Well you might have to scroll until the end to see my two cents worth in regard to the above questions. Honestly I wouldn’t have a clue, but the world and markets are interesting now so I thought it is time for another blog post!
The main reason I went for these headings is I am reading reports that beginner investors throughout the world are rushing into shares. The various search terms in google that are surging are ones such as the title above. Here are some others.
Top trending questions for Shares, past two months in Australia:
- Should I buy shares now?
- Which shares to buy now.
- How to buy Qantas shares.
- Will Webjet shares recover?
- What are NIB shares worth?
- How to buy oil shares.
- Where to buy shares Australia.
- Are Qantas shares a good buy?
- How to pay for CommSec shares.
- What are index shares?
This was from some research conducted by ASIC from the end of February until early May. An article discussed this in more detail here.
They were trying to protect the “mum and dad” investors. The implication was that turnover was higher, they were speculating and likely to rack up big losses due to inexperience.
I also suspect that will be the case eventually, if it isn’t already. Although I am not sure they have all done badly yet, perhaps they are even making a killing in the market?
“Dumb” money versus “smart” money?
This report made news in the first week of May. As I write markets continue to move higher. I wonder if perhaps ironically many of these “mum and dad” investors are dramatically outperforming most professional fund managers. It seems like the trend is for them to find a stock they are familiar with (Qantas, or simply the index, or Afterpay perhaps?) that has crashed in price in March, then buy.
Meanwhile many of the articles that are written by the professionals on Livewire markets in late March were boasting about the elevated cash levels they were carrying.
Maybe ASIC will soon issue a warning to fund managers to invest their own money in low cost index ETFs, and not to gamble trying to time the market as much.
From boom to gloom to boom in 2 months?
If had a $1 for every time I have seen the below market cycle sentiment picture the last 2 months I would have a lot of dollars.
What strikes me as weird is the confidence to which investors stated in various times in March where we were at in this cycle.
The most amusing of course was in February when the ASX200 falls from 7,150 to 6,850 and they quote Buffett about time to be buying in gloom. You usually know when to disregard it as those early calls often quote “Buffet” instead.
Just 2 or 3 weeks later things got more interesting when the ASX200 was 5,500. You could find many confidently expressing that this was clearly the denial phase, therefore clearly you should be selling a lot of your portfolio. At the same time though many were saying clearly capitulation has occurred so it makes sense to be buying a lot. Confused yet?
As I write now I seem to be coming across more comments that markets will keep going up because too many investors are bearish. Yet if I am seeing more and more investors saying this doesn’t that mean more and more investors have already turned bullish?
I am sure I have confused my readers now on this market sentiment analysis stuff, I have certainly confused myself anyway by writing this.
A good example of how fickle sentiment is might be how I have felt using twitter this year for following stock market news and opinions. As I said at the beginning of the year it gave me the sh*ts because everyone was bragging about how their portfolio rose 88% in 2019! That swung around so quickly though, FOMO was replaced by FEAR. Mid to late March I had to switch it off a lot of the time because it would have psyched me out of doing any buying whatsoever. A few more days of reading the news and various opinions might have seen me convert to a doomsday preppers lifestyle.
Certainly the markets have changed a lot again since March 23rd.
Is it time to buy Afterpay shares?
Now once again I think if I get too plugged into stock market forums etc I will be convinced to take on more risk. Seems like the Aussie thing to do is get your line of credit on your house (or your stimulus payments / $20k of early retirement fund releases), leverage that into a margin lending structure, then open up a CFD account using Afterpay, to punt on Afterpay going to $100 a share.
YouTube is going gangbusters with “market experts” opining on stocks, their follower counts are surging. You can search there for “ASX shares to buy”. You can find your favourite video with 80k views and join 500 odd people commenting to get comfort of what to do next. Get your “non-advice” answers from a youtuber that has seen it all in markets. Veteran 22 year old’s that were old enough to have survived the great market panic of late 2018 so therefore know what to do now.
New stock market gamblers in the US also, and Davey Day Trader
This theme of inexperienced investors taking risks in the share market since March is not only a theme confined to Australia as you can see from this article.
What if all the bulls and all the bears both get it dramatically wrong?
Earlier I confused probably the readers and definitely myself about where the consensus thinks markets are going. If you are a contrarian now you probably don’t even know what the consensus is to go against it!
Perhaps the contrarian view on the market’s direction from here is to have no view. Or that we stay in a range on the ASX of 5000 to 5,800 for a long time. Then spend a year or more of listening to bulls and bears criticising each other. That might be painful to listen to.
Rather then offer another two cents on that issue I thought I just might throw in some charts to show some of the dispersion in market performance.
Maybe some areas are dominated by FOMO, but some still show signs of fear?
I shall refer to the following link to reference many charts. Bear in mind the article was a little over a month old on April 9th. I think it still tells some interesting stories.
https://www.topdowncharts.com/single-post/2020/04/09/10-Charts-on-the-PE10-Valuation
Because the charts more reflect when markets were bottoming out in March they are less meaningful now from an absolute standpoint. They might provide some context over why markets were able to rebound sharply from the March lows though.
I think it still offers some insights into how much dispersion of performance in markets we have seen.
Investors who have focused a lot on investing outside of the big cap names in the US (or some glamour ASX thematic stories), are probably hardly feeling exuberant about their investment returns from the last couple of years. (well maybe I am just speaking for myself!). Think of themes such as value vs growth (yes I realise they are joined at the hip but refer to how many define these), emerging markets, small cap value in particular. Not a lot of FOMO in those areas.
But perhaps it is all different this time, the new normal?
Now for some usual rants
Disclaimer – These views on excessive premiums to NTA have been made before on this blog. Not much has changed so I have been wrong on this before and may well be so in the future!
Should I buy WAM shares?
I want to stress here that I have a healthy respect for the long term performance numbers of WAM. Geoff Wilson had done a good job over a long time and is generous with his time at the investor meetings. I have to call it as I see it though and I don’t like their latest format of the NTA reports.
A few things that have come to light since I last commented on them are as follows. Recent performance versus their benchmarks have been disappointing.
ASX LIC performance reporting
What I find more frustrating on that is not quickly being able to look up the figures for recent years. Investing is about the very long term of course. I would argue though that WAM over the last 3-5 years is a different beast to their first decade. Huge AUMs now, different staff making the calls. Knowing performance of the last 3-5 years might still have some relevance I would have thought. I hope they haven’t fallen in the trap of playing games with performance reporting.
ASX LIC comparison
Should I buy AFIC vs Argo shares?
Less extreme premiums to NTA have been seen recently in these two, but still a bit baffling to me at times. I have said that before of course. Despite some discounts occurring after that, we have swung around now to the point that nothing much has changed. So I have been proved wrong again, the premiums have more or less been sustainable so far.
I know they are popular with fans of the Peter Thornhill and the barefoot investor approach. Admittedly they are far more successful than me so time will tell what happens I guess.
Below is a chart of the movements in the discount / premium of AFIC over the years.
AFIC premium / discount to NTA
Is the AFIC share price a buy at these levels?
Will the rich premium to NTA may act as a headwind to future returns from these levels in early 2020, or will the many believers prove correct again and it is sustainable?
FULL REVIEWS ON AFIC, ARGO LICs
For more information on LICs such as AFIC, Argo etc. read below:
Other side to the older, low fee LICs, AFIC, ARGO, etc
Beware future tax policy
If you were buying a lot of WAM, AFIC vs Argo during the share market falls I would want to think that the debate around policies on franking don’t resurface again. When this occurred in early 2019 pre the election premiums quickly shrunk or disappeared on these LIC dividend favourites. WAM from around a 25% premium to only 10%. AFIC / Argo from 5% premiums to 5% discounts.
I suggest all investors should ponder how future taxation policies can be unreliable. With the economic headwinds from COVID-19 I think this is the case more than ever. I discussed this topic in a blog post here from 2018, on the very day Labor proposed some changes in regard to franking.
As crazy as it seems right now, the S&P 500 would only have to climb around 12% to get to all-time highs again!
Does it feel kind of wrong that us investors could soon potentially seeing new high levels of personal wealth, at the same time of unemployment rates of circa 20%? In that environment will there be much sympathy for those worrying about their franking credits?
Perhaps the saviour will be if the government locates another $60 billion of loose change behind the couch when reflecting on their next budget forecasts.
Great post, one of the more relatable things i have read in the last few months.
Thanks Trent. My post probably offers no insight on what happens next in markets. But so much has happened in the last 6 months I found it interesting writing about some surprising things. I never imagined the new small retail punters would flock to shares at a time like this.
welcome back Steve 🙂
Thanks peter!
Did you ever look at YOW ?
Hi Dani,
Normally I do tend to look at stocks that size with market caps low versus cash on hand.
However a few years ago I made a rule of thumb not to get involved where Bentley / Keybridge had an influence on things. So I haven’t really followed it.
Looks like it might have worked out for those who bought the last couple of months. Doesn’t look like many though looking at volumes. Most buying over the last few years might have been a stressful ride, judging by when I glance at it occasionally?
Any thoughts yourself or any luck with it?
Steve.
Steve,
Thanks a lot for that quick feedback.
I are not really sure if YOW is legit, see you also are cautious around YOW.
If you know it and trusted it then today was a reward for that.
A headscratcher.
Good article Steve, great to see you back.
Good call on Wilson, i sometimes wonder if he’s lost his way, even if in general, he seems to be reasonably professional.
In separate news I was pretty unimpressed with the lady from Coopers on a recent podcast this weekend.
ps: don’t be surprised if you (we) get our full allocation in NAB … only bank paying out dividends, at a time they are encouraged to build capital
NAB will be interesting, I wouldn’t have a clue how they will handle this. I mentioned a good experience with ANZ in 2009. But NAB that year massively scaled back a SPP that was about 20% in the money.
Take a look at the RHC announcement today. I hope NAB don’t look at that for guidance as I hardly own any NAB shares! Yet RHC was almost a 20% in the money situation at SPP closing date I think. NAB just 10% or so, so fingers crossed.
Thanks Simon, I think WAM should be happy to present all the periods of their performance figures and do so on an after fee basis. It is one of the rare LICs that can do so in an honest way and the long term figures will look fine. They should see it is a strength not a weakness. I know many others think the same way. I used to think he was good in all these issues but a bit puzzled now. On the board at ALF and that fund is still going and not wound up. Big buyback at ALF yet is on the board of future gen that are against buybacks. No buyback at WGB also.
Also they might one day want to go activist on the likes of TGG / CIE. I don’t think it is a great look that their recent performance figures coincidentally get hidden after a lean trot. It might get harder for them in the future to criticise other LICs than it has in the past.
Wednesday for NAB , and good calls on Wilson, hard to argue he’s consistent = red flag.
interesting list of search questions in your article… QAN was definitely one i heard people asking about …
Hi Steve,
How did you go with the share buyback I put in 7500 and got 5000 back not happy same deal last time.
Only the big boys get looked after again so much for being a shareholder
Paul.
Hi Paul,
My comments here were more about my strategy to hold onto tiny share parcels as there is not much to lose. These days I don’t find it any admin burden in doing so. I held a tiny $600 or so NAB shares from memory. My hope was that when applications close the price would only be about 5% above the SPP price and same when NAB made their final decision. I think in such a scenario there may have been way less applications and then they fulfill all of them. Then if the price holds my $30k application can bank a profit perhaps around $1,500. Price could fall below that in a couple of weeks but could also go higher. Odds are in my favour. Cost of money is cheap these days.
As it turned out markets are surging and demand is huge. I can’t complain with these things as my holding was so tiny anyway. So even though I applied for $30k, I got the minimum 2,500 parcel and sold first thing. (share price is much higher now!).
Reading a bit more now since on these SPPs this year I think holders of bigger parcels than me might be getting screwed, so I can understand other’s frustrations.
One thing to keep in mind though is retail investors get to decide when the odds are way more stacked in favour. For example making the bpay payment is easier when the stock subsequently goes to 25% indicative profit as we have witnessed on many SPPs this year. Institutions have to decide in a day or so and their new shares are only likely to be 7% or so in the money when they make the decision.
Despite making that point though I think retail are getting a rough deal this year.
But my strategy is purely keeping many different $500 or so parcels and seeing how I go. From that perspective I am not personally complaining about the process.
Hope that long answer makes sense!
Cheers
Steve.
This is Stephen Mayne’s opinion on some of these SPPs. Have a read of this and you are probably right to be annoyed.
https://www.firstlinks.com.au/small-investors-miss-out-as-institutions-and-banks-cash-in
I think he makes some good points.
Although I think an article debating this needs to be balanced. I don’t think he touched on the benefits that a company has in securing that institutional component. That is, within a couple of days, they know they have the capital. Hypothetically, if a huge portion is left to the retail component, they have to wait weeks to know whether retail investors will have the appetite. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and now we know that many weeks later of course retail investors are hungry for SPPs that are 10-30% ”in the money”.
Overall though I still agree with the Mayne article conclusion in that I think they should be giving much more of the institutional / retail split toward retail, compared with what they have been doing.
“Veteran 22 year old’s that were old enough to have survived the great market panic of late 2018 so therefore know what to do now.”
Great line!
I’m reminded of a line from John Kenneth Galbraith: We have two classes of forecasters: Those who don’t know – and those who don’t know they don’t know.
We stick to reading the numbers and investing based on those.
Yes I like that line about forecasting and also your plan there. Having said that the 22 year old day traders that I probably offended I suspect made a killing again today and are laughing at me!