Market Musings Blog

Another Leg of the Economy Bites the Dust

Posted on 06.13.22 by Michelle Rand in Interest Rates, Investment

Over the last several years, the US economy has benefited from low-priced money in so many ways. One of those is ready capital for start-up companies, which allowed those start-ups to sell products and services at a loss. Uber, DoorDash, Rivian, Carvana… the list is long.

Recently, Uber announced higher prices, which are rippling through the short ride ecosystem. This is just one example of the end of low prices from the host of new companies that provide services that some view as part of daily life. No more can these companies glide along by using cheap capital; they must produce profits. No profits, no access to capital.

These price increases will also ripple into the overall inflation numbers we are experiencing.

If you’re invested in money-losing companies, time to take a long look at those financials. How fast do they burn cash, and how much cash do they have now? Check to see if the company has issued debt: what are the ratings on that debt? What has the trend of losses been – less losing, or more losing? This is just a start. Looking at other competitors who are also hungry for the same business but have deeper pockets is the second round of investigation. You might believe you have a promising stock only to find out that some private company you never heard of is about to take over its market.

In a larger sense, a strangled start-up environment will slow US growth – so this becomes everyone’s problem, not just that of investors willing to speculate by funding these companies. The true test will come from the jobs picture at start-ups: when layoffs come, you know reality is dawning.

What Will Home Prices Do During Today’s High Inflation?

Posted on 05.26.22 by Longenecker in Investment, Personal Finance

Much of the economy is in flux at the moment, so it’s difficult to find a trend that’s reliable. Stocks have put together several downtrends, interrupted by strong rallies. Interest rates have generally gone up, but this week, rates fell. Consumer spending is up in some venues, down in others. Shortages plague us here, but not there.

One trend, though, is covered nearly daily by the media: rising home prices. Homes are the single largest source of wealth for most Americans, so their prices have a big impact on our economy. With mortgage rates up and homes already so expensive, what can we expect in the future? More appreciation, or … declines?

The best historical example we have is the 1970s, when interest rates ratcheted up to unimaginable highs, and inflation was running rampant. From 1973 through 1982 – the worst period for rising prices and high interest rates that this country has of yet seen – inflation was running at about 9% a year. Home prices matched that rate nearly exactly. In the decade of the seventies, stocks returned roughly 5.5% per year, and home prices rose about 10% a year.

But using the 1970s experience is probably not as sensible as it seems. For one thing, housing became more volatile starting in the early 2000s, and prices decoupled from inflation. Home prices climbed dramatically from the late 1990s up until about 2006, at a rate far higher than inflation. Then, from 2008 through 2012, home prices crashed. It took years for some locales to recover. While inflation marched along, homes were moribund. Another surge began in about 2013 – and from then to now, homes have returned far more than inflation. This decoupling is reason to believe that perhaps the scenario of the 1970s is less relevant today than we might think.

We believe we may be entering a down cycle for housing, or at least a period when prices no longer match inflation. While many purchasers have paid cash for homes and are consequently less vulnerable to foreclosure, that will not prevent a softening in the price of this asset. There are always owners with mortgages dependent on high incomes to cover housing costs, and if a job loss arrives, that home is likely going to market – at a distressed price. Those lower prices affect entire neighborhoods. Even if we escape a recession, higher interest rates generally confiscate value from assets, and this time around, we don’t think housing will be exempt.

 

Volatility, As Expected

Posted on 05.06.22 by Cascade Investment Advisors in Investment

As broadcast well and thoroughly by the Federal Reserve, it has started to hike interest rates for overnight money (called the federal funds rate), beginning with 25 basis points (0.25%) early in the year, and now, because the perception is that the Fed is behind the curve fighting inflation, a full 50 basis points the other day.

This is a good time to review the three most important factors affecting stock prices:

  1. The level and direction of interest rates
  2. The rate of change in earnings
  3. Sentiment

Two of these are against us right now. Interest rates are rising, which confiscates value from stocks; and earnings growth is slowing. Sentiment, while not very rosy now, changes day to day and is not a reliable indicator of value, or even the likely direction of value.

We’ve been asked ‘how long will this last?’ No one knows, but typically bear markets last up to three years. The range, however, is disconcertingly wide. We’ve seen bear markets last three months. It’s likely, though, that after many, many years of great returns from stocks, future returns will be lower, following global growth downward.

For our part, the ‘holding tank’ where we keep prospective stocks that we may want to buy is expanding. On the bond side, we can now purchase tax exempt issues at 4%. We’ll buy at that rate; later we may get a chance at 5%, where we would also buy, and so on. In an economy that has long term trend growth of about 2%, a 4% tax free rate is solid.

Fundamentals matter less in bear markets than behavior. Microsoft is not a different company at $300 a share, where it sold one month ago, than it is at $277 today. It may sell at $150 sometime before this is all over; it is still not a different company. Remaining rational about values and understanding that the downtrend in place can offer opportunities is more important than trying to time the top or bottom of the market – because no one can do that.

Choosing the Best Credit Card

Posted on 02.28.22 by Cascade Investment Advisors in Investment

Choosing the Best Credit Card

A client asked us a simple question: What credit card is best for me? You would think this would have a handy answer, but alas, there are hundreds of credit cards on offer with thousands of permutations, the adverts for which all seem to end up in my mailbox at one time or another.

Card types are myriad; here are just a few.

  • Airline miles cards
  • Cash back/rewards cards, including several subcategories like for travel, groceries, etc
  • No annual fee cards
  • 0% APR (annual percentage rate, for when you do not pay off your balance) cards, which offer 0% interest for a time
  • Sign up bonus cards, which offer you credit or cash for acquiring the card

Cards can have several of these features at once; for instance, many cards are giving sign up bonuses these days. There are plenty of other niche-y cards as well, including for business, store-specific, etc. But we’ll discuss just a few types here, responding to what most people want.

First, some basic background. A credit card is different from a ‘charge card’- the credit card features a revolving balance whereas a charge card must be paid off every month. On average, US customers carry four credit cards. If you have card accounts you don’t use, please terminate them. It’s too easy these days for hackers to take advantage of an account you are not monitoring. (Note that closing a card may affect your credit score, so don’t close five cards at once!)

Next, we’re going to assume you have excellent credit and will qualify for the best cards out there.

Finally, let’s get one more thing out of the way. We tend to dislike Discover and Capital One cards because in our experience, the initial spending limits are low, and obtaining higher limits is difficult. That said, feel free to check out Capital One Venture, which is its travel card. This card has several iterations which offer, variously, no annual fee, no foreign transaction fees, 0% APR for several months, and cash back rewards for travel. Travel must be booked through Capital One Travel, but there are no blackout dates or other restrictions that you might run into with air miles cards. Tricky part: booking through Capital One Travel might not be the best deal in town; if its prices are higher than, say, Expedia, it won’t matter how great your cash back rewards are – you might lose in higher travel prices. Another warning: from personal experience, I can say Capital One’s customer service leaves much to be desired.

Also, to be fair to Discover, it does have a highly rated cash back card, Discover It. No annual fee, various cash back percentages depending on where you spend, and a low APR. As a bonus, it has a US based customer service department which claims you can talk to a real person any time.

Many card families offer a ‘concierge’ card with a high annual fee, such as Chase Sapphire Reserve, that comes with help making dining reservations, insurance offerings, extra travel deals, and so forth. You can explore those on your own, but from our reading, the Chase Sapphire and American Express Platinum cards receive high marks. These have fees in the hundreds of dollars per year, so you better travel a lot!

If you want to obsess about points/miles and their value, please check out The Points Guy, at thepointsguy.com. The Points Guy puts an actual value on the bonus awards you might receive from a card. So if you’re the type to optimize everything in life, now you have a source for the credit card realm.

Moving on to the more popular choices among cards, the chart below gives recent offers from some of the more highly rated cards (we used ratings from the Motley Fool, Bankrate, Lending Tree, WalletHub, The Points Guy and others to come up with this compendium). We included just one air miles card – the one closest to what I use personally, but there are many out there, if you want to pile up miles on a specific airline.

Happy hunting!

Credit Card Details chart

 

 

 

 

 

The Fed and the Green Economy

Posted on 01.31.22 by Cascade Investment Advisors in Government Shennanigans, Investment

While the Fed’s mandates have historically been financial in nature, recently, political/social mandates have also been imposed upon it. One of these is combatting climate change. It’s a puzzle to us how the Fed – which controls a portion of the interest rate curve and can encourage or discourage bank lending but only in the most general sense – is supposed to combat climate change. Its tools are not suitable for that purpose.

However, one of its tools – jawboning about hikes in short term interest rates – has inflicted considerable damage on the Green Economy,, by slaughtering the stocks of electric vehicle, battery, solar, wind, and other alternative power companies. Of course this is not a deliberate act. The fact is, these companies are light on profit, including Tesla. Many have never made money. Some never will. Green stocks are considerably ahead of the development of the green economy, which as a whole has not demonstrated robust, non-subsidized profits at the project level yet.

The decline in green energy stocks is not trivial. These companies need to be popular, so they can continue to raise capital to fund renewable energy. Without capital, projects cannot move forward.

There is one light at the end of the tunnel however, which will be anathema to consumers: much higher energy prices. As energy prices rise around the world, energy projects of all types – green and dirty – reach profitability faster. Profits help attract capital.

For the moment, though, life is going to be tougher for the renewables space, contra to the new political opinion that the Fed needs to combat climate change. This outcome should spark a debate about whether the Fed should be the instrument of this endeavor, and if so, how.