Category: Economics

Bad News Rises as Market Does Also

Stock markets continue to rise when the economic news is generally bad. Is the market rise based on relief that it does not look like all our shares our going to become worthless, or relief that we have not yet caught the coronavirus personally? Although I know a few people who have – thankfully all recovering.

But companies continue to issue announcements of the kind that say “too early to tell the full impact” while reporting negative sales trends in the short term. Meanwhile the Bank of England is going to simply print money to finance government spending rather than raising debt in the gilt markets. If that is not a negative sign, I do not know what is.

A couple of companies are worth mentioning: 1) Speedy Hire (SDY), a company who rent out tools and equipment and hence are a good bellwether for the construction and maintenance sectors. They report “reduced activity levels” but they have “retained a substantial proportion of its revenues”. They are cutting costs, it is uncertain whether it will pay a final dividend in August and it “suspends all guidance until the position stabilises”. That does not sound very positive does it?

2) Diageo (DGE) also gave a trading update today. They give very little in the way of specifics about actual sales. They are reducing costs and are still paying the interim dividend this month, but have stopped the share buy-back programme. More information would have been helpful.

Those investors who rely on dividend income are being hard hit as many companies are cutting them out so as to protect their balance sheets due to the uncertainty of the economic impacts of the epidemic. Some of the big insurers are the latest to stop paying dividends and this has a very negative impact on their share prices as institutional investors who run income funds dump them for other shares. Private investors are probably doing the same.

But the really bad news yesterday, although not totally unexpected, was from NMC Health (NMC) who announced they expected to go into administration. The likely outcome for ordinary shareholders is zero. In normal times this would have been a headline story but almost all news is now being swamped by coronavirus stories.

NMC was valued at £2 billion when the shares were suspended but were worth four times that in 2018. So this will be one of the biggest stock market wipe outs in history, probably arising from some kind of financial fraud. I hope those responsible do not escape justice.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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Extreme Weather Events – Are They a Problem?

Before the national media became dominated by coronavirus news, the most common news story was about global warming and how it was causing extreme weather events such as fires, heatwaves, tropical storms and floods. Fires in Australia and floods in the UK were the headline stories in the past year.

As investors it is clearly something that you need to be informed about. Such natural catastrophes won’t just affect insurance companies but the economy overall if such events are becoming more common. But are they?  The following note has been recently published by Paul Biggs, an environmental scientist and writer on the subject.

It shows that media coverage of national disasters makes for good news stories but the comments on it by journalists and broadcasters are often inaccurate. We probably have a lot more to fear from global pandemics.

Abbreviations: IPCC: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, SREX: Special Report on Extreme Weather.

Weather Disaster Losses

Peer-reviewed science does not support any claim that disaster losses have been increasing due to climate change, man-made or otherwise (Reference 1).

Hurricanes and Tropical Cyclones

The detection and attribution in trends due to human-caused climate change in Tropical Cyclones, including Hurricanes, has NOT been achieved (1) (2).

Floods

UN IPCC AR5 concludes: “In summary there continues to be a lack of evidence and thus ‘low confidence’ regarding the sign of the trend in the magnitude and/or frequency of floods on a global scale.” IPCC SREX authors helpfully conclude that “the problem of flood losses is mostly about what we do on or to the landscape and that will be the case for decades to come.” (1)

Tornadoes

IPCC SREX: “There is ‘low confidence’ in observed trends in phenomenon such as Tornadoes and Hail…the data are suggestive of an actual decline in Tornado incidence..” (1)

Droughts

IPCC/SREX: “There is ‘low confidence’ in detection and attribution in changes in drought over global land areas since the mid-20th century. (1)

Extreme Temperatures

High temperatures are not a big driver of disaster losses. The IPCC says that there is ‘medium confidence’ that globally the length and frequency of warm spells, including heat waves, has increased since the mid-20th century. The IPCC believes that it is ‘very likely’ that human influence has contributed to these changes, but this relies heavily on climate models that are unable to pin down the exact climate sensitivity to CO2. The extreme 6C model known as RCP8.5 is now generally regarded by more rational scientists as ‘implausible.’ The range is now effectively 1.5C to 3C, with recent published evidence supporting a sensitivity below 2C. (3)

(1) The Rightful Place of Science: Disasters and Climate Change: https://tinyurl.com/yx5kfyos

(2) New WMO Assessment of Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change, Lee et al 2020: https://tinyurl.com/wgqoxm6

(3) Climate sensitivity in the light of the latest energy imbalance evidence: https://tinyurl.com/sawhd28

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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Excess Optimism and 4imprint Reality

The FTSE-100 is up 3% today at the time of writing and the FTSE-250 up over 6%. That follows a rise of 7% in the S&P 500 in the USA yesterday. This is driven by some expectation that the virus spread is declining in some countries, or has ceased altogether in China. But I suggest this is pure excess optimism as the lock-downs in many sectors have yet to hit the results of companies.

A good indication of how bad it could be was the announcement this morning from 4imprint (FOUR) a supplier of promotional products to companies, mainly in the USA. The share price of this company fell to a low of 1320p on the 19th March after it reported sales were had fallen to 40% of previous levels. It has since bounced back up to 1830p as of last night.

This morning they gave even more bad news. Sales are now running at 20% of last year’s figures and their main distribution centre in Oshkosh has been closed. The message is quite obvious to see. Companies are axing their promotional budgets and aggressively reducing their marketing expenditure. When times get tough, marketing expenditure is a discretionary item that can be easily chopped. You will see how this can ripple through the whole economy and affect any company in the marketing sector.

4imprint may survive but this year’s results are likely to look quite awful even if there is a rapid return to work. But there is no sign of that and it could be months before business returns to normal, or to anywhere near last year’s levels. The last widely published profit forecasts suggest a fall of 10% from previous forecasts made at the start of the year, but still more than last year’s actuals.

Hopelessly optimistic in my view, even if I am still holding some shares in the company.

This seems to be a common feature of the market at present with investors piling into or buying back shares they previously sold. Far be it for me to ignore the wisdom of crowds so I have been buying some shares but only on a selective basis. But excess enthusiasm for some shares such as 4imprint seems rather too common.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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What To Do Before You Die, and Avoiding Doing So

Many of the readers of this blog will not be in the springtime of their lives. They therefore might be susceptible to the coronavirus. I thought it was worthwhile therefore to cover how you can prepare for that eventuality. This is not a “bucket list” of things to do before you die but how to ensure your family and executors are prepared for the eventuality. As someone who has had a serious medical condition for many years, this is a subject I have spent some time on so probably have some expertise in the matter.

First make sure you have drawn up a will, and that it has been updated since there have been any changes in your life – for example new partners or offspring. Also check the appointed executors are still able and willing to act. It’s very worthwhile using a solicitor to help you draw up a will or revise one rather than trying to do it yourself. It’s one of the few bits of legal work that are usually low cost.

But there are several other additional documents you need to prepare. A “Letter of Wishes” for how you wish your personal chattels to be disposed of will be helpful to your executors. This can help to ensure that items of particular interest to your partner or children go to the right home. It can also be useful to cover what happens to cash in joint bank or deposit accounts to avoid any doubt.

One problem that is relatively new is what happens to “digital assets” such as internet accounts and associated log-ins. So it’s also helpful to provide a “Letter of Wishes – Digital Assets” that says something like this: “I hereby grant my executors under my will the right to access such digital asset accounts by using the log-ins and passwords mentioned and assigning the rights to use those assets to any person they see fit, or in the case where the accounts contain assets of value they are to be bequeathed under the terms of my will”. Obviously you also need to tell your executors where they can find all the account details and passwords.

A common problem for executors is actually locating all the assets of a deceased. You should therefore also provide a document that covers “What to do when I die” that spells out where they are. For example which brokers/platforms or banks hold the shares and cash or where the share certificates are held. This should also indicate what immediate cash can be accessed if your partner will need that in the short term, and perhaps what should be done with any share holdings, i.e. whether they should be liquidated or who will manage them going forward. In addition it should tell your executors where your will can be found.

The above covers the really bad news, but there are other things you should consider putting in place in case you don’t actually die but are incapacitated for some period of time. A “Lasting Power of Attorney for “Property and Financial Affairs” and for “Health and Welfare” are worth putting in place. These enable a partner or anyone else you appoint to financially administer your affairs and make decisions about personal care if you are unable to do so.

It is also worthwhile putting in place an Advance Medical Directive (Living Will) covering medical treatment. For example it can ensure that where there is little chance of survival or you may end up mentally incapacitated that medical treatment is halted rather than pursued. Tell your partner or offspring where the aforementioned documents can be found. In reality the chance of a Living Will being needed to be considered is relatively low and with the current state of the NHS they may not want to spend a lot of effort on keeping you alive, but you never know.  There are template Advance Medical Directives available on the internet.

Of course, one essential thing to do is to avoid catching coronavirus if you possibly can by self-isolating and avoiding contact with any other humans. One way to avoid meetings is to use conference calling facilities. I attended a discussion group meeting of investors last night using Zoom and it worked quite well. The group were generally rather pessimistic for the economy but they are often are. They had few new investment ideas with a number moving into cash. The difficulty is that it is not at all clear how long the epidemic will last and many businesses have closed down for the duration. The economic impact could be enormous and Government money creation and debt raising is of major concern. It could take some years for the economy to recover, with possibly higher taxes required.

US listed Zoom is just one of many video or telephone conference services, but according to one tweet I saw this morning, its stock market valuation is now 50% more than all listed US airlines! With EasyJet (EZJ) grounding its entire aircraft fleet today, you could probably include UK airlines in that calculation also. A UK competitor for Zoom is LoopUp (LOOP) in which I hold a very few shares. I have not done a detailed technical comparison of the respective products. Zoom certainly seems to be popular and has been growing rapidly as businesses move to video conferencing from telephone conference calls. These are relatively low-cost products but there is also Skype which is free. That works relatively well for one-to-one or small groups but I often find it not easy to use. It has a confusing user interface and is technically unreliable.

In summary, try to stay alive!

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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Bad News for the Housing Market and On-Line Retailers

The news in the housing sector is all bad. Banks have stopped providing mortgages and builders have stopped building houses (Redrow announced it was closing all its sites this morning). Estate agents are also giving up as nobody wants to have strangers wandering around their house and there are few new buyers. Who would look to buy a house given the economic uncertainty and with everyone’s jobs under threat? Rightmove previously announced it was discounting all its bills to agents but they have now announced that the proposed final share dividend is being cancelled.

Did you think on-line retailers might be able to continue operating? Think again. Next has announced it is temporarily closing its on-line operations including warehousing and distribution. Apparently “colleagues” feel they need to be at home. This mirrors what I have seen from a couple of smaller on-line clothing suppliers I use. They both announced closure in the last few days. Will Boohoo, ASOS and Amazon be able to continue to operate? Only supermarkets seem reasonably sure to be able to stay in business over the next few weeks.

This gloom over the country’s business status was echoed in the comments of Paul Scott on Stockopedia. He said this morning: “Hundreds of £billions in economic activity is being killed off, with ruinously expensive compensation schemes being dreamed up. For what benefit? We’re likely to end up with millions of unemployed, many thousands of destroyed businesses, all of which might have slowed down the spread of the virus a little”. He has lost confidence in the recent stock market bounce and thinks losses will be ruinously high in many companies. I agree with his comments. Certainly in many sectors it’s a question of which companies will survive the year, not whether they will make any profits or pay any dividends.

The only positive glimmer is that Anthony Bolton, who ran Fidelity’s Special Situations fund until 2007 very successfully, is apparently moving back into the market to purchase selected stocks according to an article in the Financial Times. He says “at these prices there are really interesting opportunities”. Certainly the key is to be very selective even if you believe the crisis will be over by the end of the year.

Meanwhile I am sat in the bomb shelter otherwise known as isolating at home. These are such momentous times that I decided to start writing a diary just as my father did during the second world war. It may interest my offspring in due course as reading my father’s diary did after it came to light 37 years after he died. My diary may be a much shorter one though if I catch the virus.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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It’s Impossible to Value Companies at Present!

The stock markets rose sharply yesterday and this morning, allegedly on the news of the $2 trillion economic support package announced in the USA. But the company news is consistently bad where it is available.

In the company announcements I have read, they seem to fall into two kinds: 1) We are shutting down all or part of our operations and managing the cash but our balance sheet strength is such that we can survive this for weeks and won’t go out of business (Greggs, Dunelm, Next and Victoria for example); or 2) Only minor impacts so far but it is too early to judge the wider impact of a possible economic recession on the business (Diploma for example).

Nobody is giving forecasts and it’s impossible to work them out for oneself. The result is that individual stock prices are bouncing up and down, and the whole market is also gyrating. I have no confidence that the recent market bounce is an indication that we have passed the bottom. It’s simply impossible to value companies at present with any accuracy.

One could perhaps say one can value them because the coronavirus crisis may only last a few weeks while company valuations should be based on years into the future, but there is no certainty on the duration of the epidemic, how many people will die and when the economy will be back to normal.

Here’s a useful quotation from the Victoria (VCP) announcement today: “….the Group goes into the uncertainty of the next few months from a position of considerable strength. However, as Darwin stated, those who survive ‘are not the strongest or the most intelligent, but the most adaptable to change.’ Therefore, our managers have been willing to think the unthinkable and act decisively and promptly to protect their business – particularly its cash position – as the impact will, in the short term, be significant”.

Some of the companies mentioned above have seen an immediate impact on their businesses while others are less affected. Those who run “non-essential” businesses such as General Retailers and Hospitality operators are the worst hit, but I suspect others will see the impact in due course as the economy slows. It’s OK for Governments to pump money into the economy to try and keep it afloat but the future profits of many companies will surely be wiped out this year.

The impact might be wider than we expect. For example, one of the on-line retailers I use has closed down its web site today presumably because of the difficulty of packing and shipping orders. On the other hand, office productivity might suddenly improve if everyone is working from home – less time will be spent gossiping or flirting with others or wasted on commuting.

As an investor does one simply sit on one’s hands in the expectation that the crisis will pass in due course and the markets will rebound?  There was an interesting article by Chris Dillow in last week’s Investors’ Chronicle. He pointed out that research tells us that when there is bad news, investors tend to look at their portfolios less often. It’s the equivalent of not going to the doctor because their diagnosis might be bad news. Not reviewing your portfolio regularly is surely a habit to be avoided. I do it every evening as a matter of routine.

I know exactly the value of all my portfolios and the movements of individual holdings over the day. It’s made for gloomy reading of late. I also get alerts during the day of share prices that have moved significantly from previous levels and review them at the end of the day also. I use software products such as ShareScope and Stockopedia to provide this information. As a man of action, I do react to what I see happening in the market and to individual shares. I manage my portfolio to reduce exposure to the market when it is falling. And I make changes to my individual holdings dependent on the latest news and current prospects.

But it’s easy to waste a lot of money by over-trading, and waste a lot of your personal time, so I try not to make changes unless trends are very clear. My habits have developed over many years of investing in the stock market and have worked out reasonably well. But others might take a different approach. There is no one “best solution” but hiding behind ignorance of what is happening in the market is surely a recipe for poor portfolio performance.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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Market Bounces, But It’s Not on Good News

The FTSE-100 is up 2.5% today at the time of writing, and my portfolio is up 5.5%. There are several stocks in there that are up more than 20% but the bad news keeps coming so this seems to be more a case of folks picking up stocks that have fallen to very low levels and moving into defensive ones than on any really good news. The impact of the virus in the UK is still growing and business is grinding to a halt.

The bad news today was 1) From Rightmove (RMV) who said “Notably the number of property transactions failing to complete in recent days and likely changes in tenant behaviour following the announcement of the renters’ protections by the government may put further pressure on estate and lettings agents”. They are knocking 75% off their customer invoices for the next few months which will mean a hit of up to £75 million to revenue! Better to have some revenue than have agents cancel seems to be the logic. The share price is down 4%. 2) From Tracsis (TRCS) a provider of services to the rail industry who say: “Given that the situation is changing rapidly, at this point in time it is not possible to accurately quantify the impact on H2 trading and therefore full year expectation”. A lot of their revenue is recurring in nature but they will be impacted by the cancellation of events. The share price is up over 2%, presumably on some relief that it is not as bad a prognostication as many companies are issuing.

I do hold those stocks but one I do not is Next (NXT) the retailer. They have received compliments in the national media about their recent announcement which gave some very detailed forecasts of how they would cope “in extremis”. I still doubt this is a sector to get back into because wages in many sectors of the economy will be depressed which will surely hit retail sales even if they are able to venture back into the shops or shop on-line. When the economic outlook is uncertain, people stop spending money also.

For Sirius Minerals (SRX) shareholders, ShareSoc has issued a very well judged blog post on possible legal claims – see https://www.sharesoc.org/sharesoc-news/sirius-update-9-14-march-2020/ . Regrettably there have been some hotheads who wanted more action and sooner, which was not practical, and some who think ShareSoc is raising false hopes. Neither is the case. As someone who has in the past run shareholder action groups, I have learned that quick actions are neither sensible nor practical. But legal cases for redress are sometimes possible – for example in the case of the Royal Bank of Scotland rights issue in 2008 and the false prospectus. But it can take years to raise funding and reach a conclusion. Persistence is everything in such circumstances. But rushing into legal action, however willing lawyers are to run up fees on a case, is not sensible.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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Equals Trading, Bango Results, Finablr Suspension, Baronsmead VCT and Closing the Stock Market

As share prices of almost every share on the market collapses, should all trading be suspended? The argument for this is that as the impact of the coronavirus on the economy is not certain, although it looks more dire every day, shares cannot be valued with any certainty. Indeed there seems to be no hiding place as there never is in a bear market – almost all share prices have fallen. The editor of the FT thinks the market should not be closed and I agree with her. Closing the market is very prejudicial to private shareholders, particularly those who absolutely need to move into cash even if it means some sell into an unrealistic market – but that is their choice. If the market closes you have no choice. If there was to be a closure, it should only be for a few days as at the start of World War II.

I have been trend following in the market as I have mentioned before but it has proved difficult to keep up in the last few days. At least brokers’ systems seem to be robust this time around.

The major sectors affected by the virus, or soon will be, are hospitality businesses, hotels, pubs, entertainment venues and airlines. One symptom is that I just cancelled our holiday in June as I am supposed to be hibernating for 12 weeks according to the Prime Minister and I doubt the epidemic will have passed by June. But you can see that there will be many staff lay-offs in such businesses and airlines are already asking to be bailed out by the Government because if airplanes don’t fly they cannot cover their aircraft lease costs.

Meanwhile the virus is causing businesses to get their staff to work from home, including one of my brokers. Payment company Equals Group (EQLS) issued a statement this morning giving their response to the virus and a trading update. They say they have 50% of their staff working remotely in shifts and can move to 100% when required. As regards trading, group revenues to the end of February were up 33% but there has been a marked slowdown in travel cash and retail card revenues in the last week due to the adverse impact on travel. But corporate revenues are still robust so far and account for the majority of revenues. Clearly the business will be impacted to some extent so they are cutting costs to conserve cash. The share price had anticipated this and had already fallen a long way in previous days and weeks – it fell again today.

Another company in the payments sector is Finablr (FIN) which announced yesterday that the shares were suspended. The company suggests that problems with liquidity are making it difficult to manage the business. They have also discovered some cheques dating back to before their IPO which have been used as security for the benefit of third parties – a small matter of $100 million is involved! The CEO has resigned and the board is looking for a new one. This company was founded by B.R.Shetty who also founded NMC Health and whose accounting and financing arrangements are also under scrutiny. It looks like Finablr is yet another financial disaster I have managed to avoid to look on the bright side. I would not bet on shareholders recovering anything. Temporary suspensions very frequently turn into permanent ones.

Another company that operates in the mobile commerce and payment sector is Bango (BGO) who issued their final results today. Group revenue was up 41% and they say “Adjusted EBITDA” for the year was a positive £0.45 million. However cash declined because of the large expenditure on intangible assets and there was still an overall financial loss. They expect the “payments business to continue to grow exponentially” and they forecast the coronavirus to have a positive impact on End User Spend as from experience they see consumer spending rise during “stay-at-home” periods such as Ramadan and Christmas. The share price rose slightly today by the time of writing this note, but investors are still unsure about the future of the company it seems. Investors are either taking their money off the table altogether or moving out of businesses likely to be impacted by self-isolation and quarantining and this is having a very wide impact.

My portfolio is now over 25% in cash which is very unusual but I am picking up the odd few shares in companies where the panic seems overdone – in none of the sectors likely to be affected that are mentioned above though.

One of the few companies I hold whose share price rose in the last 2 days has been Ocado (OCDO) as the popularity of on-line ordering and delivery rises. Getting delivery slots with them is now difficult for customers and other supermarkets are having similar problems and when you do get a delivery a lot of items are missing. There is clearly some panic buying going on for certain items which may subside if logistics turns out not to be a major problem after all. But surely all the workers who pack and delivery from supermarkets are going to be affected if the virus becomes rampant, even if they are in the younger and healthier group.

I mentioned some issues at the Baronsmead Venture Trust (BVT) AGM in a previous blog post (see https://roliscon.blog/2020/02/27/venture-capital-trusts-the-baronsmead-vct-agm-and-political-turmoil/). I wrote to the Chairman of the company, Peter Lawrence, after the meeting and have received a response. He confirms that the chart of returns in the last ten years in the Annual Report on page 3 was wrong. It showed a decline in NAV Total Return in 2018 when there was in fact an increase and the 2019 point was also wrong– a corrected graphic is below.

Baronsmead Venture Trust Corrected Chart 2020--03-17

It always surprises me that there are so many errors in Annual Reports that shareholders find easy to spot when the directors have not. This seems to be a particular problem in VCTs – perhaps too many jobs and not enough time allocated to each role with some VCT board directors considering their directorship a sinecure that requires little thought or effort. I suspect those are the problems. Perhaps they need reminding to read the Annual Report in detail before approving it!

Mr Lawrence rejected my complaint about the lack of time allocated to public questions at the AGM Meeting (only 15 minutes) and also rejected my complaint about the length of time he has been on the board which is contrary to the UK Corporate Governance Code. I will send him a stiff reply. To my mind this looks like one of those VCTs where a revolution is long overdue. It needs a fresh board and a good examination of the investment policy, the fund manager and the fees paid to the manager.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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The Great Crash – Lessons from History

The stock market is falling and it may continue to do so, with the odd bounce along the way. The reason is partly because when confidence is destroyed that investing in shares is bound to make you money, which has been a rule for the last ten years, then it takes a real change of heart to move the market in the opposite direction. Confidence, or lack of it, is contagious just like the coronavirus which has probably contributed to the market collapse. The classic example of a market crash is still the 1929 collapse on Wall Street. That was so extreme that it wiped many people out and prompted a number of suicides. It was not until 1932 that the market stabilised and many years after that until it recovered to its previous levels. Or for 2020’s speculators in the words of Al Jolson: “You ain’t seen nothing yet”.

The 1929 crash was created by cheap money where everyone was buying on margin and there were pyramid schemes of trusts that invested in other trusts. Even shoe shine boys were giving share tips and people were drawn into the stock market who had no financial experience at all. When the markets started to fall, margin calls were invoked which drove the market down further. Banks that had lent money for punters to invest in the market went bankrupt when the margin calls were not paid. One result was economic collapse and a fierce depression in the USA which echoed around the world in the 1930s. The real world of business activity mirrored the stock market which is not always the case. That was partly due to poor Government responses.

One very amusing slim volume on the Wall Street crash is a book entitled “Caught short!” written in 1929 after the initial crash by Eddie Cantor. He describes himself in the book as a comedian, author and victim. It’s recommended to those who need some light relief from the recent debacle.

Cantor was both “in the market, and under it” as he says. After one of the worst market days he was too frightened to go home so he checked into one of New York’s largest hotels and asked for a room on the nineteenth floor. The desk clerk asked him if it was for “sleeping or jumping”.

This time around the Bank of England has reacted to the collapse of the market and concerns over the economy from the virus impact so that after a long period of very cheap money it is making it even cheaper. We are again at the lowest bank base rate in history in the UK and other countries are also doing things to boost their economies which may transfer into their stock markets.

But will that revive confidence in the stock market? Only for a short time I suspect because shares, particularly US ones, still do not look particularly cheap. And bear in mind that most markets including the UK’s are highly correlated with the USA’s.

How the actions of Governments will work out remains to be seen, but hopefully they have learned something from previous market crashes. The only difference from 1929 is that the speed of trading in the market and the volumes of trades have increased exponentially. We also have many more index-tracking funds which promote herding behaviour. These two factors might not help.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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It’s Not the End of the World, But It Is a Bear Market

After the Chancellor’s statement yesterday in which he did a good job of scaring everyone about the economic impact of the coronavirus epidemic, and news coverage of the spread of the virus overnight, the UK stock market was in freefall this morning. That was not helped by sharp falls in the US and Far East markets overnight.

A bear market is when folks dump shares irrespective of a company’s prospects or earnings and is driven by herd following in index funds and others. When does a bear market end?  After many months and when shares start to look very, very cheap on fundamental ratios such as earnings or dividend yields. That is clearly some way off yet.

To have that happen the public do also need to have confidence that the virus epidemic is over and that only a few old folks like me have died or are likely to die as a result. That is at least a few weeks away. But the market recovery may start to take place as soon as there is the first sign that the world is not going to end after all, which it will certainly not.

Moving into cash is one possible short-term reaction but the Bank of England have undermined that strategy by reducing interest rates to record lows. AJ Bell Youinvest have just announced that they will not be paying interest on cash in clients’ accounts any more. Other brokers (not many anyway) and banks will no doubt follow to cut their interest rates on deposits. But if there is an economic recession then holding cash, or simply spending it, is not a bad idea until the economy revives. Now is the time to cash in your shares and buy a new car or a house extension! Or for the altruists, now is the time to donate money to charity, particularly as the tax-year end is coming up.

Meanwhile the national media seem to have decided the Chancellor’s budget is an inflationary one of the spend-spend-spend variety. Why should the Government not borrow money for some required investment in infrastructure when it can borrow money at such low interest rates?

But how much influence do the Chancellor or the Governor of the Bank of England have over the real-world economy? Not a lot in essence when it is mainly driven by external factors and public sentiment.

While this plays out, I will not be dumping shares indiscriminately but I will be exiting those companies that may be particularly badly hit by the virus, if I have not already. That includes travel and holiday companies, airlines, entertainment venues, pubs and hotels, high street retail operations where footfall will decline, etc. But I may buy those companies where the share price has fallen because of the general rout when their income is not obviously threatened – for example because they have long-term contracts or guaranteed repeat business.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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