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CWS Market Review – January 13, 2012
Eddy Elfenbein, January 13th, 2012 at 5:31 amThe stock market continues to have an impressive 2012. The S&P 500 has closed higher on seven of the eight trading days so far. The index is now up 3.01% for the year while our Buy List is up by 3.57%.
Things are about to get much more interesting as the earnings reports start coming in for our Buy List stocks. JPMorgan Chase ($JPM) will report on Friday. Wall Street will be watching this report very closely for signs of how well the banking sector did during Q4. For most banks, it’s not going to be pretty.
The consensus among analysts is for JPM to report 90 cents per share, and what I’ll be paying most attention to is any full-year earnings guidance from the bank. JPM remains one of the best-run large banks around, and the stock is cheap. Be sure to visit the blog for the latest earnings news.
In this week’s CWS Market Review, I want to shift gears and talk more about the bond market since that’s often a future driver of stock prices. Beginning in late July of last year, the long end of the Treasury market took off while stocks slumped. Even though stocks have recovered somewhat, Treasury yields remain low. Very, very low.
Last week I said that the bond market’s 30-year bull run may already be over. The bond market had other ideas and yields dropped even lower this past week. The Treasury has had no problems auctioning off new debt. Just this week, an offering of 10-year debt was auctioned off at the lowest yield ever. On Wednesday, the yield on the five-year Treasury nearly hit an all-time low.
Honestly, I don’t see how much longer these low yields can last. The math is, quite simply, horrible. Investors can’t even get 2% from a 10-year Treasury while there are gobs of blue chip stocks yielding 3% or more. Sysco ($SYY), for example, yields 3.68% and Johnson & Johnson ($JNJ) yields 3.50%. Compare this to even a two-year Treasury which will fetch you a yield of just 0.22%. Sure it’s safe, but at what price?
Part of the reason for the wide stock-bond divergence is probably the safe haven effect. When things get bumped, investors gravitate toward safety. Or in this case, they stampede. The latest trouble spot is Germany where it appears that their economy is in a recession. Short-term yields there recently turned negative, so that may be driving some of the demand for our debt.
What’s especially puzzling about the latest rally in bonds is that it’s occurring amid positive economic news and a rally in cyclical stocks. Cyclical stocks often do well as long-term yields rise. This isn’t a hard rule, but it’s a well-known generality.
Last week I said that cyclical sector is starting to look more attractive. The Morgan Stanley Cyclical Index (^CYC) has outperformed the broader market for ten straight sessions. This clearly reflects greater optimism for the U.S. economy, although the market would have had a tough time becoming more pessimistic. To be fair, last week’s jobs report wasn’t too bad, and earlier this week, we learned that consumer credit had its largest monthly gain in a decade. I think it’s possible that Q4 GDP topped 4%.
As far as corporate earnings go, I continue to be a realist. I think that more than a few companies will disappoint investors this earnings season. We’ve already seen plenty of lower guidance. This is Wall Street’s old trick of lowering the bar to six inches off the ground and expecting a standing ovation for stepping over it. That ain’t gonna happen this time around.
Many of our Buy List stocks will serve as an oasis. Stryker ($SYK), for example, just gave very good preliminary guidance for 2012. The company won’t report its Q4 earnings until January 24th, but it already said to expect a sales increase of 11%. Stryker also said that full-year earnings should range between $3.72 and $3.74 per share. By my count, this is the second time the company has raised the low-end of its guidance.
But I was most impressed to hear the company say that earnings-per-share should rise by “double digits” in 2012. I don’t think many companies will be telling investors that this month, and even fewer will be able to deliver. I don’t have any such doubts about Stryker. We should also remember that last month the company raised its quarterly dividend by 18%. That sends a strong message to investors. Until now, I had been urging some caution towards Stryker until I heard better news. Now that it’s here I feel much better about the stock. Stryker is an excellent buy up to $55 per share.
Shares of CA Technologies ($CA), one of our new stocks this year, also had some good news this week. The shares got a nice lift on Thursday when Taconic Capital, a prominent hedge fund, announced that it had acquired a large position. Any holding of more than 5% has to be made public, and Taconic got a hair more than 5% so they most certainly knew their position would cause a splash. Shares of CA Technologies jumped 4.2% on Thursday. The stock is already up 7.9% for the year.
Taconic is known as an activist investor, which means they make recommendations about how to quickly improve a business. In the case of CA, I have to admit that their ideas are very sound. CA Technologies is a very strong buy up to $24 per share.
I’m particularly optimistic about Ford ($F) right now. The company said that it ended 2011 on a strong note and the stock seems to be riding the cyclical rally. I think the stock can reasonably hit $15 before the end of the year.
That’s all for now. Be sure to keep checking the blog for daily updates. The stock market will be closed on Monday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King. The civil rights leader would have been 83 years old. I’ll have more market analysis for you in the next issue of CWS Market Review!
– Eddy
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Morning News: January 13, 2012
Eddy Elfenbein, January 13th, 2012 at 5:31 amStocks, Euro Advance on Europe Debt Optimism
Europe Gets Some Reassurance in Auctions of Debt
RBS Securities Capitulation Sets Blueprint for Banks in Europe
Banesto’s Shrinking Loans Herald Recession in Spain
Hungary Bonds Drop Most in Week as IMF Demands ‘Tangible Steps’
Dip in China’s FX Reserves May Hasten Policy Shift
China’s Stock Futures Rise on Signs Europe’s Debt Crisis Easing
Goldman Sachs Sees Increasing Risk of Rising 2012 Oil Prices
Inside the Fed in 2006: A Coming Crisis, and Banter
Little Alarm Shown at Fed At Dawn of Housing Bust
Apple IPhone Sales in China Stores Suspended
Sears Supplier Loans Are Said to Be Halted by CIT Starting Today
Home Depot Accelerating Plans to Hire 70,000 Seasonal Workers
TPG Willing to Invest $1 Billion in Olympus
Paul Kedrosky: S&P 500 Forecasts vs. Results
Roger Nusbaum: Re-Equitization
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So This Central Banker Walks Into a Bar….
Eddy Elfenbein, January 12th, 2012 at 11:27 amThe Federal Reserve released full transcripts of its meetings from 2006. Apparently, they’re real jokesters over there. These are all real.
From January 31, 2006
CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN. Vice Chair.
VICE CHAIRMAN GEITHNER. Mr. Chairman, in the interest of crispness, I’ve removed
a substantial tribute from my remarks. [Laughter]
CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN. I am most appreciative. [Laughter]
VICE CHAIRMAN GEITHNER. I’d like the record to show that I think you’re pretty terrific, too. [Laughter] And thinking in terms of probabilities, I think the risk that we decide in the future that you’re even better than we think is higher than the alternative. [Laughter]From the March 27-28, 2006 meeting:
MR. FISHER. Well, actually, I’m sorry, but I want to follow up on the zloty. [Laughter] And, by the way, there are 24 million sheep and close to 4 million people in New Zealand.
Also in March:
MS. MINEHAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and welcome back.
CHAIRMAN BERNANKE. Thank you.
MS. MINEHAN. I notice that you are without a Hawaiian shirt. [Laughter]
CHAIRMAN BERNANKE. Next meeting.More March:
MR. POOLE. Okay. Mr. Chairman, it is a great delight to see a 200 percent increase in the number of beards around this table. [Laughter] Half of that was in my point forecast, and the other
half was not. [Laughter]From May 10, 2006:
MR. FISHER. In short, we view this economy to be something like a 2006 BMW Z4 Roadster—Bluetoothenabled, by the way. It’s complex, it’s highly integrated, it’s a technically advanced machine that apparently cannot help itself from exceeding the speed limit. [Laughter] Thank you.
MS. BIES. My husband will attest to that. [Laughter]More May:
MR. GUYNN. As an example of energy price pass-through, one member of our Small Business, Agriculture, and Labor Advisory Council related a story last week that is just too good not to share. He said he was at a neighborhood gas station, in the middle of filling the tank of his big SUV, when the pumps suddenly stopped across the entire gas station. An attendant came on the speaker system and announced that they were instituting an increase of ten cents a gallon. [Laughter] And the ringer is that the increase would apply not only to the remainder of the gas he was about to pump but what he had already pumped. [Laughter] Good story. What I would call real-time
pass-through. [Laughter]Still more May:
MR. KOHN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’d actually rather think about the metaphor of President Fisher—full frontal nudity—for our subcommittee than I would about the weapons of mass destruction and attack. [Laughter]
MR. FISHER. I never used the word “nudity” now. [Laughter]
MR. KOHN. Full frontal. Okay. [Laughter]
MS. MINEHAN. Take it out of the transcript. [Laughter]
MR. KOHN. “Let’s move on to monetary policy,” he said blushing. [Laughter]From June 28-29, 2006
MR. POOLE. In fact, if I were to be as neutral as I can be on this, I would say something like 50 percent odds that we would hold steady in August and 50 percent odds of another 25 basis point raise. You could take the mean of that and say, “Well, let’s just be done with it today and raise the funds rate an additional 12½ basis points.” [Laughter] But I think that would be pretty silly.
From August 8, 2006:
CHAIRMAN BERNANKE. Thank you. Let me briefly summarize what I’ve heard and add a few comments. I think one thing we can conclude is that this is not getting any easier. [Laughter]
From September 20, 2006:
MR. STOCKTON. Viewed from the appropriate perspective, 25,000 per month is not too bad—viewed perhaps from the perspective of the Administration of Millard Fillmore. [Laughter]
More September yuks:
MR. FISHER. As one CEO told me, the only subject that has been more analyzed than the housing situation is the birth of Brad Pitt’s baby.[Laughter]
Also September:
MS. PIANALTO Apparently people are not leaving much to chance. I heard a report yesterday morning that sales at religious stores for statues of St. Joseph have been soaring. [Laughter] It seems as though people who are trying to sell their homes are buying statues of St. Joseph because he’s the patron saint of real estate, and they’re burying him next to the “For Sale” sign. Unfortunately, there is no patron saint for central bankers. [Laughter]
From the October 24-25, 2006 meeting:
MR. STOCKTON. The last FOMC meeting had been only five weeks ago, so
we simply had not had time to accumulate our usual backlog of forecasting errors. [Laughter]More October:
MR. FISHER. The bottom line is that I think we’ve made substantial progress. But I think we have to be very mindful, Mr. Chairman, about perception if we’re to influence what really counts, which is inflationary expectations, and about whether those expectations are measured accurately by TIPS spreads, which I personally doubt. One need look no further than this morning’s Financial Times editorial or Bill Gross’s recent client letter—I’ve known Gross for twenty years, and I know he’s an oddball. Actually, I’d like that word struck from the record. [Laughter]
MR. MOSKOW. What do you want to substitute? [Laughter]
MR. FISHER. He’s increasingly addled, but his words do carry weight. In his recent client letter, he says, “Inflation is leveling off at admittedly unacceptable levels.” Hence my careful reference to the word “comportment.” I think first about the immediate statement, and I want to come to that.Also October:
MR. MISHKIN. Some people who know me quite well have been surprised at how brief some of my statements have been. So in this case I hope you’ll indulge me a little. [Laughter]
MR. STERN. The good times are over? [Laughter]More October:
MR. MISHKIN. The current Monetary Policy Report is really terrible. It’s dull; it’s sex made boring. I don’t want to criticize too much, but it is. [Laughter]
VICE CHAIRMAN GEITHNER. Tell us what you really think. [Laughter]
MR. MISHKIN. If it were a textbook, and I can tell you I know a lot about this, you wouldn’t sell one copy. [Laughter] So it’s a problem.Not funny, but historically interesting since it was in October 2006:
CHAIRMAN BERNANKE. Welcome. I have a bit of business to start with before we go to Dino. Last month the Congress passed, and the President signed, the Financial Services Regulatory Relief Act, which had a number of measures in it. Included among them were provisions that allow the Federal Reserve to pay interest on reserves and to reduce reserve requirements at our discretion. The act potentially has a lot of very important implications for the conduct of monetary policy, for payment systems, for contractual clearing balances, for data collection, and so on. Because of budget-scoring rules, the provisions of this act will not take place until October 2011. So I feel that, if we hurry, we can possibly be prepared in time. [Laughter] So if the group is amenable, I’d like to ask Vincent Reinhart to form a committee of senior staff around the System to begin talking about these issues. I assume at various intervals we’ll have reports and some discussions at the FOMC meeting about these issues. Do I hear any second?
From December 12, 2006:
MR. STOCKTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I worked my way through a final reading of the Greenbook this weekend, I was reminded of the old joke about the man who is told by his doctor that he has only six months to live. The doctor recommends that the man marry an economist and move to North Dakota. The man asks whether this will really help him live any longer than six months. The doctor says, “No, but it sure will feel a lot longer.” [Laughter]
Also in December:
VICE CHAIRMAN GEITHNER. The other difference between exhibits 4 and 5 is
“weaker” versus “subdued.” Does “subdued” sound weaker than “weak”? [Laughter] Or is “weak” weaker than “subdued”? -
Bloomberg: JPMorgan May Show Record Profit
Eddy Elfenbein, January 12th, 2012 at 10:14 amJPMorgan Chase ($JPM) will release its Q4 earnings tomorrow. Wall Street expects the bank to report earnings of 91 cents per share. This would be the first earnings drop since Q2 of 2009.
Here’s an outlook from Bloomberg:
JPMorgan, the biggest U.S. bank by assets, will probably report a 23 percent slump in fourth-quarter adjusted profit from the same period in 2010 to $3.74 billion, or 90 cents a share, according to the survey. Analysts lowered their estimates after Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon, 55, said at a Dec. 7 investor conference that trading would be “essentially flat” from the third quarter.
Banking Units
Revenue at the company’s investment-banking unit slid this year from $8.2 billion in the first quarter to about $4.5 billion in the third after backing out a $1.9 billion one-time accounting gain as concern mounted that Greece would default and U.S. lawmakers would fail to raise the debt ceiling. JPMorgan told investors in October that the division would face similar market conditions for the rest of the year.
Trading results got a lift in the third quarter as the price of bank debt fell, resulting in a so-called debt-valuation adjustment that boosted profits for JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. The accounting adjustment probably hurt banks in the fourth quarter as price of their debt rose, resulting in the opposite effect on earnings.
“Trading and investment-banking revenue has been weak and volatile, especially over the last two quarters, but really the last two years,” Najarian said. Investment-banking results will be worse for the fourth quarter than in the third quarter, he said.
Revenue Declines
Overall revenue at JPMorgan is expected to drop 13 percent for the quarter and 4 percent for the year, to $98.9 billion. Fixed-income trading revenue at U.S. banks may fall 12 percent from the third quarter, minus accounting adjustments, while equities revenue drop 10 percent and investment-bank revenue remains unchanged, David Trone, an analyst at JMP Securities, wrote in a Dec. 16 report.
Markets showed little improvement in the fourth quarter, as trading remained subdued, corporate and institutional clients stayed out of the markets and the holidays slowed deal and trading traffic.
Lenders will continue to face pressure from persistently low interest rates, which have compressed profit margins on lending. They’ll also have to contend with new restrictions on fees.
The so-called Durbin amendment, which limits what lenders can charge merchants on debit transactions, took effect on Oct. 1, affecting almost all U.S. banks and costing the top 25 about $1.5 billion, according to Jason Goldberg, a senior bank analyst at Barclays Capital in New York.
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Stocks Against Bonds
Eddy Elfenbein, January 12th, 2012 at 9:49 amStocks and bonds have acted in near-perfect opposition for the last few years. Since the middle of last year, bonds have soared while stocks have had trouble going anywhere. The S&P 500 is still below its high from April.
As I’ve said, I think the run in Treasuries has come to an end. The bond bull may have other ideas. Just yesterday, the yield on the five-year Treasury came very close to its lowest yield ever.
I think the next move that’s most likely is a falloff in Treasuries while stocks rise. That’s similar to what we saw in late 2010.
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Morning News: January 12, 2012
Eddy Elfenbein, January 12th, 2012 at 5:35 amFor Europe, Few Options in a Vicious Cycle of Debt
Hedge Funds Try to Profit From Greece as Banks Face Losses
European Stocks Up; Economic News Key To Momentum
Crisis Respite Gives ECB Room to Pause Cuts
Spain Doubles Target in Debt Auction, Yields Down
Royal Bank of Scotland to Cut 3,500 Jobs as it Exits Mergers
Geithner Prods China, Japan on Iran Oil Imports
Fed Officials Split Over Easing as They Prepare Interest Rate Forecasts
Foreclosure Filings Hit Four-year Low in 2011
Holiday Sales Keep Recovery on Track
A Blend of Politics and Pragmatism at the Auto Show
Chevron Sees 4Q Earnings Well Below 3Q
Raymond James Said to Near $930 Million Purchase of Broker Morgan Keegan
TheAcsMan: As If Yesterday Never Happened
Joshua Brown: Meanwhile, at the Treasury Auction
Phil Pearlman: Is Cisco Systems the Next of the Original NASDAQ Four Horsemen To Run?
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CA Technologies Up 6% After Hours
Eddy Elfenbein, January 11th, 2012 at 11:38 pmShares of one of our newbies, CA Technologies ($CA), got a nice boost after the close when Taconic Capital said they took a 5% stake in the company.
According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Taconic owns 5.14 percent, or about 25.4 million shares, of CA as of Jan 6, which it acquired for about $563.5 million.
Taconic said the company needed to increase margins in its enterprise business segment and implement a senior management compensation structure that is based mainly on total shareholder returns rather than on absolute growth metrics.
“The Reporting Persons recognize management’s recent efforts to begin addressing these issues, but they emphasize the importance of taking substantial and timely action in pursuit of these objectives,” Taconic said.
The stock was up about 6% after hours.
Oh….one more thing, Taconic is absolutely right.
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The Buy List Is Beating the Market
Eddy Elfenbein, January 11th, 2012 at 5:37 pmIt’s very early. Or really, it’s very VERY early, but our Buy List already has a lead over the S&P 500.
Through seven days of trading in 2012, the S&P 500 is up 2.77% while our Buy List is up by 3.38%.
Here’s a look at how the Buy List is doing:
Eddy Elfenbein is a Washington, DC-based speaker, portfolio manager and editor of the blog Crossing Wall Street. His 