World Beta Blog

Repost from Oct 2010.  Will probably post again in 2016.

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“Because I believe that all criteria for investing (that is, good betting strategies) should have a logic that isn’t time specific, I believe that the alpha generators that make up the ultimate alpha generator should be timeless and universal. By that I mean that they should have worked over very longtime horizons and in all countries’ markets.” Ray Dalio, Founder Bridgewater

Any trading system that is based on uncovering alpha, at least to me, must have a fundamental reason why the strategy works.  If you cannot explain why the inefficiency exists, or understand the fundamentals behind a technical strategy then you are likely just data mining.  I can get on board with the Presidential Cycle (source: NDR) as there are possible monetary reasons that strategy would work (artificial election year stimulus).  We are currently in the most favorable year (3) of the cycle being the pre-election year. Also Crossing Wall St.

One popular system many people discuss is the “Sell in May and Go Away” (also known as the Halloween Indicator) strategy.  The system simply invests in the stock market from November – April, then moves to cash from May – October.  This strategy popularized by Yale Hirsh (who writes the informative and entertaining Stock Trader’s Almanac 2011), has its origins in the U.K. market as far back as 1935 (see must read paper “Are Monthly Seasonals Real?“).

The paper finds very strong evidence of abnormal performance in the UK since the 1600s, and Bouman and Jacobson (2002) find that the strategy works in 36 of the 37 countries they tested.

This strategy has performed mightily since 1950 in the US as the chart below indicates. This is what is great about the investment blogosphere – the velocity at which an idea whips around and lots of people can comment on it and share their input…Lots and lots more chatter here on: Abnormal Returns, Hulbert,and CXO.

If you take the strategy back to 1900 in the US, the results do not confirm for the first half of the century.  You have to ask yourself “What is the fundamental reason this strategy works?”  Some offer Seasonal Affective Disorder, holiday good tidings, pension flows, summer vacation, and tax season in April…

In any case, the new period starts Monday!

I created this chart today to see how many of the S&P 500 stocks had a positive net payout yield (dividends & net stock buybacks).  Turns out it is most, nearly 80%, which is great (R2K is less around half which is not surprising due to their smaller size, etc.)

Here is the chart.  I excluded the 10 worst capital destroyers as it caused the chart to scale funny.  Interestingly enough, half of the 100 or so companies with a negative payout yield actually had a positive dividend, including eleven over 3%.  

We sent out the below to The Idea Farm list recently, and the chart was so good I had to share it here.  

JDV includes this great chart that illustrates investing in the largest company in the US….good idea? 

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The Trillion Dollar Mistake

• 5 New Asset Classes with SocGen (upcoming)
• Macro Updates with Cornerstone  (upcoming)
• Inflation expectations and commodities with Guggenheim
• Cantor on Kamikaze QE
• McClellan on copper inventories
• Fundamental improvements with Janiczek
• and our GTAA paper update.

Technically this is in San Jose, but chatting early Sat AM with the AAII crowd, come say hello!

“Shareholder Yield: A Better Approach to Dividend Investing “

Discussed by:

Mebane Faber
Chief Investment Officer, Cambria Investment Management 

Attend This Meeting and Learn…
	How to find returns in a low return world
	Why focusing on dividends alone is a mistake
	A better approach to income investing

There are lots of cliches you hear when people are discussing dividends and buybacks.  Realize one of the biggest benefits of including net buybacks in your calculation rather than dividends alone is not necessarily including the companies that are reducing share count, but also avoiding the companies increasing it.

I ran a quick screen on the S&P500.  Of the 20 highest dividend yielding stocks, FIFTEEN had share counts that were increasing!  In some cases the share count swamped the dividend yield, actually turning the total amount of cash returned to shareholders into a negative number.  This is sort of a silent but deadly killer.  Investors think they are getting a nice return of cash, the really they end up owning less of the business.  Of the 30 worst companies with the biggest increases in shares outstanding, 18 had dividend yields over 2%.

Below is a simple graph of the stocks in the S&P with mkt cap weighted yields on the vertical axis.  

Fun article on the internal hedge fund managers at Berkshire.

Below is a fun webinar put on by Shiller/Barclay’s/IndexU.  Who better to hear chat about CAPE than Shiller?

My only comment is I think their current values on the consumer disc/staples are way off…but fun to hear them talk about CAPEs of railroads for the entire 20th Century!  Also good to hear they are doing research in foreign countries and sectors…

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Topics covered include:

• Long-term sector valuation: CAPE ratio
• Applying the momentum signal to avoid the “value trap”
• Best practices for both strategic and tactical use of CAPE

WATCH HERE.

One of the cool features of AlphaClone is the ability to sort the hedge funds with high exposure to a particular stock.  Below are a few funds and their % 13F long exposure to NFLX and AIG, two names up big yesterday.

This is an older post but I had a reader asking about a similar topic so I thought I would repost…

Here are some long term charts based on the data from Morningstar / Dimson Marsh Staunton.

Below are the best, middle, and worst case scenarios for the main asset classes of sixteen countries from 1900-2011.  All are real return series on a log graph (except the last one).

First, here are the best cases for returns on your cash.  This chart goes to show that leaving cash under your mattress is a slow bleed for a portfolio.  I excluded Germany after the first series as it dominates the worst case scenarios (in this case hyperinflation).

Best Case:  -2.30% per year

Middle:  -4.10%

Worst Case:  -100%

Next up is real returns for short term bills.

Best Case:  2.25% per year

Middle:  0.71%

Worst Case:  -3.63%

(Real Worst Case, Germany -100%)

Followed by the real returns for longer dated bonds.

Best Case:  3.04% per year

Middle:  1.40%

Worst Case:  -1.91%

(Real Worst Case, Germany -100%)

And finally, the real returns for equities.

Best Case: 7.43% per year

Middle:  4.60%

Worst Case:  2.00%

 (Real Worst Case, China, Russia -100%)

And the same chart presented non-log…

Good post by Thompson on another global value methodology, this time from the bottom up (via ValueWalk).