Fixing The Shiller CAPE Model
Philosophical Economics wrote a great piece about the downside of relying on the Shiller CAPE ratio. While the tool has been criticized because it has been consistently stating that equities are overvalued for a large part of the last decade, very few have proposed a solution to fix the model. This piece goes into great detail to describe how changes in earnings due to small tweaks in GAAP and the treatment of goodwill have affected it. Perhaps, Pro-Forma adjustments are the solution? However, changes definitely need to be made in order for investors to continue to claim that the Shiller CAPE is still a credible model going forward.
KKR Charging Its Own Investments I-Banking Fees
A little over two weeks ago, payment processing company First Data received a $3.5B equity injection from its controlling private equity companies. I noticed this when the highly levered company’s bonds dropped in yield significantly from this action and made some big news in the credit markets. This financial engineering move has the potential to save the First Data billions of dollars going forward if they decided to call their debt and reissue at assumed lower borrowing rates with an improved credit outlook. However, I came across this article that shows KKR went ahead and just took $40mm out of that $3.5B total for underwriting fees. I’ve never heard of a P/E firm pulling this move, but it could potentially be the industry standard for private companies with multiple large owner interests going forward.
The End of QE (Is In Sight)
After its June meeting, the Fed has made plans to end its quantitative easing program in October of this year. In that month, the Fed will purchase its final $15B in bonds and mortgage backed securities (presumably until the next recession). This meeting was held before the release of the extra 288K+ non-farm jobs added in June, which goes to support the Fed’s theory that the economy will continue to slowly improve & support itself and that the stimulus isn’t needed anymore.
While this clears up one of the questions for the Fed, a more important question remains for investors: when will interest rates go up? When quantitative easing began during the crisis and rates plunged down to zero, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke stated over and over again that rates will remain low for a considerable time and to his credit, they have. However, FOMC members have been hinting at a future rate increase coming in the next few years which has led to a lot of speculation. Wall Street is starting to pay more attention to the FOMC “Dot Plot” which shows where each FOMC member thinks the Fed benchmark rate will be at certain points over the next two years and beyond.
This chart shows congruency among the members of their thoughts on the rates through 2014 and going forward after 2016, however we see a lot of differing opinions as to where the Fed benchmark will be in 2015 and 2016. There are a lot of differing thoughts on the future of rates, from PIMCO’s Bill Gross betting big on a “New Neutral” to Goldman’s Jan Hatzius’s thoughts. Only time will tell who the winner is, but we know who the loser will be; the FOMC having to deal with Wall Street’s prying questions and pressure over the next few years.
A Better LIBOR?
Interesting piece by Quartz on how a new company called Credit Benchmark which is aiming to create more reliable and transparent benchmark data. With banks being accused of manipulating LIBOR and a handful of other reference rates, it sounds like this company could have a shot. It reminds me of IEX, the exchange created after the controversy caused by predatory high frequency trading earlier in the year. I really hope this pans out and becomes the new normal because after all of the lawsuits being brought on banks in the past few years, some ethics and credibility in major financial institutions is much needed.
More:
-How to improve the lack of liquidity in the credit markets?: get rid of the complexities of the debt issues and make them similar to the equity markets on the exchanges.
-We just had DOW 17,000 yet short selling is low?
-Charts that show why trading volume remains low: increased regulation & ETF popularity
-Effects of taxes show that being the best trader in the world doesn’t compare to buy-and-hold results
–Myths that hurt investors. Just remember, you’ll never be Buffett, nor will the stock market make your riches for you.
-Everyone will eventually own a smartphone and Android will disappoint from here on out
Curious Analysis 