Markets

Cold Turkey?

13th August 2018 by Mark Potter Leave a Comment

In today’s news about the financial pressure being exerted on Turkey by the Trump administration, two blog posts I have made recently are brought together.

Currency fluctuation is a risk that can impact all portfolios

This is as I explained: because many emerging economies have large amounts of US dollar denominated debt, the cost of servicing that debt goes up if the dollar appreciates relative to the currency of the debtor nation. That is one of those ‘rule of thumb’ justifications for selling emerging market and broadly Asian stocks (although not logical for Japan and China, at least).

Tariffs have unpredictable consequences

In this case, tariffs aimed at Turkey (because they are not being nice to Donald, it seems), may lead to default on debts owned mainly by international banks, thus awakening sleeping concerns about the liquidity of the financial system when central bank money printing ends.

Thoughts

Turkey is not a small country and of course was once a significant regional power, so is unlikely to allow itself to be pushed around. It talks about new alliances with Russia, although allowing for not such ancient history, one would not see the two countries as likely best mates. But ‘need is must’ sometimes as the saying goes and I am sure President Putin would like more influence South West of the Black Sea.

A worry is that US foreign policy is now so ignorant that Trump sees Turkey as just another Middle Eastern country (because it is Islamic) and therefore a natural enemy of the US. As I write that is seems bizarre, but I do believe it is possible!

It would be odd if this particular non-sensical action by Trump caused the market sell off that is rather overdue, but it will be a nervous few days. Investors should keep an eye on events and be prepared to take any buying opportunities.

As a final thought, the Euro has been quoted as depreciating in today’s news as a contagion effect from the Turkish currency crisis. But it has hardly moved against Sterling – an indication of how uncertain an option the UK appears to international traders as the Brexit dithering continues. The Pound looks likely to continue to fall against the US dollar so portfolio exposure to global trading businesses will benefit.

It’s not cricket!

21st July 2018 by Mark Potter Leave a Comment

Talking about India – ups and downs

I am a follower of cricket and of course the highly regarded Indian cricket team is touring in the UK at the moment. England came out top of the one day international series but it was a good fight. India is also seen as a rapidly developing emerging investment market and has been a destination for large flows of investment funds in recent years. Of course, Brits know that Indian businesses can be large operations with multi national subsidiaries these days owning chunks of British industry, including such gems as Jaguar Land Rover.

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Why I don’t buy individual listed shares

13th July 2018 by Mark Potter Leave a Comment

ASOS

I notice today that shares in the on-line retailer ASOS fell 11% or so when it announced it was only going to grow sales by 25%. This is classically what happens when a share is priced on the basis of future profits growth, not current earnings. So although ASOS sells clothes, its shares are valued more like a tech company.

A little basic analysis

Bloomberg, the market data and analysis business, is estimating that profits at ASOS might make GBP100 million this year. Not bad, but not much on a market capitalisation of over GP4 billion. The price to earnings ratio published in over 70! Norms are in the range 10 to 20, by the way.

I also read that the company will spend about 3 times the profits estimate on new warehousing capacity (not in the UK, of course, because of Brexit). I did not quickly find out where it gets the money to pay for that.

A graph of the share price shows that investors who bought in after the last price crash would have done very nicely, but in my view the valuation is propped up by momentum not any recognised sign of good value or dividend prospects. You get a 1% or so yield for taking a huge risk.

Many of the shares will be held in large blocks by investing institutions and if they sell off the momentum reversal will see the price fall like a stone. A 50% loss is more than feasible, although I have no way of knowing that will actually happen. I am just using this as a classic example.

But maybe…

Some might think that the past results, the quality of the management, the changes in shopping patterns or similar mean that the share price has further to go. In the near term, that could be right. I would prefer that call to be made by a professional fund manager with access to all the latest data and maybe the opportunity to talk to the company’s top management. Best of all, I would like my fund manager to have bought the share after the last price collapse and now sold out on a large gain!

11% down?

Personally, I could tolerate my portfolio falling 11% over a few weeks in the event of a global stock market correction – what is called systemic risk, because I know that will be reversed over time and I can live on my reserve assets. But losing 11% in a day and maybe much more permanently is not a risk I think anyone should take without having plenty of other resources. I will be sticking to my portfolio of diversified funds.