1/ Historically, investors in large cap core index funds had the bulk of their money invested in stocks with reasonable valuations with negligible exposure to stocks valued over 10x price to sales.
2/ As the below chart shows, that is no longer true today.
Should evoke caution for those using index fund investment strategies with large cap core exposure to make sure they are consistent with your investment objectives, risks, and other goals.
3/ Index fund investors’ exposure to stocks at excessive valuations with historically poor payoff structures is not without precedent – unfortunately, the precedent is not a good one.
4/ The asset management industry is full of superb active managers who have long histories of providing returns above market levels with low costs, low turnover, and excellent tax efficiency.
1/ @DoombergT put out one of the best summaries of the tremendous success created by massive chemical facilities like BASF’s in Germany that most of us never have to see.
@DoombergT 2/ Barring some very good fortune we are all going to be learning about the business of chemical plants.
@DoombergT 3/ This has been on the back pages of the news off-and-on since Bayer’s glyphosate plant went down unexpectedly and sent crop prices soaring. One of the headaches with weed-control is that the efficacy of glyphosate has been declining due to a lack of innovation in weed control.
1/ Let's look at a 2021 Summary... Market Cap to GDP hits 234% by November – a full 59% higher than the dot com bubble peak.
2/ By December, 10 year stock market returns hit 200+ year peaks with the Shiller PE hitting 39x.
3/ Warren Buffett’s cash pile hits an all-time record of $149bn by November. Private Equity sets a record for “putting funds to work” in 2021, with deal volume approaching $1.25 trillion.
2/ I’m staring at a list of stocks in the S&P 500 Index. The results are sorted by their weighting in the index from largest to smallest. At a 6.97% weight, $AAPL is at the top.
3/ The top 10 stocks in the S&P 500 represent 29.7% of the index. Nearly a third of every dollar you invest in that index is going into just ten stocks. The value-weighted average price-to-sales ratio is 7.3x.[i] Madness.
1/ By June 8th of this year, the S&P500’’s Energy stocks were up 70% in a -13% market. From June 8 to June 24th the sector fell -22%. That’s 11 trading days.
2/ Not really surprising considering the relative performance.
3/ On a call with a friend/PM at “XYZ” we talked briefly about energy. I commented that the stocks seemed to be discounting $75 oil. His view was that if he put his “trading hat on” that oil going from $100 to $75 would bury the stocks.
1/ The phrase “I got Enroned” has entered the investing lexicon recently...
2/ KCR believes the term is slang to describe the losses being incurred by investors in stocks with indefensible valuations and low-quality accounting.
3/ In Jan2022, we built an Index of Glamour Stocks with valuations, returns, and earnings manipulation scores that were equal to or worse than some of the most infamous stocks of the dot com bubble.
We have updated the trajectory to put their performance in historical context.