Sunday, February 26, 2012

Caveat investor: 6 sectors to avoid even in a bull market




First Post  :R Jagannathan Feb 25, 2012




The stock market rally over the last two months, driven largely by hope and liquidity, appears strong enough to take us to the 20,000-mark on the Sensex over the next couple of months. Unless Pranab Mukherjee produces a dud budget on 16 March.
I would, however, term this as a catch-up rally, caused by market fatigue that is tired of bad news and wants to erase the bad memories of 2011. It is not driven by fundamentals.
While liquidity – the proximate cause of all rallies – is going to be unpredictable this year, the fundamentals will only get clearer by budget-time. In fact, the list of go-no-go sectors for investment is becoming obvious even before that.
There are at least six sectors (and there may be more) that are worth avoiding at this juncture, even though the logic may not apply to specific shares in these sectors. These are:
Clarity about the telecom industry’s policies will take all of 2012 to evolve. It is thus a sector to avoid. Reuters

Aviation: Given the ongoing slow-motion-destruction of Kingfisher and the government’s decision to keep Air India on permanent life support, one should be clear that all shares in this sector are risky. One can say SpiceJet is doing better or Indigo is, but the problems of this sector need a comprehensive solution , and this is nowhere in sight. I would give all aviation shares the wide berth – unless you are a punter playing on short-term technicals and sentiment.
Telecom: After the Supreme Court cancelled 122 licences issued by A Raja, the sector is in turmoil. At least two foreign players are exiting their current partnerships (DB Etisalat andBatelco)  and one more (Telenor) is fighting to dump its current Indian partner (Unitech).
However, the real problems emanate from the Supreme Court’s verdict which has more or less said that spectrum should be sold only by auction. This will not only raise costs for all players, but also lead to delays and litigation as those with cancelled licences and broken marriages take recourse to courts to find a way out. Clarity about the telecom industry’s policies will take all of 2012 to evolve. It is thus a sector to avoid – unless you are so plugged into Delhi’s political circuit as to know who is going to emerge winner after the scrimmage.
Oil, coal and energy: The country has messed up its energy policies on all fronts – oil, coal, and electricity. None of them has a clear, transparent policy that can ensure steady and profitable growth when there is no problem with energy demand.
The oil marketing companies are in a mess due to the government’s inability to pay them their subsidies; the oil producing companies are uncertain about their profits since the government keeps changing their share of subsidy payments. Bad corporate governance rules the day.
As for coal, in trying to solve the problems of power companies, the government appears to have decided that Coal India will have to carry the can of ensuring supply – whether by higher production or imports. Higher local production depends on faster environmental clearances, and what the centre intends to do with the Mining Bill – which expects miners to share profits with persons displaced.
As for power companies, till tariffs are raised, payments to them will be delayed and uncertain. The entire energy sector will take several years to entangle – and the UPA does not appear to have thought things through as yet.
Fertiliser: Despite several efforts and continuous tinkering, the government has failed to evolve a sensible fertiliser policy. The current palliative is a complicated approach intended to serve three contradictory objectives: keeping the subsidies lower, keeping urea prices down, and also boosting investments by fixing all kinds of target-prices for imported and domestic gas (the input) and incentives for new investment.
Given an uncertain policy environment, businesses have been unwilling to invest in building new fertiliser capacity, causing imports to ratchet up. The subsidy burden in 2011-12 could be nearly Rs 1,00,000 crore, and a big chunk of it is going to foreign suppliers.
A new urea policy (yet to be cleared by cabinet) calls for fixing the floor and ceiling costs of production for new plants at $310-340 a tonne. But prices could be higher if imported gas costs more than $6.5 per mmBtu, going upto a maximum of $14.
Clearly, simplicity – market-determined prices which could then be fully compensated in the food subsidy – is not the preferred solution. The sector is not worth investing in till the government sees sense in simplicity and transparency.
Real estate: Thanks to a corrupt builder-politician nexus, real estate prices are unaffordable in most cities even to the middle classes. Real estate companies – on the assumption that prices will keep rising – took on huge loans and overleveraged themselves. They are now trying to sell their properties and reduce loans – but they are not doing the obvious thing to raise money: cut property prices by reducing their margins.
More importantly, the sector is marred by poor governance, and the numbers reported byeven the biggest companies look suspect.
In fact, the smart money is moving out of real estate, and the big builders are being forced to let private equity and other investors exit. Real estate is only for punters with inside knowledge about stock price movements – not for those with a good, clean investment in mind.
The real estate sector will continue to destroy value - as it has in the past.
Banking: Normally, a falling interest rate environment is good for banking stocks, since the statutory bonds and investments in their portfolio will start rising in value. However, this time the sector’s future is looking mixed – thanks to the prospect of rising bad loans, and the way the government is recapitalising public sector banks.
Banks are still to recover from the farm loan writeoffs of 2008, and recoveries from the farm sector have been impacted as a result. But the Reserve Bank is pushing banks to lend more to small and marginal farmers, and also to micro enterprises, at a time when the climate for recovery is difficult.
Barring a few very strong private sector players like HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank – who are anyway highly priced – the rest of the pack is going to face problems with further equity dilution to shore up on capital. The government is making things worse by picking up equity through preferential allotments (this is how State Bank will be recapitalised, at the cost of minority shareholders) and by asking the Life Insurance Corporation to do the same.
Banks with solid business models are few, and the public sector banking space is not worth investing in at this point.
The moot point: when so many sectors are not worth investing in, it is difficult to see the stock rally being sustained purely with liquidity. The short term may look rosy, but not the medium term.

`Invest in gold with opportunity of benefiting from potential increase over long-term`



Indianexpress:finance Buzz

''There doesn't seem to be any material change in the fundamentals that have led to the Bull Run in gold,'' says Chirag Mehta, Fund Manager, Commodities, Quantum Asset Management Company.

In an exclusive interview with Varsha Inamdar, Chirag Mehta further said, ''In an optimistic view, gold should slowly and steadily become an important allocation to one's portfolio.''

How do you see demand for the bullion segment? How should investors approach it at the moment?
Demand from consumption centers like India and China largely seem to be on a firm footing. Investment demand has been robust and would continue to grow lending support to gold prices. The current relatively high prices seen recently are supported by fundamental factors, and thus negate any speculation that gold is a bubble. Broad themes that would drive gold prices are currency debasement, rising inflationary fears over the long term and diversification of investments and reserves to gold. Gold as a percentage of total investments is still very miniscule. Even a small shift to gold can lead to large price increases. If concerns surrounding Quantitative Easing 3, monetization and European sovereign debt defaults trigger another broadly based loss of risk appetite, investors would no doubt want to increase their gold holdings. Gold should see good demand going into 2012 as well. Demand would likely be atleast similar or higher that seen in 2011. Also, the uncertainty in global markets keeps demand for gold on a higher side. Rising incomes in key consumption centers like India and China would also lead to increased demand for gold over the medium to long term.
Going by the episodes of 2008 and 2011, where gold was amongst the very few assets that stood still and delivered positive returns, investors are understanding the importance of gold in their portfolios by the episodes of 2008 and 2011. In an optimistic view, gold should slowly and steadily become an important allocation to one's portfolio.

How high and low could gold go in 2012?
Long-term trends in gold prices are driven by changes in the overall level of confidence in the monetary system and the economy. Therefore, to analyze gold over the long term, it needs to be seen as a monetary asset rather than a commodity. Given the current economic backdrop, where governments are struggling with problems like rising deficits and unsustainable debts, it is indeed logical for gold prices to increase in value.
Gold prices are clearly trending upwards over the long term. The macro-economic and supply-demand drivers point to a continued increase in gold prices. The uncertain macroeconomic environment and looming inflationary threat over a long term reiterates the need for gold in one's portfolio.

Do you think gold will remain bullish in 2012?
Remember why gold has climbed for 10 straight years, and from that long term perspective, not much has changed for gold.

The main reason to believe that gold's fundamentals are probably intact is because of the policy-making theories, mainly the theory that the economy can be made stronger via more monetary inflation, further credit expansion and more government spending.

Diversification of reserves and investment into gold seems to be the course of action, and is likely to continue in the future as well, thereby supporting gold prices. The corrective phases in gold prices tend to drive gold from weaker to much stronger and stable hands thus reinforcing the diversification theme.
To sum up, there doesn't seem to be any material change in the fundamentals that have led to the Bull Run in gold.

Do you think investing in silver is better than gold now?
Let us look at historical performance of gold and silver in times of distress i.e. when the equity markets are in the bear phase.

Gold's performance over the decade




 Start Period End Period Days Sensex GoldSilver  Gold's outperformance vis-à-vis Silver
 Feb-86 Mar-88 760  -41% 45% 26% 19%
 Oct-90 Jan-91 108 -39% -4% -17% 13% 
 Apr-92 Apr-93 390  -53% 13% 10% 3%
 Sep-94 Jan-96 509 -37% 20% 16% 3%
 Jun-96 Dec-96 170 -33%  -2% -5% 3%
 Aug-97 Oct-98 440 -39% 10% 33% -23%
 Feb-00 Sep-01 585 -56%  4% -3% 7%
 Feb-02 Oct-02  243 -24%  6% -1% 7%
 Jan-03 Apr-03 108 -13% -7% -7% 0%
 Jan-04 May-04 129 -26% -11% -11% 1%
 May-06 Jun-06 35 -29% -19% -32% 13%
 Jan-08 Mar-09 423 -60% 41% 12% 28%
 Nov-10 Dec-11 409 -27% 36% 28% 8%

An interesting trend, isn't it? Every time the Sensex (representation of equity markets) has dipped, gold has emerged as the knight in shining armour. And where does silver feature in all of this? Silver has outperformed gold only once - August 1997 to October 1998. So, if you are looking at silver for a more affordable diversification tool, then silver doesn't quite make the mark as compared to gold, at least not if you follow the historical trend listed in the table above.

If you consider price behavior, silver can be best described as ''half gold, half copper''. Like gold, the price of silver is based on its role of being used as a currency, and yet, like copper, a significant part of silver's price comes from its growing use as an industrial commodity.

Since 2003, economic activity growth led to an increase in the demand for industrial commodities. Thus, like other base industrial metals, silver prices also saw a rapid increase.

But, when the global crisis hit the economy in 2008, the demand for industrial commodities literally collapsed along with their prices. And, this period saw a sharp decline in the price of silver.

If you are upbeat about the economy, you should be bullish about silver in the intermediate term. If your confidence in the economy is not much to speak about, it would probably be sensible to be bearish about silver in the intermediate term.

Gold is a time tested asset which acts as an excellent portfolio diversifier and a keeper of value against the vagaries of inflation. Therefore, if you chart a pyramid for your investments, it should be a part of its base, along with your safe money/ crisis money distinctly kept aside. Silver on the other hand, should ideally be at the top of the pyramid, where you have your play money i.e. either a speculative bet on silver as a commodity or based on demand supply fundamentals. But, do remember, that silver is likely to provide exposure just the way your equity investments would, since both are dependent on economic activity.

Would you like to share anything else with our readers?
Although the increased custom duty has made the purchasing gold in India a bit more expensive, investors should remember that they would recover the difference when they sell their gold holdings. Such small increases in duties was an expected phenomenon and will only marginally increase the purchasing price of gold. Investors should look at the long-term position, and invest in gold with the opportunity of benefiting from potential increase in its prices over the long term. They should also look at the diversification benefits that gold provides, as proved by the recent episodes of 2008 and 2011.

Afterall, the only thing constant is change-be it the weather or the government.