Category Archives: market risk

The Alpha and Inflation of Commodities

Posted on by

Commodity prices rise and the world screams hyperinflation.

Elsewhere, alternative investment managers espouse the virtues of commodities as an asset class that generates “alpha” returns (i.e. returns not related to the overall direction of markets). The thing is, it’s hard to have it both ways.  The link between unexpected/expected inflation and equity prices in the short- and long-run is complicated.  High inflation grows earnings in nominal terms, which should grow equity prices in nominal terms. High inflation often leads to higher interest rates and a reduction in money supply through decisions by central banks to put a break on inflation. These higher interest rates stifle the economy and can lead to decreases in earnings, which will give rise to lower share prices ceteris paribus. Built-in inflation expectations where monetary policy is fairly predictable will probably give rise to high nominal equity market returns (but probably not high real returns as inflation has a frictional cost on the economy which often surpasses any gains from real wage declines.)

So if commodity inflation was linked to core price inflation, we would expect a much stronger link between commodities and equities. (Yes, there are a million more points to consider here and not all support this hypothesis.) (Also, obviously as an input into broad measures such as consumer price inflation commodity prices increase that measure, but the point is there is limited knock-on effect on other prices, so core inflation which typically excludes volatile energy and food prices is hardly moved. It’s core inflation that is a strongly autoregressive time series.)

But better than all that, the smarter, better education (and certainly more focussed) people at the Chicago Fed had put together a pretty compelling research paper on commodity prices and inflation (pdf). Check it out.

Commodity prices rise and the world screams hyperinflation. Of course they’re wrong.

Fixed Interest is a viable asset class

Posted on by

I heard someone talking on Classic Business tonight. Pity I didn’t catch his name so I can avoid his advice in future.

He was saying that he doesn’t see the point in investing in debt instruments.  He explained that the return is low and the risk high since if the company gets into trouble, you’ll likely only get a few cents on the dollar back.

Well, he’s wrong.

Risk and asset-liability matching

Fixed Interest investments are often the only investment that makes sense when you need to match or hedge fixed liabilities.  Naively consdering expected return only and not asset-liability risks  gives naive results.

Credit risk premia more than compensate for default experience over time

It’s worth exploring risk a little further. The caller stated that if the company gets into trouble, it’s likely the bondholders will also be hurt, and will likely only get a few cents on the dollar. Well he’s wrong here too.

The historical default frequency for investment great bonds (BBB and above) has been hardly more than a few single digit percent.  The Loss Given Default (how much an investor will typically lose if the bond issuer does default) is anywhere from 35% to 80%, depending on the seniority of the instrument, which estimate you trust, how it is measured and when the estimate was made. It’s because there are so few investment grade defaults that the data is so sparse and the estimates so wide. However, it’s clear that the likely return won’t be “a few cents on the dollar”.

I’m going to hunt round for some references here so you’re not just trusting my word.

Illiquidity premia = higher returns for some

Given the illiquidity of many corporate bonds, the expected returns are even higher if you as an investors are not considered with easy liquidation of your investment. This is a “pure risk premium” that you will earn over time without expected loss.  You could purchase extremely high quality, well-collateralised debt and earn a good return above risk-free as long as you have the patience and resources to hold it for long periods or until maturity.

Pension funds don’t have enough junk

Posted on by

Junk Bonds are debt instruments issued by corporates that have relatively low credit ratings.  They pay interest at high rates as a result.

Typically viewed as risky investments, the junk bonds boom of the 80s showed that there is more to junk than just a risky investment.

Locally, our pension funds and other retirement savings money should be more heavily invested in junk bonds. I’m surprised more people aren’t talking about this. It might be due to the limited availability of junk in the SA market. On the other hand, if demand picked up, I’m sure we could see more original-issue junk bonds as yields drop and become more attractive financing vehicles.

There are always marks for considering tax

Why should pension funds be invested in junk? Tax. Approved retirement savings vehicles in South Africa don’t pay income tax. Thus, the value of securities that would attract significant tax is higher for these investors than for the market as a whole. If risk and return are balanced for the market as a whole, the extra return available to retirement vehicles through not paying tax is a bonus over and above that appropriate for the risk.

Conversely, pension funds should stay far away from tax-efficient instruments such as preference shares. The prices of these instruments have already been bid up by tax-paying investors. Continue reading →

Losing a Million (or R18,000 at least) (updated)

Posted on by

In How Not to Lose Money in Make a Million I showed that the game was massively more likely to lose you money than make you money.  It may be a great way for the promoters to gain some new client and some media coverage, but it’s a really poor way to introduce the masses to trading and investing.

I noticed that the number of people reading that post had increased recently – large numbers of people were checking out the post weeks after I wrote it.

Then I checked the competition’s leaderboard.

Only 41 participants (out of 421) have made money (as of today). Fewer than 10% of the participants have made money.

I’m also concerned by the 123 participants who have R0 balances. I honestly don’t know whether they haven’t yet paid (why are they on the leaderboard?) or whether they have really managed to spectacularly lose everything in the short time the competition has been over. (Updated) I checked: The 123 participants with 0 balances haven’t yet funded their accounts. So not as dramatic as having already lost all their money, but still telling that so few people are actually prepared to play the game. Ironically, with the R1m prize money now spread over fewer players, the game just got less bad. At least for the players.

There are also 105 participants who are still on exactly R18,000 suggesting they haven’t traded yet. These guys have the best strategy for not losing money.

How not to lose money in Make a Million

Posted on by

I have a clear strategy for how not to lose money playing the Make a Million competition. As I explain it, you may come up with some smart tactics to win the competition and enhance your returns, but you’re on you’re own there.

So, how does one not lose money with the Make a Million competition?

Don’t enter.


You are overwhelmingly like to lose money if you enter this competition. I’ve said this before, and I’ve been right before. I’m right again.

There’s also the little idea that the  structure of the Make a Million competition increases risks of  financial meltdown

Let’s look at some hard statistics to show what I mean.

Telling statistics (what they don’t show)

In the MaM presentation, the organisers include some interesting statistics about number of trades, trading activity and many other metrics.

They don’t show average returns or performance.

So let’s look at some of the numbers:

Raw return data (excluding prize money) based on 2009 MaM competition.

Average Return -11.49%
Expected Loss R 1,149
Median Return -15.06%
Mode Return -9.12%
Probability of breaking even 25.00%
Probability of earning less than 10% 83.00%
Probability of doubling money 1.78%
Probability of winning 0.20%

Suddenly the competition doesn’t look so great, does it?  (This isn’t the first time, here is my analysis of the Comedy and Tragedy that was the 2008 Make a Million competition.) Continue reading →

Implied Pension Return Assumptions and the Equity Risk Premium

Posted on by

When companies value pension obligations and required contribution rates, they make assumptions about the expected future investment returns. (Accounting standards require market-based rates reflecting fixed interest returns, but that’s a separate point).

So what assumptions are pension funds making? The WSJ has an interesting article showing that the average US pension fund is assuming future returns of approximately 8%. To put that in perspective, yields on 30 year T-bonds in the US are about 3.9%, 10-year yields are below 3% and inflation is currently about nothing. This is a huge real return and suggests that many of these pension funds may be underfunded.

It’s also interesting to work out what Equity Risk Premiums these valuation assumptions imply. FinanceClippings makes  some educated guesses at likely portfolio construction, and estimates assumed ERPs of nearly 8%. For reasons I’ve described before, an 8% ERP is madness.

My own calculations

FinanceClippings assumes a simple portfolio mix of 50% equities and 50% government bonds in this calculation, and assumes the average yield will be consistent with 30-year assumptions. I would differ slightly here. If we are looking at an overall portfolio, I would expect some investment grade corporate bonds and property in the mix too. These assets could be expected to earn 1% to 2% over risk-free over time (after adjusting for expected default loss on the corporate bonds). These return assumptions may seem low to some, but this is another area where it’s easy to overestimate the possible returns based on inappropriate periods of data. Continue reading →