So, Just Average Is Best…

Tags

averaging, fear and greed, investment checklists, investment process, investment theme, noise, risk vs. reward, stock picking, technical analysis, worship the spreadsheet

It’s New Year’s Eve…and in the end, it’s been a pretty tough & frustrating year for many investors out there. [‘Less you’re Irish & stuck close to home – just look at this friggin’ chart!] And while the holiday season’s all about celebrating the year gone by & ahead, it can be tough (as the booze kicks in) not to get a little disheartened and experience some real doubt about your portfolio & your stock-picking prowess.

And the financial media’s no help – the talking heads & market strategists chatter about the biggest winners of the past year, and opine on the stocks & trends to focus on in 2016. How on earth are they be so confident & so prescient? It’s simple…’cos that’s how they get paid & promoted! Just like CEOs, just like politicians, just like your boss, the big bucks are paid almost inevitably to the big swinging dick. Not the fidgety little guy in the corner, analysing stacks of data & second-guessing himself to death. Truth is, they don’t need to be right, that’s irrelevant. Because they’re looking to attract attention, earn fees, increase AUM, etc…and ultimately, confidence sells.

Trouble is, you need to be right.

But you don’t feel confident, like they do. And so the dance continues… They go on TV, and dish out all the confident narrative & commentary you crave. Except the only obvious market truism (‘stocks go up, over time…’) isn’t a good soundbite. Instead, they analyse monthly data points. And speculate about a possible Asian pandemic. And worry over an escalating Middle East war. And hyperventilate about a junk bond-induced economic melt-down. Or a terrorist attack, or maybe even an assassination, if they get lucky. And so on, ad infinitum.

But almost inevitably, it’s all just noise…

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Mea Culpa…

Tags

alternative assets, blogging, developed markets, diversification, emerging markets, frontier markets, growth investing, portfolio allocation, technical analysis, value investing

Surely about time I address this post to readers – the majority of these mea culpas are genuine apologies, the rest are probably just a little cranky:

i) ‘Sorry I didn’t get to your email/comment sooner…’

I like to think I’m fairly good at keeping up with your emails & comments – well, most of the time! As I’m sure you know, if you neglect to answer an email immediately, it’s all too easy to lose track of it. There’s also a daily mountain of spam I have to traverse – at this rate, I should be ditching the investing lark, ‘cos apparently I could be making an easy million squid a day instead… [I must applaud the sheer persistence & inventiveness of the Nigerian people – so definitely an economy worth considering! Guaranty Trust Bank (GRTB:LI), anyone?] But hopefully I get to (almost) every email in the end, even if it takes a week or three – if I don’t respond in a timely manner, just ping me again.

Unfortunately, I tend to suffer from a ridiculously compulsive version of ‘If you don’t do it well, why bother doing it at all?!’ So emails invariably seem to demand a specific & in-depth reply – um, which I often have to get ’round to completing… Might be a good idea to keep track of some of my recurring reader dialogue(s), and summarize/respond to them more systematically here instead – we’ll see, perhaps it might offer up a couple of interesting insights for readers.

But please, keep ’em coming, they’re much appreciated. Investing’s ultimately a pretty solitary activity, so ‘work’ socializing tends to be a more deliberate affair – emails/comments are a great opportunity each day to just hang out at the ‘water-cooler’ & shoot the breeze with fellow investors!

ii) ‘Sorry, yeah…actually, I did see that headline’

There’s obviously blogs out there providing excellent daily/weekly updates of the latest & most relevant news, weekly reading links, company & valuation updates, plus other interesting snippets & topics. Clearly, this blog isn’t one of them…

I’m definitely grateful for & awed by their industrious contribution, but personally I’m more than happy to rely on the fact you’re all reading & analyzing the same headlines as me! 😉 And from my perspective, individual headlines usually only add very incrementally to the mosaic of knowledge I already have about the markets, sectors & stocks I’m interested in. And in my defence, I also fall back on my Twitter account – I’ve somehow managed to accumulate an horrific 8,000+ tweets at this point, so surely there’s some interesting & contemporary tweets among them!?

iii) ‘Sorry I poured cold water on your favourite stock’

Fear & Greed (II)

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charting, diversification, Expected Value, falling knives, fear and greed, intrinsic value, investment checklists, momentum, portfolio allocation, position limits, stop losses, sunk costs, technical analysis, trading, value investing, value-trap

Continued from here.

I labelled as tricks some of the techniques I’m writing about here – which might have put off some readers. But surely you’ll try anything that might help combat the impact of fear & greed in your investing? Reconsidering, I’d now argue the five techniques I’ve already documented are actually essential tool-kit for any serious investor. Have another look, and I hope you’ll agree – to put it another way, it would be hard to argue your investing would actually improve if you omitted any of the following:

Learn To Love The Black Box:  Document all your investments, and analyze & learn from your mistakes.

Checklist It:  Develop checklist(s) for every stage of your investment process.

Valuation Orgy:  Value your investments using as many different valuation techniques & metrics as possible.

Watch What They Do, Not What They Say:  Focus on facts, figures & performance, not just the ‘story’.

Well, Are You The Right Size?:  Set pre-defined position limits within your portfolio.

However, a majority of my remaining techniques do perhaps deserve to be called tricks. Which means they may, or may not, suit your investing style & personality. Trouble is, how will you ever know if they’d work for you, unless you give ’em a whirl..?! Or figure out how they’re best adapted to your particular circumstances? Right, let’s soldier on:

vi) Learn Some Bloody Voodoo

A Letter to Avangardco (AVGR:LN)

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accretion, activist investors, Avangardco, Cal-Maine Foods, corporate governance, eggs, enhanced EPS/NAV, free cash flow, intrinsic value, Iryna Marchenko, lowest cost producer, M&A, majority control, minorities, Nataliya Vasylyuk, Oleg Bakhmatyuk, P/E ratio, P/S Ratio, Return on Equity, risk aversion, share buyback, technical analysis, Ukraine, Ukrlandfarming

Here’s a copy of a recent letter to the CEO & CFO of Avangardco.

Note I’ve updated all figures, as appropriate, to reflect today’s $10.50 closing price – otherwise, the text remains unchanged. For reference, I’ll also include Word copies of the original below. The letter speaks for itself, and is also a great reminder to readers of AVGR‘s extraordinarily cheap valuation! So, without further ado:

‘November 05, 2012

FAO:

Nataliya Vasylyuk, CEO, &

Iryna Marchenko, CFO

Avangardco IPL

121 V Prospect Peremohy

Kyiv, 03115

Ukraine

Dear Nataliya & Iryna,

A Brief Diagnostic on Trinity Biotech

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Ex-Cash Ratios, intrinsic value, Medical Devices/Diagnostics, share repurchase, technical analysis, Trinity Biotech

I last wrote about Trinity Biotech (TRIB:US) here.

Since then, we’ve been rewarded with another good set of (Q1 2012) results – more good news-flow, plus steady progress on the sales & earnings front. The Boys from Bray really do continue to deliver! The shares have just gone xd, and an annual dividend of $0.15 per ADR will be paid on June 22nd. This is small (a 1.3% dividend yield) vs. the share price & their current cash pile (about $3.60 per ADR), but the 50% yoy increase is a confident signal. TRIB also confirmed their intention to continue with open market share repurchases up to a max. of about $25 mio, around 10% of their current market cap. Here’s their latest investor relations presentation.

AGI Therapeutics – Anatomy of a Takeover (IV)

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AGI Therapeutics, AIM stocks, compulsory acquisition, delisting risk, EUR/USD, Event Driven, Expected Value, Gross IRR, Irish shares, market-makers, Recommended Cash Offer, Risk Arbitrage, takeover offers, technical analysis

Continued from here.

OK, to recap the latter part of my previous article, I put forward 2 (hopefully strong) arguments why you should embrace (unhedged) FX risk in your event-driven investing (and, of course, elsewhere in your portfolio). With AGI Therapeutics (AGI:ID/LN), however, I essentially faced no FX risk on the deal in the end.

Remember, AGI traded in EUR (or GBP) but the takeover price was $0.1171 per share (and holders could opt for equiv. EUR proceeds). My solution was to round-trip surplus USD I had available. Yes, I’d incur a small FX spread to convert USD for my EUR share purchases, but by opting to receive USD takeover proceeds I’d eliminate subsequent FX risk, and end up back in USD cash.

Let’s Talk About Risk, Baby…

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portfolio allocation, portfolio performance, Richland Resources, risk management, Salt-n-Pepa, technical analysis, trader, value investing

(All props first to Salt-n-Pepa).

In early-Feb, I published my first write-up on Richland Resources (RLD:LN), flagging an Upside Potential of 137%. Three weeks later, I was looking at a 65% gain on the share price. This presented an interesting dilemma (would that we could all enjoy more of these..!). But it seemed strange to be contemplating a sale so soon after diving in. Aren’t I a long-term holder, like most value investors..?! Well, ideally…but I use price, technicals and risk management to scale in and out of my positions.

For example, picture a GBP 100p stock I recommend/hold, and which I believe has a 125% Upside Potential. Sweet! With this kind of upside, I might have something like a 5% portfolio allocation. Shortly after, the stock shoots up 75% – so what do I do?! Well, in value investing world this is entirely expected (value will out, etc…) and I should definitely just sit tight. And sure I’ve got another 50% of value to realize…buy and hold, baby! Of course, in the real world, the answer may be a little different…

Richland Resources Refresh

Tags

Bernard Olivier, Dar Es Salaam, dilution, Gemfields, Ian Harebottle, JORC, Petra Diamonds, Richland Resources, sapphires, Special Mining License, tanzanite, technical analysis, tsavorite, Twitter

Please see my previous Richland Resources (RLD:LN) blog posts, here and here.

Well, RLD’s price action’s certainly been hectic since I last wrote about this stock in early Feb! One of the stock highlights I mentioned was the share price chart. While I was already fundamentally bullish, I was heartened by the fact the share price was threatening to break out of a long established trading range. This was capped at GBP 10.5p, and I speculated a break of this level might quickly lead to GBP 16.5p. Sure enough, it did, and in little more than three weeks..!

This prompted me to trim my position from an expanded 2.7% back down to 1.8%. I reported this at the time on my blog comments, and Twitter, so please be sure to sign up for one, or both, if you want to keep track of any specific stocks. Note I generally don’t do a new stock write-up until I have substantial new info/commentary to share (and I know you’re tracking news releases just like I am). Soon as I tweeted, Richard Beddard popped up to ask ‘Pourquoi? It sounded so glittery!‘ Haha, a bit tongue in cheek, methinks… Well, the quick 65% gain was pretty glittery too! I couldn’t resist taking it on a portion of my holding (btw I hope to write more shortly about this whole subject).

Total Produce – Seeing Green!

Tags

Capespan, Fyffes, stock fungibility, technical analysis, Total Produce

[Reference here, here and here]

Total Produce (TOT:ID or LN) is releasing 2011 Preliminary Results @ 7am tomorrow, Tuesday March 6th. Consensus 2011 EPS appears to be around EUR 0.071, bang on my own estimate. This out-turn would put TOT on a 6.3 P/E – far too cheap for such a defensive stock with plenty of firepower for acquisition led growth!

In fact, one of the cheapest companies they could buy is…themselves! With Fyffes (FFY:ID or LN) buying back 32.2 mio shares in Sep-Nov last year, I was v disappointed to see no such announcement from Total Produce. Especially with such a cheap share price, and when you note they’d EUR 89.6 mio of cash lying idle when they reported their interims. I hope to see some comment/plans in this regard tomorrow – failing that, management definitely needs to justify themselves with a more aggressive future acquisition strategy…