Is Buffett Really Bearish?!

So, with Buffett dumping airlines, JPM and not jumping into the markets in March, is he really all that bearish? His cash keeps piling up to the frustration of long time Buffett fans.

March Decline

First, I would have to say that the March decline was pretty quick. It crashed, and the market bounced back pretty quickly. Plus, what crashed are the stocks that are going to have a lot of problems. What rallied are beneficiaries. I would have loved to buy MSFT, GOOG, AMZN or whatever, but those didn't really tank all that much. 

 

Plus, for a company like BRK, you would want to take advantage of any distress to get involved, but as Buffett said, with the stimulus package, the phone wasn't ringing all that much. There may be opportunities within each of the private holdings too, and we know there is a lot of pain in just about every wholly owned business at BRK.

 

Buffett Bearish? 

A while back, I argued that this increase in cash does not necessarily reflect a bearish view on Buffett's part. OK, maybe it's not super-bullish. But it's not outright bearish, either. 

 

First, I said the accumulated cash pretty much corresponds to the rise in float; since the mid-1990s, cash and fixed income investments always approximated the amount of float. Also, just because Buffett doesn't buy stocks doesn't mean BRK is not fully exposed; some of his former stock holdings are now wholly-owned subsidiaries. Just because they are no longer publicly listed equities doesn't mean we can't participate in intrinsic value growth of the business. We still own the equity. Same with outright purchases of other listed and unlisted businesses.

 

To show this, a while ago I posted how BRK is fully exposed despite the high cash balance. First, I added up the stock holdings, and then to that, I added the net worth of our subsidiaries; the railroads, utilities, and manufacturing, services and retail, and it all added up the the full value of BRK's shareholders' equity.

 

I showed that the high cash holdings of BRK is not a drag on future potential returns as it would be in a mutual fund. If a mutual fund had a high cash holding, yes, then it would lag in a bull market. Not so BRK. 

 

Since manufacturing, services and retail is no longer itemized on the balance sheet, I can't do this, but if you net out the cash, cash equivalents and fixed income securities with float, you will see that what you have left is still equity ownership in the various businesses; the cash is not necessarily a drag on returns on this basis. Of course, if the cash was invested in higher returning securities, future returns would be higher.

 

But it's still fair to say BRK has 100% equity exposure.

 

Here are a couple of tables to illustrate this. 

Liquid Assets = Float

First, check out the liquid assets (cash and cash equivalents plus fixed income investments) against float. This is just an approximation of float using the 2 or 3 items shown on the consolidated balance sheet so may not match what Buffett calls float, but it is close enough.

This ratio is on the far right of the below table labelled, "Liquid / float". Since 1999 or so, it's been remarkably stable at around 1. Someone asked about this at a recent annual meeting and Buffett said there is no relationship. It is a head-scratcher because it seems to match perfectly over time.

By the way, the cash and cash equivalents include only what is at the top of the balance sheet and excludes cash held in railroad / utilities (for simplicity, and most cash is in the insurance segment anyway).

 

Stocks to Total Shareholders Equity

Some insurance companies like MKL and Y use their equity portfolio to shareholders' equity ratio to show how much stock market exposure they have. This, for BRK, is in the column labelled "Stocks to sheq". It is amazing to think it was above 100% before the Gen Re merger. BRK back then was a leveraged play on Buffett's stock-picking skills, and any investment in bonds offered free incremental points on ROE above all that. No wonder why returns were so high back then. 

 

Since then, the stock portfolio (including equity method investments) has averaged 52% of BRK's total shareholders equity.  Despite the huge cash holdings, note that the year-end figure was 62%, and at the end of the 2Q2020, it was 56% despite the portfolio taking a big hit this year. This is higher than the 52% average since 1998. I use the average since 1998 because the beast was a different animal pre-Gen Re. 

So, this piece of evidence doesn't really show any bearishness on Buffett's part, or at least compared to the last 20+ years.

 

BRK Balance Sheet Stuff

 

This next table shows some other ratios. Investment leverage is used by insurance companies too, total investments versus total shareholders equity. This is not really all that relevant for BRK because insurance is only one part of the business. 

 

Investment Portfolio

But let's look at the portfolio in a conventional way. We will add the cash, cash equivalents and stock portfolio and see how that breaks down. 

 

The column labelled "equity %" shows how many percent of total investments was invested in stocks (including equity method). 

 

And, check it out! This also averaged 52% since 1998, and at year-end 2019, this was 65%, and was 58% at the end of 2Q2020.  

Buffett bearish? Well, according to this piece of evidence, not really. Or, at least, not all that much more than in the past 20 years.

Maybe this is a little tautological but liquid assets as a percent of total investments is also below historicals, and also liquid assets vs. total shareholders equity is also lower: 51% average since 1998, but 34% and 41% at year-end 2019 and 2Q2020, respectively.

 

 

 

AAPL

By the way, for those who say Buffett has lost his touch, what do we call AAPL? At $470/share, the gain to BRK on this buy is $83 billion! This is not how much it's worth now, but how much BRK has gained on the position of around 250 million shares. That's as much as the total shareholders equity BRK had as recently as 2004, and also as much as the gains on all of the other holdings as of the end of 2019 (so before the recent decline in most of these holdings). 

This is the table from the annual report, excluding AAPL.

I admit I have been an AAPL naysayer for years. Part of this multiple expansion is probably due to a shift in the business model from a hardware, consumer electronics business to more services. I have no idea how this will pan out over the years, but I do notice more and more people living their lives in a very Apple-centric way.

Conclusion

People are frustrated that Buffett continues to accumulate cash. The cash just gets bigger and bigger and it makes Buffett seem more and more bearish. But as you can see from the above, the cash balance may grow, but so does BRK. So on a relative basis, the cash balance hasn't really been growing all that much. Judging from this analysis, you can't really conclude that Buffett is any more or less bearish than he has been in the last 20 years. But that won't stop people and the press from obsessing over this 'nominal' figure. Oh well... 

Tsunami etc.

Yes, it's a tsunami. Tsunami of liquidity. A fiscal tsunami. Both at the same time. People seem baffled at the strength of the stock market; they keep saying the market is 'divorced from economic reality' and things like that. Others say this is a big bubble waiting to implode. 

I don't mean to argue that the market is always right or anything like that, but the market is reacting to some massive, massive stimulus and liquidity injection. Some of that is bound to leak into the stock market. As I said earlier about  Covid-19, this is forcing governments around the world to try to offset the negative effects of the virus. And as usual, they are going to overdo it. And this, in turn, will lead potentially to a really massive bubble. 

As of now, with S&P 500 forward P/E of 23, or whatever they say, it doesn't really seem all that bubblish. Too, the median P/E ratio of S&P 500 companies on a forward basis is around 18.5x vs. a 15.2x average since 1982, I think. So that is not that crazy looking either, given much lower interest rates now than most of this time period. 

 

People say the S&P 500 forward P/E is as high as it was back in 1999/2000, but don't forget, interest rates were a lot higher back then. Also, the median P/E is much lower than that, which is again, just like 1999/2000. And if you remember 1999/2000, if you didn't own the bubble stocks, you actually did really well throughout the 2000-2002 bear market. It is very possible that this will happen again. Many of the frothy names can have large declines, maybe the S&P 500 index even goes down 50% or more, and people who didn't own the most expensive stocks might actually still do well. So, don't let people scare you out of the market with this talk of market P/E's. If you are happy with what you own and how they are valued, hold on and things should be fine (like it was in 1999/2000). 

This rickety house can symbolize a highly levered equity fund vulnerable to a bear market, but when I saw this picture, the first thing I thought of was all the shorts being steam-rolled by this tsunami (or simultaneous tsunamis). 

Greenblatt and Marks

Anyway, I wouldn't necessarily put this in a category of good news; some would say this is really bad news. But a recent Howard Marks note talked about all the reasons why current market valuations might be reasonable; that the current tech companies leading the market actually has really good, strong business models. Also, Joel Greenblatt was on Bloomberg TV the other day saying we are not in a bubble like 1999/2000 for the same reason; that the recent market leaders have real business models and are really good businesses that might actually deserve high valuations.

 

While not pointing to any individual names, I have been thinking the same thing over the years.

Buffett, Gold and JPM

So, as usual, the financial media is going crazy over the fact that Buffett bought ABX. Most of them didn't even mention that this could be a Ted or Todd pick and not a Buffett pick. Also, he dumped a bunch of JPM, which is actually kind of surprising. Not sure what is going on there. Maybe it's a valuation play as BAC is cheaper. I think Dimon is a much better CEO than Moynihan (who hasn't really been tested yet, whereas Dimon has been through many crises). Maybe BAC has a longer runway as Dimon has health issues. I don't know. Maybe he is a lot more worried about this pandemic than most of us. 

 

Market

Anyway, back to the market. So yes, it's kind of acting contrary to the expectations of many, but not really. If you look at the market leaders, they are really doing well earnings-wise. Sure, this may be a one-time bump for some of these names, but for the most part, Covid-19 is only accelerating what was going to happen anyway (move to cloud, retailers dying off etc...). So there is nothing wrong with being in companies who have been enjoying a tailwind for years and then suddenly gets a big gust from behind. 

As for consumption, as Dimon said, some unemployed, I think he said 60%+, were making even more money from the $600/week assistance than they were making when employed. So that explains the consumption figures. Of course, this is not sustainable forever (new plan hasn't been passed yet as of now). 

I have been spending more time recently looking at things to do due to the extraordinary nature of the what is happening, but I have to say nothing is really jumping out at me. 

I am tempted, of course, to jump into airlines, hotels, real estate, energy, anything travel-related and some other areas hit hard, but nothing is really jumping out at me. If you like any of these businesses and believe in them for the long term and are fairly sure they will survive this crisis without too much dilution, then it's a great idea to buy. 

But the problem is that most of the above businesses are not in areas I would have been interested in pre-crisis. So if I got into any of them now, they would just be 'trades'. I would get in, hold until normalization, and then get out. They would not be situations where I would want to buy and hold forever. So that makes me a little hesitant. 

 

 

Election Stuff

There is a lot of uncertainty about the elections. But as usual, I would say, look back at all the other times we were worried about something. We should never forget 2016 election day. What about the fiscal cliff? All sorts of problems, uncertainties over the years. 

 

So, as usual, I would just say ignore it all. I don't want to talk about politics here as there is plenty of other places to talk about it, and I don't think I have anything to add to what everybody is saying anyway. 

 

But I would say that whatever people worry about, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Whether it's pharmaceutical stocks when Clinton got elected, insurance companies with Obama, financial stocks when Elizabeth Warren was looking good etc. Whenever you have big moves on those worries, as traders, it's actually probably a good idea to trade against it. 

 

Books

I am reading this new book about GE, Lights Out, and it is terrifying. I'm only 1/3 way through it but it sort of confirms what we suspected all along, but at least for me, it's a lot worse than I thought.  

If you always wondered why Buffett always spoke so highly of Immelt and GE but never bought stock (other than emergency financial crisis financing), this would help explain it. I've always wanted to love GE, and it was always on my to-do list to do a detailed analysis of GE and even buy some shares at some point, but it never got to that point because of Immelt. He came across to me as this rah-rah cheerleading type; the kind of manager I would not want to put money with. And his denials and lies throughout the crisis was worrisome too (I didn't realize how much he was lying, though...)

And Immelt apparently still blames Welch, but jeez, the guy ran the place (into the ground) over 16 years; that's enough time to fix things, and many of the big moves / mistakes were his own. It's like a 40 year old man blaming his parents for his behavior.

I am still looking at it and wanting to jump in, but it is quite scary.

Long Book Excerpt

So, during this pandemic, I have been reading a lot as usual, and I started reading an old book that I am embarrassed to say I've never read before. 

Paths to Wealth Through Common Stocks

This is a Philip Fisher book. I think Philip Fisher is sort of underrated compared to Benjamin Graham. Everyone (including me) always talks about Security Analysis and Intelligent Investor, but not everyone talks about Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits or this book. 

That's probably for a good reason. First of all, Graham was the first in setting the ground rules of value investing so comprehensively. But on the other hand, I feel that Fisher has had more of an impact on Buffett (and he admits it) than even many Buffett followers realize. Buffett is still referred to as a 'value' investor, and 'value' is still viewed as things with low P/E ratios and P/B ratios. But Buffett has for decades been saying that he would much rather pay a fair price for a decent business than a good price for a mediocre business (OK, I totally butchered that one, but I'm a little rusty, you see...). 

Anyway, I was reading it and this whole section made me jump out of my seat as I immediately thought of quite a few people I would need to send this book to:

The Economists Go out -- The Psychologists Come In

    I have already commented on the strange tendency of the supposedly forward-looking financial community so often to fail to recognize a changed set of circumstances until the new influence has been in existence for years. I believe this is why the man who attempted to forecast the course of general business was regarded as so important a factor in the making of investment decisions during all of the 1940's and much of the 1950's. Even today, a surprising number of both investors and professional investment men still believe that the heart of a wise investment policy is to obtain the best business forecast you can. If the outlook is one of expanding business, then buy. If the outlook is for a decline, sell.

    Many years ago there was probably considerably more merit to such a policy than there could possibly be today. The banking structure was weaker. There was no assurance it would be shored up by the government in times of real trouble -- a process bound to produce a massive dose of inflation. There was no tax system of a type that can hardly fail to produce strong inflationary spending whenever business (and therefore federal tax revenues) are at abnormally low levels. No public opinion had crystallized to assure that whenever business levels dipped sharply, the government would take strong countermeasures to stem the tide. Finally, the industrial base was much more narrow. The large number of industries in today's complex economy that bear little relationship to each other in their basic characteristics probably assures that even without the actions of government, modern business recession would be somewhat less severe than its former counterpart. Some industries would be enjoying unusual background conditions enabling them to expand, while the majority might be in a declining phase. This tends somewhat to stabilize the economy as a whole.

    All this means that a depression is of less significance to the investor than it was many years ago. It does not mean knowing what business is going to do would not be quite useful information to have. But having such information is not vital for obtaining magnificent results from common stock investments. Simple arithmetic should show this. When a stock market decline coincides with a fairly sizable economic slump as happened in 1937 to 1938 or 1957 to 1958, most stocks sell off from 35 to 50 percent. The better ones then recover when the slump ends and usually go on to new high levels. Even in the greatest slump of all time, only a small percentage of all companies failed, that is, went down 100 per cent. Most of these companies were companies which had had fantastic amounts of debt and senior securities placed ahead of their common. After one of the wildest speculative booms ever known, much of it financed by borrowed money, the average stock slumped 80 or 90 per cent. In contrast, when stocks rise over a period of years, even the most casual study of stock market history shows many figures of a very much greater order of magnitude. Compared to the temporary declines, usually of 35 to 50 per cent, that frequently accompany depressions, the outstanding stocks (those of the unusually well-run companies that have maneuvered themselves into growth fields) go up several hundred per cent, stay at these levels, and then go still higher. Many can be found for which a decade's progress can be measured in multiples of 1000 per cent rather than 100 per cent. 

...

    From the standpoint of obtaining results, I have noticed that investors who place heavy emphasis on economic forecasts in the making of investment decisions usually fall into one of two main groups. Those who are inclined to be cautious by nature can nearly always find an impressive sounding forecast that for quite plausible and persuasive reasons makes it appear that important economic difficulties lie ahead for the business community. Therefore, they seldom take advantage of opportunities when they present themselves and, on balance, these missed opportunities mean the economic forecasts have done them considerable harm. The other group are the perpetual optimists who can always find a favorable forecast to satisfy them. Since they always decide to go ahead with whatever action they are considering, it is hard to see how all the time they spend on business forecasting does much good. 

    More and more investors are coming to recognize the wisdom of making their decisions about common stocks largely on the basis of such outright business factors as appraisal of the quality of the management and the growth potential of the individual company's product line. These things both can be measured with a fair degree of preciseness and have a far greater influence on how good a long-range investment will be... 

This book was published in 1960, and it is amazing as it still applies to this day; there are still people who think that predicting the economy accurately will lead to superior investment results. 

So...
Anyway, this is a fascinating time to be living in. This pandemic is really terrible and I hope we at least find some sort of treatment to take death off the table. I feel this is the key to normalization rather than vaccines. Of course, a vaccine would be great, but it is probably unrealistic to expect one to come within a year. If we can figure out how to treat the worst cases, and this treatment becomes widely available, this would sort of turn Covid-19 into something like the flu.

But who knows, really. 

As for stocks, there is certainly a lot of trading opportunities, but for us long term investors, I would stick to things that have secular growth potential. I don't really feel that excited about buying the dip on something in a long term downtrend. Not to say those can't be great trades. I would rather buy the dip on things in long term uptrends. If things are in secular downtrends but got a bump up due to this, then that's probably a great time to sell.

As for the market, it may seem like it's crazy, but keep in mind the amount of stimulus and liquidity injected into the system. It's not just lower interest rates. Also, people keep talking about overoptimism about the virus, but if you look at hotels, airlines etc., the market is clearly not all that optimistic about anything returning to normal any time soon.

Also, keep in mind that a lot of the big winners this year are making a lot of money; revenues are growing at incredible rates, profits etc. Other than the cloud players, look at COST, WMT, TGT etc. What is happening is that the smaller operators are suffering. Fast food is taking share away from the independent restaurants. As those are closed, if you want to eat out, you have fewer choices so you end up at CMG or QSR (Popeye's). A lot of the eating out money is moving to eating at home (groceries, again, COST, WMT, TGT etc...). 

 

If airline and hotel stocks were making new highs, then I would think the market is nuts. But that's not what's happening. You have to sort of look under the hood to see what's going on, but of course, that's too much work for most! I get it. 

Also, a lot of the revenues / profits that were not listed (small, mom-and-pop restaurants / stores) are moving to listed companies; as independents go under, the only ones left standing are the big ones, and often those are listed companies.

So there is a lot about this market that does make sense. This is not to say the market is always right, or that the valuations of each of these businesses at this point is correct. I am just pointing out that it may not be as crazy as some suggest. Airlines and hotels, REITS are down, and they are down big. Cloud players, stay-at-home beneficiaries are up big. What is so crazy about that? I don't know. 

Also, I think there has been a lot of tech adoption from the never-adopters. I see all these posts about kids teaching their grandparents how to use a tablet, how to get on a Zoom call with family, how to chat on FB, Line, or how to use email. People (many of them seniors) who only used land-line phones and didn't know how to turn on their TV (well, I have trouble with that too with so many remotes and buttons...) are chatting with their kids / grandkids on Skype on their tablets. They are learning how to order things online. 

A lot of this will be permanent. When things clear, many of these newbies will keep using their new devices and will continue to shop in their new ways. Not all of them, of course, and maybe not as often as right now. But this has caused an increase in this market for sure.

 

As for all the talk about how things will never go back to the way it was, that people will never go to conventions ever again, and that client visits will never happen again as Zoom calls work just as well, and offices will decline as people get used to working from home, I think, is rubbish. People always extrapolate what they see. Sure, it may take some time to get back to normal, but things will get back to normal, eventually. 

 

Surely there will be some permanent changes for the better, utilizing things we have learned during this time, and that's great. But I wouldn't expect a lot of this stuff to be permanent by any means.