Viking

LC, the last 5 years have not been all that kind to the big banks: 1.) tens of billions paid out in fines 2.) exceptionally stringent regulation were imposed by regulators; costs to comply were very large 3.) banks were required to build up/hoard capital (with minimal dividends and stock buybacks) 4.) interest rates in US fell to generational lows (grealy reducing net interest income) 5.) constant fear US was about to slip back into deflationary spiral Since the Trump election, the last 20 months have been kind to the banks. 1.) no more massive fines (small ones, yes) 2.) we have passed peak regulation; will be reduced in coming years 3.) era of capital hoarding has passed; capital returns now are at or exceeding 100% of earnings 4.) interest rates are now on a solid path of increasing with benefits flowing through to net interest income 5.) US GDP growth is solid, with forecasts of 3-4% real growth for Q2. Given how worried everyone is right now, I am guessing US growth will surprise to the upside in the 2H 18. As much as I may not like Trump the man, I think much lower taxes, much less regulation, solid GDP growth and a pro US trade message will result in a stronger US economy and job growth. You are right, the nest 5 years will be different. My guess is what happens will likely be quite different from what people are talking about today. Inflation rising more quickly than expected may be the real threat that few people are talking about right now. What if the US economy continues to deliver solid growth for the next 4 or 5 years... many experts are predicting a recession in late 2019 or 2020.

If It's not asking too much, what other stalwarts do you have? Throughout this year I've intermitently been on brk, google and davita, accordingly to the price fluctuations, but I don't see them the same way I see brk... Thank you. Ps: added brk today. 18% of the portfolio now. Rolling, my favourite group right now are the large US banks (surprise, surprise). For the past couple of years I have viewed them as turnaround plays. However, I now view the big US banks as more like stalwarts. As an example, you can buy BAC today at $29. It will earn about $2.55 in 2018 and close to $2.90 in 2019. 100% of earnings will be returned to investors for the next few years (2% dividend and 8% stock buybacks). It will grow top line by about 4% and bottom line by about 15% for the next few years. Under Trump US GDP growth may actually accelerate. The Fed will continue hiking rates. Mobile banking is dramatically lowering costs. Operating leverage continues quarter after quarter. Deregulation has legs. Do I expect 30% per year from my big US bank stocks? No. I will be very happy with 15-20% returns. Like shooting fish in a barrel. :-) PS: I do think at some point in the next couple of years investors are going to fall back in love with bank stocks where they will bid up the PE multiple. When I see This happen I will be happy to sell and wait in the weeds for the next fat pitch.

Over the years I have held BRK as a bond substitute. I have held it for short periods of time (sold it after it has run up 6 or 8%). Rinse and repeat. We will learn over the next couple of years if the bond bull market is officially dead. If we are indeed in a rising interest rate environment (i.e. if Gundlach is correct with his prediction that the 10 years US treasury could rise to 6% in the next 3 or 4 years) then at its current price BRK looks like a solid buy for portfolios as a substitute for part of their bond holdings. Peter Lynch, in his book One Up On Wall Street, when analyzing stocks he suggests dropping them in one of 6 buckets; BRK to me would be classified as a stalwart. Solid company, well managed, slow grower. With a lower expected return. He would have some stalwarts in his portfolio to provide protection as they typically sold off less than other holdings. After purchase, if the stock ran up in price (and hit his sell price target) he would sell and buy another stalwart that was out of favour with Mr Market and on sale. Pretty simple but very effective over time.

What I really like about Gundlach is his presentations run about 1 hour long and he goes into a fair bit of detail to explain to listeners why he thinks what he thinks. It is a great way to educate yourself on how the big funds think and work. And it is free :-) He just held a webcast (June 12) and I can’t wait to listen to it (I missed the live version and it always takes about a week to become available as a replay): https://doublelinefunds.com/webcast-schedule/

Cardboard, pre-Trump, I would have agreed with your comments. I worked in the dairy business for many years and understand the subsidies and the hidden tax it represents on consumers. Until Trump is gone there is no way I would want to make big changes to dairy, egg or poultry industries. Change is needed. However, we also need a trade partner we can trust and where the new agreement will be honoured and respected. If we have learned anything from Trump in his first 18 months it is that he cannot be trusted and that it is highly unlikely he will honour any agreement that is ultimately reached. He changes his mind on important issues more frequently than most people change their underwear. I also think Trump may be good as a change agent for many things. The benefits (and weaknesses) of free trade are better understood and more openly debated today. There are losers; and we can’t just assume they magically shift employment into growing industries (as most economists assume). I wonder if the MeToo movement is also due in some way to Trump (people getting so pissed of with his behaviour). There are many more examples like these two of where Trump may help create a more balanced discussion (than what existed before).

I wouldn't be so quick to declare a victory because the converse is also true. If you are looking to produce an export good why in your right mind would invest in production in the US. If you produce a mixed good that you sell domestically and abroad why would you invest to expand production when you could be hit with retaliatory tariffs at any moment? Also even with tariffs why would a company invest in US production in an area where it's at a comparative disadvantage when a few years from now this lunacy can go away? For example why would a company invest in aluminium capacity when in the near future it's at risk of competing with Quebec aluminium who's cost it has no hope of matching? Furthermore, don't you put American exports at risk when you tax their materials? Aren't Airbus planes gonna be cheaper than Boeing if Boeing has to pay 10% more for aluminium? What about autos? Those things use A LOT of aluminium these days. If demand goes down for these products won't there be layoffs? What about the industries that are targeted by retaliatory tariffs? Harley is already doing layoffs. Won't those get worse when Europe slaps tariff on its products? Is this what victory looks like? So much winning... Why would a company today want to build a plant in the US today? Lower taxes, lower regulation, cheap energy to name a few.... Part of our challenge in Canada is Federally/provincially we are moving in the opposite direction: higher government spending, higher taxes, more regulation, higher energy costs (can’t approve a pipeline to get oil to market)... I am normally pretty agnostic/optimistic but I do see clouds on the horizon.

Canada is certainly in a difficult position. It has integrated/hitched its economy to the US for decades; worked well for both countries for many years. Trump is turning everything on its head. And Trump has already won. Who in their right mind is building a new plant in Canada to service the US market? Can you imagine the discussions in the various board rooms right now on this topic? Trump wanting a 5 year sunset clause is another step; the threat alone will ensure most businesses take a pass on investing in Canada. Hard to see how this does not get much worse, absent Trump being removed from office. Fall elections in the US become even more significant; if Dems can’t take back control of the House of Reps then Trump will continue down his merry path.

Here was my response in the other thread.

Spekulatius had a great comment about competition and banks. His comment is copied below. How brand loyal are you to your financial institution. When is the last time you make a change? Bank account? Line of Credit? Credit Card? Mortgage? Investment Accounts/Advisor?

spekulatius, you discuss many things that I have been thinking about. My read is most people are actually very loyal to their financial institutions. Branding matters and is a big deal. Most people likely use different financial institutions for different products; however, once they set up all their accounts (direct deposit, paycheques, pay mortgage, pay bills, request cheques etc) they are very unwilling to take the time to do it all over again with another institution. They also likely have built personal relationships with people at their branch and will value these. They know where the ATM’s are located etc. And there is also a pretty steep learning curve for most people to learn and use all of the electronic functionality that is becoming available (smartphone, tablet and PC); passwords have been set up. Unless they are upset, most people will not want to start over with a new financial institution. It is very time consuming to do the research, pick a new provider, complete all the paperwork to transfer accounts, etc. It might sound simple but my personal experience (making changes) is it is quite stressful and time consuming. I think most people go with the flow. Unless something happens where they get angry with their current provider my read is most people stay with what they know. Apple is a great example of this. It has taken me and my family many, many years to learn the functionality of our iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV. Other products are cheaper and have solid functionality. Doesn’t matter. For electronics once people learn an ecosystem and they are happy it takes a big reason to get them to switch. I think banks and their electronic offerings will be the same... it will make banking more sticky. Here is my personal history and how long I have been with my 3 different financial institutions: - primary chequing accounts - 20 years (Bank A) - primary savings account - 20 years (Bank A) - line of credit - 20 years (Bank A) - credit card - 20 years (will be moving in the next year) (Bank B) - mortgage - 8 years (Bank B) - investment adviser - 20 years (although I did move from full serve to discount) (Bank C) Scale is also becoming even more critical for banking. The 4 big US banks will be spending much, much more money and so should be able to build and provide the best digital experiences for users. This will be key for investors to monitor moving forward. The only think that would cause me concern is if Amazon, Apple or even Google decided to enter banking in a big way (with a full suite of products). However, I don’t think it is imminent given the regulatory burden that it will put on their total business.

racemize, nice summary. Please feel free to incorporate anything I have written on the various topics that you find useful :-) I appreciate the opportunity to discuss and share ideas to the benefit of other board members. Here are a couple of thoughts on your paper: - C has stated they expect to return $60 billion over 3 CCAR cycles; the first cycle is almost over so they have a little over $40 billion to return to shareholders over the next 2 to hit their $60 billion total. Readers of your article may think that C has communicated there is $60 billion coming over the next 3 years. - revenue: I think the most important driver of bank top line revenue growth is GDP. If US and global GDP growth is strong the big banks should see solid revenue growth. A second factor driving top line growth is rate increases by the Fed (this is also tied to GDP). If investors feel US GDP growth will be solid then US banks would make a good investment choice. A third factor are all the investments the various banks are making in their business. It is only in the last couple of years that C and BAC were able to really get focussed on driving growth as prior to this they had their hands full dealing with legacy issues. - expenses: I think the most important driver of bank expense discipline is technology. It appears the banking industry as a whole will be a big beneficiary as technology continues to be implemented. This will allow the US banks to hold (in BAC’s case) or lower (moving forward in C’s case). A second driver of lower expenses may be the Trump administrations recent appointments to the various regulatory bodies and we should find out later this year how the regulatory environment will be streamlined which should lower expenses further. - the net result of higher revenue combined with flat to falling expenses is the operating leverage that Moynihan has been talking about every conference call. I noticed that The C CEO is also starting to talk up operating leverage. -lower taxes are also a very big deal for earnings growth in 2018. The banking sector benefitted much more than most other industries. Regarding capital return you may want to add a paragraph on the dividend for each of the big banks and how much it has gone up the past three year and how much it will continue to go up in the next couple of years, especially for the banks like BAC and C that are well under the 30% payout ratio. High dividend payouts is a big deal. Significantly growing dividend payouts is an even bigger deal. My guess is the continued growth in dividends will be a big factor in the market over time loving the big banks once again. Looking at share repurchases over a couple of years is also very powerful. C especially. C is reducing its outstanding shares by two hundred million every year or about 8% per year. Simply amazing. A 3 year chart showing how much the share count has been reduced is very powerful. Regarding credit quality, I think Mike Mayo has commented repeatedly that the loan books of the big banks are higher quality than they have been in decades; this should help provide some comfort that in the next recession losses will be much better for the big banks than they were in 2008.

Vote today was 3-0. It appears changes will be coming later this year that will reduce compliance costs for the big banks. Another change that will improve their profitability. The ‘story’ for the big banks just keeps getting better. :-) “The Federal Reserve Board, now led by Trump appointees, is set to take the most concrete step yet to roll back the Volcker Rule, which was key to Washington’s efforts to make the industry safer after the 2008 meltdown. The Fed’s vote, scheduled for Wednesday, would kick off an administrative process aimed at significantly reducing compliance costs for financial firms.” http://fortune.com/2018/05/30/fed-proposal-volcker-rule-trading-limits/

Real estate moves in very long slow cycles. Boomer generation experienced one end of the extreme with interest rates at +20%. The flip side of this is house prices were low and size of total debt was also low. In the past 35 years interest rates have fallen from +20% to sub 2%. And (no surprise) house prices have skyrocketed. Boomers who owned a house have hit a financial home run. First time buyers today are getting generationally low interest rates but they also are paying historically high prices and taking on record amounts of debt. As interest rates now normalize higher to 4 or 5% many first time buyers with massive mortgages (and little equity) are going to see their payments skyrocket. This is all after tax dollars. There likely will be a number of lessons that will be learned by the current generation of first time buyers. The lesson will be total amount of debt matters. Interest rates matter. And housing is not a sure fire road to riches (as it was for the boomer generation). Leverage is a wonderful thing when the trade is moving your way like it has for the past 35 years); however, leverage can also be financially devastating when it moves against you.

When Calculated Risk called the top of the US real estate market (I think he did this in 2005 or 2006) one of the key stats he was following was housing inventory. Significantly growing inventory was key to calling to turn. I have not been following the real estate market super close but I did take a look at my region recently (Fraser Valley, Greater Vancouver). Inventory for all property types is starting to climb year over year. http://www.fvreb.bc.ca/statistics/Package201804.pdf I still believe interest rates are key. If interest rates (and mortgage rates) in Canada continue to move higher something will have to give. Housing is such a large part of the Canadian economy any slowdown will not be good. The million dollar question is what can a Canadian (in a high priced market) do to protect themselves? 1.) sell. This is not an option for me today (my family would lynch me). Fortunately our mortgage is small and, if prices crash, our loss would be a fall in the equity of our residence. (Easy come easy go?) 2.) ? I have one strategy that I been executing is I have all of my investments in US $. If I sell a position and raise cash I leave it in US$. My thinking is if housing in Canada tanks then our economy will also tank. In this scenario I would expect the US economy to out perform the Canadian economy and US$ to out perform the CAN $. Not very sophisticated but it has worked very well the past 5 years.

Ericopoly, I have been on this board since 2003. I copied Cardboards quote because it captures my thoughts exactly. From reading your posts over many years I never had the impression that you were a professional investor. I hope you are successful as you work your way through your current challenges :-)

To go back to the original question, my read is the small investor has never been in a better position to ‘beat the market’. 1.) costs are pretty close to zero. Not too long ago I was paying hundreds of dollars for my full service broker to execute a sell order and the same amount to execute a buy order. It now costs me $10 a trade which given the size of my ordered and the (in) frequency of my trades puts my annual costs pretty close to zero. 2.) information available to small investors has never been as easily accessible or of the quality it is today. Company web sites are amazing with quarterly and annual reports, conference calls and industry conferences. I deal with RBC and their research is pretty good and costs me nothing; I am likely going to open an account with another bank just so I can have access to their research free of charge. There are very good investing web sites out there like this one. There are very good Economic web sites out there like calculatedrisk. Etc. Many good sites cost nothing (reinforcing point 1). 3.) business schools, the investment industry and business tv continue to teach the same things today that they did 10 and 20 years ago (much of it wrong in my humble opinion). 4.) large institutional investors are still bound by all the constraints Peter Lynch covered 30 years ago in his great book One Up On Wall Street. 5.) Small/retail investors are as dumb as ever - getting taught/fleeced by 3.) above. Most people still go through their entire life without learning the basics of money and investing. 6.) in Canada, about a decade ago the government gave small investors a gift called the TFSA. When combined with RRSP and RESP individual investors are able to pick from a menu of different options to maximize future after tax earnings. 7.) because of how the investment industry works (see 3, 4 and 5 above) small investors will continue to be given wonderful opportunities to make money buying stocks - just like the past 100 years! Note: there is a definite ebb and flow to investing... it was much easier to find crazy cheap buys in 2008 and 2009 when the stock market was bottoming (and everyone was panicking). Today in 2018 the bull market is likely in its later innings so it should not be surprising if it is more difficult to find crazy cheap companies. Do not despair... cheaper prices will return... :-)

US economy continues its to chug along... not too hot and not too cold. Should be very supportive for solid earnings for the big US banks who begin reporting results on Friday. With tax reform now in place BAC and JPM should report earnings per share growth of +30%. Amazing :-) “It is early, but currently it looks like 2018 is unfolding as expected - although, based on Q1 data, employment gains might be slightly higher than I originally expected.” http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2018/04/q1-review-ten-economic-questions-for.html

Thanks for posting. Very interesting to hear Munger’s thoughts on portfolio concentration and building wealth.

Thanks for doing the research... always good to get the facts :-)

I also wonder if this is why we are not seeing more aggressive share buybacks today. Buying the remainder of Allied World is also part of the bigger plan. The challenge is what is Allied World worth today? Given the size of the losses reported and the poor underwriting, it must be worth less than what it was purchased for. OMERS is going to want a premium.

They are not bullish. They still hold lots of cash. That is why they will never be able to achieve 15% with yields as low as they are today. But if they even achieve 10% priced at book value today, and hoping for a rerating at one point in time to 1,5 times book, that would still be a great investment. Investment performance has been poor on the equity (and hedging) side, but on the bond portion of the portfolio they are amazing. The fact that they sold everything just before Trump got elected when long term yields were at 1,5% is a master stroke. For an insurer the fixed income part of the portfolio is essential, and with Fairfax you have the best. Steph, yes, FFH has absolutely excelled with their bond portfolio decisions over the past 18 months. Their total portfolio is about $40 billion. Only $9 billion is currently in bonds; of this amount only $1 billion is 5-10 year duration and $2 billion is more than 10 year duration. It will be very interesting to watch where US interest rates go in 2018. If the long end (10 year plus) continues higher then bond losses will start to hit insurance companies book value when they report Q1 earnings. In a rising rate environment the size and average duration (years) of bond portfolios will become very important metrics for investors moving forward. Fairfax’s investment portfolio is ideally positioned for a rising rate environment. If long bond yields increase enough, and spreads widen on junk debt, it may hit book values enough to support a harder market in insurance pricing.

Reading the letter, it appears to me that Prem is less promotional and more fact oriented. Nice to see. Can someone explain to me what impact the following transaction will have on Thomas Cook India and also Fairfax? From page 9: “Quess has had a phenomenal run since we acquired our interest in it in 2013. Thomas Cook India invested $47 million in Quess in 2013, sold 5.4% last year for $97 million and retains 49%, which is currently worth over $1 billion. Because of Quess’ great success, Thomas Cook India intends to spin its holding in Quess out to its shareholders during 2018 so that Quess can be run independently as a public company under the leadership of Ajit Isaac. A big thank you to Madhavan Menon for nurturing Quess under the Thomas Cook India umbrella as it became large enough to be a freestanding company. Today, Quess is India’s leading integrated business services provider. With over 250,000 employees, the company has a pan-India presence with 65 offices across 34 cities, along with an overseas footprint in North America, the Middle East and South East Asia. It serves over 1,700 customers across five segments – Industrials, Global Technology Solutions, People and Services, Integrated Facility Management and Internet Solutions.”

John, I still like the big US banks - they are my risk on favourite. I like FFH at current prices - my turn around favourite. I am warming to the idea of BRK at or below $200 - my ‘instead of holding a bond’ favourite (I think Buffett would approve of this logic for BRK given what he wrote in his letter yesterday.)

I think BRK is the company they should buy. Stock repurchases are such a no brainer, especially at the current price.

Spekulatius, yes, Buffett’s age is the 800 pound gorilla in the room (and has been for years). My guess is the price of BRK would quickly fall to 1.2xBV and at that point the stock buybacks would kick in. Where the stock went from there would depend on the new leadership team and how they performed. It will be a very tough act to follow and expectations will be high. Very sad to think about...