractive opportunities.

Please seek professional investment advice before making any investment decision.

For those interested, my previous Post outlined one reason why it might be the right thing for someone to reduce their sharemarket exposure and three reasons why they might not.

 

The Impact of Market Movements and Benefits of Rebalancing

My previous Post emphasised maintaining a disciplined investment approach.

Key among these is the consideration of continuing to rebalance an investment Portfolio.

Regular rebalancing of an investment portfolio adds value, this has been well documented by the research.  The importance and benefits of Rebalancing was covered in a previous Kiwi Investor Blog Post which may be of interest: The balancing act of the least liked investment activity.

Rebalancing is a key investment discipline of a professional investment manager. A benefit of having your money professionally managed.

Assuming sharemarkets have fallen 25%, and no return from Fixed Income, within a Balanced Portfolio (60% Shares and 40% Fixed Income) the Sharemarket allocation has fallen to 53% of the portfolio.

Therefore, portfolios are less risky currently relative to longer-term investment objectives. A disciplined investment approach would suggest a strategy to address this issue needs to be developed.

 

As an aside, within a New Zealand Balanced Portfolio, if no rebalancing had been undertaken the sharemarket component would have grown from 60% to 67% over the last three years, reflecting the New Zealand Sharemarket has outperformed New Zealand Fixed Income by 10.75% per year over the last three years.

This meant, without rebalancing, Portfolios were running higher risk relative to long-term investment objectives entering the current Bear Market.

Although regular rebalancing would have trimmed portfolio returns on the way up, it would also have reduced Portfolio risk when entering the Bear Market.

As mentioned, the research is compelling on the benefits of rebalancing, it requires investment discipline. In part this reflects the drag on performance from volatility. In simple terms, if markets fall by 25%, they need to return 33% to regain the value lost.

 

Investing in a Challenging Investment Environment

No doubt, you will discuss any current concerns you have with your Trusted Advisor.

In a previous Post I reflected on the tried and true while investing in a Challenging investment environment.

I have summarised below:

 

Seek “True” portfolio Diversification

The following is technical in nature and I will explain below.

A recent AllAboutAlpha article referenced a Presentation by Deutsche Bank that makes “a very compelling case for building a more diversified portfolio across uncorrelated risk premia rather than asset class silos”.

For the professional Investor this Presentation is well worth reading: Rethinking Portfolio Construction and Risk Management.

The Presentation emphasises “The only insurance against regime shifts, black swans, the peso problem and drawdowns is to seek out multiple sources of risk premia across a host of asset classes and geographies, designed to harvest different features (value, momentum, illiquidity etc.) of the return generating process, via a large number of small, uncorrelated exposures”

 

We are currently experiencing a Black Swan, an unexpected event which has a major effect.

In a nutshell, the above comments are about seeking “true” portfolio diversification.

Portfolio diversification does not come from investing in more and more asset classes. This has diminishing diversification benefits over the longer term and particularly at time of market crisis.

True portfolio diversification is achieved by investing in different risk factors (also referred to as premia) that drive the asset classes e.g. duration (movements in interest rates), economic growth, low volatility, value, and market momentums by way of example.

Investors are compensated for being exposed to a range of different risks. For example, those risks may include market risk (e.g. equities and fixed income), smart beta (e.g. value and momentum factors), alternative, and hedge fund risk premia. And of course, “true alpha” from active management, returns that cannot be explained by the risk exposures just outlined.

There has been a disaggregation of investment returns.

US Endowment Funds and Sovereign Wealth Funds have led the charge on true portfolio diversification, along with the heavy investment into alternative investments and factor exposures.

They are a model of world best investment management practice.

 

Therefore, seek true portfolio diversification this is the best way to protect portfolio outcomes and reduce the reliance on sharemarkets and interest rates to drive portfolio outcomes.  As the Deutsche Bank Presentation says, a truly diversified portfolio provides better protection against large market falls and unexpected events e.g. Black Swans.

True diversification leads to a more robust portfolio.

 

Customised investment solution

Often the next bit of  advice is to make sure your investments are consistent with your risk preference.

Although this is important, it is also fundamentally important that the investment portfolio is customised to your investment objectives and takes into consideration a wider range of issues than risk preference and expected returns and volatility from investment markets.

For example, level of income earned up to retirement, assets outside super, legacies, desired standard of living in retirement, and Sequencing Risk (the period of most vulnerability is either side of the retirement age e.g. 65 here in New Zealand).

Also look to financial planning options to see through difficult market conditions.

 

Think long-term

I think this is a given, and it needs to be balanced with your investment objectives as outlined above.

Try to see through market noise and volatility.

It is all right to do nothing, don’t be compelled to trade, a less traded portfolio is likely more representative of someone taking a longer term view.

Remain disciplined.

 

There are a lot of Investment Behavioural issues to consider at this time to stop people making bad decisions, the idea of the Regret Portfolio approach may resonate, and the Behavioural Tool Kit could be of interest.

 

AllAboutAlpha has a great tagline: “Seek diversification, education, and know your risk tolerance. Investing is for the long term.”

Kiwi Investor Blog is all about education, it does not provide investment advice nor promote any investment, and receives no financial benefits. Please follow the links provided for a greater appreciation of the topic in discussion.

 

And, please, build robust investment portfolios. As Warren Buffet has said: “Predicting rain doesn’t count. Building arks does.” ………………….. Is your portfolio an all-weather portfolio?

 

Stay safe and healthy.

 

Happy investing.

Please see my Disclosure Statement

 

Global Investment Ideas from New Zealand. Building more Robust Investment Portfolios.

Navigating through a Bear market – what should I do?

/ Kiwi Investor / 3 Comments

To all Kiwi Investor Blog readers, I hope you are staying safe and healthy. My thoughts are with you from a health perspective and for those facing the economic consequences on businesses and families from the spread of the coronavirus.

 

In the current market environment there is much uncertainty and many are wondering what to do with their investments.

The key questions being asked are should we switch to a more conservative investment or get out the markets all together.

 

One of the best discussions on why to remain invested is provided by FutureSafe in a letter to their client’s 15th March.

FutureSafe provide one reason why it might be the right thing for someone to reduce their sharemarket exposure and three reasons why they might not.

They have reproduced the letter in the hope that it might be helpful and of interest to the broader investing community.

As they emphasis, please consult your advisor or an investment professional before making any investment decisions. In New Zealand, the FMA has also provided recent guidance on this issue, KiwiSaver providers should be providing general (class) advice to members at this time. Their full guidance on Kiwisaver Advice is here.

 

I have provided the main points below of the FutureSafe letter to clients, nevertheless the letter is well worth reading in full.

The first question is do you have too much invested in the market?

As FutureSafe highlight, the average declines of bear markets since WWII have been over 30%, with some declines as large as 60%. It has generally taken on average 2 years to recover.

 

My last Post, What to expect, navigating the current Bear-Market, presented research from Goldman Sachs on the historical analysis of bear markets in US equities going back to the 1800s. At this stage, we are likely experiencing an Event-Driven Bear market.  These Bear markets tend to be less severe, but the speed of the fall in markets is quicker, as is the recover.

However, as Goldman Sachs note none of the previous Event-Driven Bear markets were triggered by the outbreak of a virus, nor were interest rates so low at the start of the market decline.

Historically Event-Driven bear markets on average see falls of 29%, last 9 months and recover within 15 months. Nevertheless, the current Bear could transform into a cyclical bear market if containment efforts lead to a larger global recession than anticipated.

 

Back to FutureSafe. You should only take the risk you can stomach, or technically speaking, is aligned with your “risk appetite”. Which is a level of risk that does not keep you awake at night.  Unfortunately, we often don’t know our risk appetite until we experience significant market events like we are experiencing currently. We are often over-confident as to the level of market volatility we can tolerate.

FurtureSafe conclude “Now that we are in a downturn, if you have come to the conclusion that your risk appetite is not what you thought it was, it’s perfectly OK to acknowledge that and change your safety net accordingly.”

However, before you do anything, FutureSafe ask you to read through and consider a few reasons why not to do anything at this time might be appropriate.

Reason 1

If management of risk appetite is not your motivation, perhaps you are planning on selling now, with the conviction markets will continue to fall, and you plan on buying back in later.

You are essentially making an active investment decision and attempting to time markets.

Timing markets is very hard to do. Professional Investors are not very good at it.

The data on the average mutual fund investor is also not very complimentary. As FutureSafe note the “the average mutual fund investor has not stayed invested for a long enough period of time to reap the rewards that the market can offer more disciplined investors. The data also shows that when investors react, they generally make the wrong decision.”  A mutual Fund is like a Unit Trust or KiwiSaver Fund in New Zealand.

I depart from the FutureSafe article and provide the graph below from PIMCO.

As PIMCO highlight, “Through no fault of their own – and especially when market volatility strikes – investors tend to be their own worst enemy.”

The graph below highlights that investors do not capture all of the returns from the market, which can be attributed to behavioural biases that leads to inappropriate timing of  buying and selling.

This investor behavioural gap is well documented.

In reference to market timing and in one short sentence, FutureSafe say “We’re probably not as good at these active calls as we think we are, and it might hurt more than help.”

PIMOC Behaviour gap

Reason 2

A large portion of returns are earned on days markets make large gains.

Although the extreme volatility being witnessed currently is very painful to watch, amongst them are explosive up days. Attempting to time markets might cause you to miss these valuable up days.

The research on this is also very clear.

As outlined in the Table below, if you had missed the top 15 biggest return days your yearly return would have been 3.6% compared to 7% per year if you had remained fully invested (this is over the period January 1990 to March 2020 and being invested in the US S&P 500 Index).

Missing large daily returns

Of course, the same can be said if you missed the largest down days. Nevertheless, good luck at avoiding these days and still being able to fully capture the returns from equity markets.  The down days represent the risk of investing in shares.

Most important is having a disciplined investment approach and an investment portfolio consistent with your risk appetite and is truly diversified so as to limit the impact of the poor periods of performance in sharemarkets.

In summary, FutureSafe note, “Missing just a few of the top up days, can cost you a large chunk of the market’s returns.”

 

Reason 3

Take a long-term perspective.

Overtime, and with hindsight, large market declines look like minor setbacks over the longer term, the very long term.

This is quite evident from the following graph.

Remember, the stock market fell by 20% over one day in 1987, the dot-com crash of 2000 or even the Great Financial Crisis of 2008 don’t look to bad with a longer term perspective.

Take a longer term perspective

As FutureSafe conclude “If you really don’t need the money for a long period of time (e.g. 10 or 15 years) these are best to ride out because they look a lot better in the rear view mirror than when you are going through it.”

“If you have a long enough horizon (10 to 15 years or more), the chances of doing well in the stock market is still quite good.”

 

Therefore, the key points to consider are:

  • Risk Appetite should primarily drive your allocation to sharemarkets, not the current market environment;
  • We can’t time markets, not even the professionals;
  • Be disciplined and maintain a well-diversified investment portfolio, this is the best way to limit market declines, rather than trying to time markets;
  • Take a longer-term view; and
  • Seek out professional investment advice

 

Keep safe and healthy.

 

Happy investing.

 

Please read my Disclosure Statement

 

Global Investment Ideas from New Zealand. Building more Robust Investment Portfolios.

What too expect, navigating the current Bear Market

/ Kiwi Investor / 3 Comments

After reaching a historical high on 19th February the US sharemarket, as measured by the S&P 500 Index, recorded:

  • Its fastest correction from a peak, a fall of 10% but less than 19%, taking just 6 days; and
  • Its quickest period to fall into a Bear market, a fall of greater than 20%, 21 days.

The S&P 500 entered Bear market territory on March 12th, when the market fell 9.5%, the largest daily drop since Black Monday in October 1987.

The 21 day plunge from 19th February’s historical high was half the time of the previous record set in 1929.

S&P500

Source: ETF.com

This follows the longest Bull market in history, which is a run up in the market without incurring a 20% or more fall in value. The last Bear market occurred in 2008 during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC).

The 11-year bull market grew in tandem with one of the longest economic expansions in US history, this too now looks under threat with a recession in the US now looking likely over the first half of 2020. Certainly, global recession appears most likely.

 

Global sharemarkets around the world have suffered similar declines, some have suffered greater declines, particularly across Europe.

Markets lost their complacency mid-late February on the spreading of the coronavirus from China to the rest of the world and after Chinese manufacturing data that was not only way below expectations but was also the worst on record.

A crash in the oil price, which slumped more than 30%, added to market anxieties.

 

Extreme Volatility

The recent period has been one of extreme market volatility, not just in sharemarkets, but currencies, fixed income, and commodity markets.

As the Table, courtesy of Bianco Research, below highlights, three of the five days in the week beginning 9th March are amongst the 20 biggest daily gains and losses.

After the 9.5% decline on 12th March, the market rebounded 9.3% the following day. The 7.6% decline on the 9th March was, to date, the 20th largest decline recorded by the S&P 500.

2020 is joining an infamous group of years, which include 1929, 1987, and 2008.

Extreme volatility

Where do we go from here?

Great question, and I wish I knew.

For guidance, this research paper by Goldman Sachs (GS) is helpful: Bear Essentials: a guide to navigating a bear market

To get a sense as to how much markets are likely to fall, and for how long, they look at the long-term history of the US sharemarket. They also categories Bear markets into three types, reflecting that Bear markets have different triggers and characteristics.

The three types as defined by GS are:

  • Structural bear market – triggered by structural imbalances and financial bubbles. Very often there is a ‘price’ shock such as deflation that follows.
  • Cyclical bear markets – typically a function of rising interest rates, impending recessions and falls in profits. They are a function of the economic cycle.
  • Event-driven bear markets – triggered by a one-off ‘shock’ that does not lead to a domestic recession (such as a war, oil price shock, EM crisis or technical market dislocation).

They then plot US Bear Markets and Recoveries since the 1800s, as outlined in the following Table:

Historical US Bear markets

Source: Goldman Sachs

From this they can characterise the historical averages of the three types of Bear markets, as outlined at the bottom of the Table:

GS summarise:

  • Structural bear markets on average see falls of 57%, last 42 months and take 111 months to get back to starting point in nominal terms (134 months in real terms (after inflation)).
  • Cyclical bear markets on average see falls of 31%, last 27 months and take 50 months to get back to starting point in nominal terms (73 months in real terms).
  • Event-driven bear markets on average see falls of 29%, last 9 months and recover within 15 months in nominal terms (71 months in real terms).

 

In their opinion GS currently think we are in an Event-driven Bear market. Generally these Bear markets are less severe, but the speed of the fall in markets is quicker, as is the recover. However, as they note none of the previous Event-Driven Bear markets were triggered by the outbreak of a Virus, nor were interest rates so low at the start of the market decline.

Therefore, they conclude, a fall of between 20-25% can be expected, and the rebound will be swift.

This makes for an interest couple of quarters, in which the economic data and company profit announcements are sure to get worse, yet equity markets will likely look through this for evidence of a recovery in economic activity over the second half of this year.

 

Happy investing.

 

Please read my Disclosure Statement

 

Global Investment Ideas from New Zealand. Building more Robust Investment Portfolios.

 

 

Why the Balanced Fund is expected to underperform

/ Kiwi Investor / 4 Comments

GMO concluded some time ago the time was right to consider moving away from the 60/40 Portfolio. Which is a “Balanced Portfolio” of 60% equities and 40% fixed income.

 

In a more recent note, GMO identify two key problems that lie ahead for the Balanced Portfolio, which are supportive of their conclusion. Which I think are problems facing all investors, but particularly for US and New Zealand investors.

 

First, stock and bond valuations are both extended, suggesting they will deliver less than they have historically.

As GMO point out, the math with fixed income (bonds) is straightforward. The 10-Year U.S. Treasuries yield is under 1% today. New Zealand’s yield is also near 1%.

Today’s yield is the best predicator of future returns.

Real returns, after inflation, will likely be negative over the next 10 years from fixed income.

In short, GMO highlight “It is more or less impossible for a bond index yielding roughly 2% to deliver the 5% nominal returns investors have become accustomed to over any period of time approaching or exceeding the index’s duration.”

 

GMO also highlight stockmarket valuations have risen. Recent market weakness provides some valuation relief, albeit, US valuations remain elevated relative to history.

 

GMO conclude, “the passive 60/40 portfolio will likely deliver disappointing returns. The low starting yield of a 60/40 portfolio represents the first problem we see ahead.”

 

The second issue identified by GMO is that risks within fixed income have risen, and not just from a valuation perspective.

As can be seen in the graph below, provided by GMO, duration is near its highest level in history. (Duration is the key measure of risk for a fixed income portfolio. It measures the sensitivity of a fixed income security’s price movements to changes in interest rates.)

Global duration

 

So, not only are interest rates at historical lows (low expected returns), but risk, as measured by duration, is amongst highest level in history.

 

This dynamic, low expected returns and heightened risk highlights the folly of an Index approach, similarly a set and forget approach in allocating to different asset classes. Similar dynamics also play out in sharemarket indices. Risks within markets vary over time.

Furthermore, the credit risk of many fixed income indices is also higher now than compared to the Global Financial Crisis. BBB and AA rated securities currently make up a greater proportion of the fixed income indices. Therefore, the credit quality of these indices has fallen over the last ten years, while the amount of corporate debt has grown. These dynamics need to be considered, preferably before the next credit crisis.

 

As GMO point out “Today, the sensitivity of a 60/40 portfolio to a change in yield is nearly as high as it has ever been. Both stocks and bonds are levered to future changes in discount and interest rates. Even a small amount of mean reversion upward in the aggregate yield of the 60/40 portfolio will be painful because there is less underlying yield to cushion any capital losses and those capital losses should be expected to be larger than normal for any change in yield given the high duration.”

 

Because of the higher duration and lower yields, smaller movements higher in interest rates will result in greater capital losses from fixed income securities compared to times when yields were higher. This is also the math.

At the same time, given the high valuation of sharemarkets, they are more susceptible to a movement higher in interest rates. Particularly those sectors of the equity market more sensitive to interest rate movements such as Listed Property.

Therefore, the historical diversification benefits from holding fixed income and equities are likely to less in the future.

 

GMO conclude “While investors have become conditioned to believe that a 60/40 portfolio delivers consistently strong returns, history shows this has not always been the case and the twin problems weighing on such a construction today suggest robust returns are unlikely going forward. Due to elevated valuations (low yields) and extended durations of both stocks and bonds, it is possible that in a future downturn investors will not receive the diversification they expect from their bond portfolio. Stocks and bonds have risen together and could certainly fall in unison as well.”

 

Although recent market events may have delayed this moment, they have not derailed the underlying dynamics within a Balanced Portfolio which will see it struggling to meet investor’s expectations over the next decade.  The risks identify above remain.

 

The Balanced Portfolio is riskier than many appreciate. I covered this in a previous Post. It is not uncommon for the Balanced Portfolio to have a lost decade of returns and losses of up to 30% over a twelve-month period.

 

Possible Solution

To address the threats to the Balanced Portfolio identified above GMO suggest the inclusion of Liquid Alternatives across multi-asset portfolios.

Such strategies provided portfolio diversification, importantly they have very little duration risk within them, a risk both equities and fixed income are exposed too.

GMO articulate the benefits of such strategies as follows: “Liquid Alternatives can provide diversifying and uncorrelated returns. While Alternatives should not be expected to keep up with robust equity markets, they can help shield large drawdowns given their lower equity beta exposure.”

Liquid alternatives largely generate their return outcomes independently from the returns generated by equity markets (beta) and fixed income market (duration). Thus they provide exposure to different risk and return outcomes from equities and fixed income.

GMO conclude “Liquid alternatives improve the robustness of our multi-asset portfolios by helping to protect against the problems that today’s low yields and high durations present.”

 

The benefits of such strategies has been evident over the last few weeks, helping to diversify portfolios from the sharp fall in global sharemarkets as a result of the spreading of the coronavirus.

 

To finish, I would add to the GMO commentary that well diversified portfolios should also have an exposure to Real assets such as Farmland, Timberland, Infrastructure, Natural Resources, Real Estate, TIPS (Inflation Protected Fixed Income Securities), Commodities, Foreign Currencies, and Gold.  These assets offer real diversification benefits relative to equities and fixed income, and to Balanced Portfolio in different macro-economic environments, such as low economic growth, high inflation, stagflation, and stagnation.

I covered the investment characteristics and  benefits of Real Assets to a Balanced Portfolio in different economic environments in a recent Post.

 

Happy investing.

 

Please read my Disclosure Statement

 

Global Investment Ideas from New Zealand. Building more Robust Investment Portfolios.