Lawrence Hamtil Profile picture
Jun 12, 2019 5 tweets 2 min read Read on X
Thread on capital-intensive vs non capital-intensive industries.

1/ This chart got a lot of circulation because I think many found it surprising
2/ However, you can see that going back almost 50 years, the observation holds: capital-intensive industries (mining, construction, autos) have lagged the broader market, whereas less capital-intensive industries (tobacco, beer, drugs) have tended to outperform
3/ Measuring it by Sharpe shows it more clearly as only seven of forty-nine industries registered a higher Sharpe than the market over the last five decades. All of those were capital-light industries. "Guns" is an exception: it is the defense industry, which has > historically
4/ Interesting to note that the so-called "sin industries" were among the few that registered higher-risk adjusted returns the last five decades.
What's fascinating to me is that relative to the market, these industries suffered very little in terms of periods of poor performance. Worst 120-mo return over last ~50 years:

Smoke/Tobacco 1.93%
Food 2.78%
Drugs -1.78%
Beer -.72%
Guns (Defense) 3.36%
Market -3.56%

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More from @lhamtil

Apr 23, 2023
New Post: My thoughts on auto parts retail and its future

✔️low growth + cycle agnostic means industry consolidation & capital disciplie
✔️EVs another transition, not a total disruption
✔️computerization means DIFM > DIY going forward

fortunefinancialadvisors.com/blog/a-few-tho…
Over the last ~30 years, spending on automobile maintenance has trailed GDP & overall consumption trends. This has afforded the big chains the opportunity to consolidate the industry as weaker independents have left the industry at the rate of around 2.5% per year since 2010 Image
@YHamiltonBlog has a good post on $ORLY from 2021, and came to a similar conclusion regarding EVs and shift to more 'do it for me' maintenance due to complexity

yhamiltonblog.substack.com/p/agb-202118-o…
Image
Read 7 tweets
Oct 7, 2022
It's worth pointing out that equity valuations during most of the QE era were below the LT - average, presumably because low rates also signaled low growth expectations ImageImage
Equity valuations didn't really peak until read GDP growth accelerated at the end pre-COVID, obviously turbocharged by the corporate tax cut. Valuations were higher in the 90s despite high rates b/c real GDP growth was huge & inflation was super low Image
Anyway, it's worthwhile reading some of the older @AswathDamodaran posts from 2011 and 2012 on QE and low rates on equity valuations
aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com/2011/09/risk-f…
Read 6 tweets
May 21, 2022
I've been meaning to do this for a while, so here's a non-exhaustive list of books I recommend about various industries

1/ Skunk Works about Lockheed Martin specifically, and useful for the defense industry in general

amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Pe…
2/ Riding the Rails about Bob Krebs's time at Santa Fe railroad both pre- and post de-regulation and the birth of intermodal

amazon.com/Riding-Rails-B…
3/ The Men Who Loved Trains is useful in detailing how crappy rails were pre de-regulation, focusing on the Penn Central collapse, the creation of Amtrak, and NSC / CSX fighting over Conrail

amazon.com/Men-Who-Loved-…
Read 15 tweets
May 19, 2022
I haven't done the Forgotten Stocks things in a while, so I'll throw out Automatic Canteen, which was one of the growth stocks of the late 1950s as part of the vending machine craze of the period
Vending machines did ~$2B in sales then, which was significant, and what had been a duopoly in machine manufacturing became a craze:

"After all, they were the archetype of the modern growth stock; no dividends, no history, and great expectations"

jstor.org/stable/4469422 Image
Time in 1960:
'[V]ending-machine makers are now spending 10x what they used to on developing new gadgets. They are now experimenting w/ store-front units w/ a complete line of grocery staples, which could operate on a [24/7] basis'

content.time.com/time/subscribe… Image
Read 7 tweets
Aug 1, 2021
This slide does a good job of showing why I think Balchem's spec chem business enjoys an advantage: its products are a 'critical but non-core' necessity for the majority of its end-users

balchem.com/wp-content/upl… Image
that affords you the ability to raise prices incrementally over time, which is reflected in sales growth in all but the energy-related segment Image
almost as good as cigarettes Image
Read 4 tweets
Mar 23, 2021
New Post: @JonFell73 and I talk about more consumer staples:

-how they fare in inflationary periods
-the risk of disruption
-why charges of survivorship bias to their famous chart on starting multiples are mostly hollow

fortunefinancialadvisors.com/blog/further-e…
For newer followers, this is the famous referenced in the post
On survivor bias in staples:

Of the 62 staples companies valued in 1973 at $1B in today's dollars, 48 > the US market (the original 21 shown + the 27 that > up until they merged or were acquired). The major underperformers were all brewers. Image
Read 6 tweets

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