economy

The worst investment decision Warren Buffet ever made

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Or: On Outperforming Warren Buffet

Warren Buffet is hailed as the best investor in the world. His net worth as an investor is generally regarded as proof.  I started 100% DIY investing in March 2006 when we transferred our remaining holdings from our full-service investment adviser to our discount brokerage. We are currently standing at 31% over book value. In the same period, BRK-A, Buffet’s holding company has gone from trading at US $90,625 to yesterday’s close at $103,000. That is a 14% gain. Does that make me twice as good an investor as Warren Buffet?

An article in Canada’s Globe and Mail recommends that individuals invest like Buffet. There are many articles of this kind floating around; Buffet is considered a prophet of investing, the Oracle of Omaha. I’ve also shared here some of my tips of investing and there is some overlap between the way the Buffet invests and my style.  Yet in the commentary section of the Globe and Mail article I wrote:

I cannot invest like Warren Buffet. He breathes and the market reacts. It is harder for him to buy shares on the open market too, since if he were to let it be known that he wanted a billion dollars of shares of something, the price would go up uncontrollably. That’s why he often buys preferred shares which aren’t available to guys like me. He can’t invest like me either. Unlike Buffet, whenever I buy something the price seems to go down immediately. I buy very small stakes in companies that I think have promise or which have good yield. But it’s too small for anyone to pay much attention. I like it that way.

So perhaps comparing myself to Warren Buffet is a bit of bravado on my part, a testosterone-filled pissing match. It’s not comparable at all because Buffet is investing billions and I’m like an ant crawling around the big toe of an elephant. And to be fair, there have been times when Buffet’s done much better. I’ve been lucky during this recession, I’ll admit it.

But there is a fundamental difference between Buffet style and mine. He is buying America whereas I’m shorting the US dollar and buying Canada–a strategy that may back fire according to Roubini; but I don’t think it will because all the trends in the US government until the 2010 election are inflationary. Ken Boessenkool in the Globe and Mail writes about Canada’s dollar, the loonie:

… perceptions of future investment returns on a country-to-country basis are often affected by large shifts in fiscal policy. Bad fiscal policy – in the form of unsustainable deficits and debts – will cause investors to expect increases in future taxes and lower rates of return. In that case, the relative attractiveness of that country as a place to work and invest will fall, driving down economic growth. In response to poor fiscal policy, a falling currency can provide the automatic stabilizer to lower growth rates resulting from rising deficits and unsustainable debts.

And this is exactly the picture we are seeing south of the border. Barack Obama has put the United States on a debt and deficit path that is far worse than Canada experienced in the early 1990s, when The Wall Street Journal called Canada an “honorary member of the Third World” and our dollar was flirting with historic lows.

Moveover, our world-view is informed by biblical conservatism. The Bible is a good guide to investing; it affirms risk taking, generosity, unselfishness and not allowing money take hold of you (I am of the opinion that selfish people make bad investors).  It also warns about indebtedness. In my view, the US government’s profligate debt-based spending is a path towards poverty that is immoral and self-destructive. This kind of behavior is not affirmed in the Bible at all.

Warren Buffet knows it is bad in the US. But perhaps he is in denial about the single worst investment decision that he ever made:  his ill-informed endorsement of Barack Obama for President. Ill-informed because had he paid attention to Obama, he would have known that he was a radical leftist–perhaps it is not too far to say that BHO is a Marxist given his background. He would have known also that BHO knows nothing about economics and has never been an executive of a company or any other entity which would have qualified him for becoming the CEO of the United States. The man who is famous for researching companies before risking billions failed to do his research into BHO and it is literally costing Berkshire Hathaway billions in market capitalization.

India buys 200 tons of gold

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India bought 200 tons (32,000 ounces) of gold today from the IMF at a price of $6.7 billion. This should be an ominous sign for the deflationistas.  The price of gold spiked to US $1083 per ounce, a new high.

It has become clear to me too that one reason that the US has avoided inflation in the past is that so many governments and individuals hold their wealth in dollars.  John Mauldin wrote in his newsletter (October 30, 2009), “Catching Argentinian Disease” regarding real estate transactions in Argentina:

Interestingly, the dollar is still the real medium of exchange. I was told by several people that if you want to buy a house for half a million dollars, you bring the physical cash to the closing. One person counts the money and the other checks the paperwork and title. Argentina has the second largest hoard of physical dollars in the world, only exceeded by Russia. Is it any wonder they are concerned with the value of the dollar?

What if the international community suddenly lost confidence in the dollar and began to sell its reserves in favor of other currencies (Euros, Canadian loonie), gold and other commodities?  So far we’ve seen a trickle effect: the US dollar is slowly losing value.  But imagine the little Dutch boy with his finger in the hole of the dam, and if he suddenly removes the finger and the dam could burst; once confidence is lost the world markets could be flooded with US dollars in a day.  This seems to me to be a real risk to America and it is why the current Democrat controlled Congress and Office of the President are so immoral and irresponsible in their deficit spending.  What happens when no one wants to buy US debt?  They will have to raise interest rates.  But the US government can’t raise interest rates because already 40 cents on every tax dollar services the national debt.  If the interest rate was raised by a few cents, the US would be like the sub-prime borrowers who could no longer pay their mortgages when interest rates go up, because imagine if for every tax dollar 60 cents went to paying for debt.  That is untenable.  The problem will spiral out of control.  So the US will, as Mark Faber and others have predicted , monetize the debt (this occurs when the Federal Reserve buys US treasury notes) and hyperinflation will set in.  I expressed my fears about this on January 19, 2009, and in terms not too different the Financial Post’s Jonathan Chevreau (on May 27, 2009):

Over the past year, I’ve occasionally mused mostly in jest that the way the United States has been printing money to combat the financial crisis seems to rival Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. All this by way of wondering how it is that the result of running the presses has been rampant hyperinflation in Zimbabwe, yet the U.S. so far seems to have dodged the inflation bullet.

The only thing that can save us is for conservatives to take back Congress in 2010 and the White house in 2012.  The security of the USA and of the world depends on it.

Today at Powerline blog, Paul Mirengoff says that to consider Obama a fool is the charitable explanation of some of his foreign policy.  The same is true of current economic policy.  Rush Limbaugh and others believe that he is intentionally trying to destroy the economy so that he can implement a radical agenda, as Rahm Emmanuel has famously said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”  Such a sinister intent is consistent with some things that we know about Obama’s background.  But for the moment, I will reserve judgment.

Interestingly, the dollar is still the real medium of exchange. I was told by several people
that if you want to buy a house for half a million dollars, you bring the physical cash to the
closing. One person counts the money and the other checks the paperwork and title. Argentina
Catching
Argentinian
Disease
3
10/30/09
has the second largest hoard of physical dollars in the world, only exceeded by Russia. Is it any
wonder they are concerned with the value of the dollar?

The Destruction of the US Dollar

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A debate is waging between the deflationists and inflationists.  It will come as no surprise to those who’ve read my previous posts on the subject that I fall into the latter camp.  I have indicated numerous times that I’ve put my money where my mouth is.  In January, I was so convinced that there would be inflation, that I eventually decided to implement a strategy of holding little cash but rather oil and gas and gold mining stocks.  I’ve also shorted the US dollar.  This strategy is paying off handsomely so far.   Besides the inflationists have many decades of contemporary monetary history to back their point of view, and the knowledge that government deficits generally feed inflation.  The current Obama deficit is profligate and never seen in the US before Obama. In Bloomberg, David Reilly asks whose face should go on the $1,000,000 bill, but never suggests Obama, apparently because he is afraid to be put on the President’s enemy list.

It is true that the credit bubble was popped last Autumn, and this caused deflation.  But this has been reversed.  Consumers don’t see it yet because consumer goods haven’t increased in price yet.  But rising prices is not the definition of inflation.  One mustn’t confuse the symptom with the cause.  Inflation is caused by an expansion of the money supply without a corresponding growth in real wealth (i.e., goods and services).  When the supply of money is inflated, prices will rise to accommodate it.  This is what is already happening to gold, oil, and the stock market.  In Canada, there is an increase in real estate prices.  Next, consumer prices will catch up and everyone will feel the pain when their pay cheque won’t go as far.  Witness that oil is already back above $80 per barrel, gold is above 1050, and the Canadian dollar is almost en par with the dollar.  These are all symptomatic of the re-inflation of the US money supply.  Meanwhile, the Koreans are buying Harvest Energy Trust, a sign that the Asian, creditor nations are abandoning the dollar for hard assets in commodity interests around the world, including Africa.

Irwin Seltzer writes in a his column, “The Dethroning of King Dollar?“:

Which puts the ball right back in the Fed’s court. Unless Bernanke drains liquidity from the financial system, and shrinks the Fed’s balance sheet by winding down $2 trillion in support programs — and does so precisely when the recovery takes hold so as not to cause a relapse by moving too early — the dollar’s decline will accelerate, shattering confidence in its long-term value. One well-respected expert tells me that in two-to-five years the dollar will no longer be considered safe enough to be the currency in which the world does business. Its replacement: separate deals in local currencies — the Chinese paying for Brazil’s oil in renminbi, which the Brazilians use to purchase stuff made in China — and the International Monetary Fund’s drawing rights, bits of paper backed by a basket of currencies, including but not limited to the dollar. That would mark the end of an era that has seen world trade flourish and millions emerge from poverty. Sad.

The Obama Dollar

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I wrote back in January that Obama budget deficit would lead to inflation.  Now finally financial writers are calling it the Obama dollar.

In personal finances, debt is not a good thing unless properly managed.  Advisers distinguish between good and bad debt.  Bad debt is spent on consumer goods and services (Christmas gifts, food, vacations, etc.).  Good debt is used to buy appreciating assets like a house or investments which will produce positive cash flow (e.g., Crescent Point Energy Corporation, which pays 23 cents per share Canadian per month).

I lamented that Obama called his profligate budget an “investment”.  But there is no question that government debt is bad debt.  It is used neither to purchase appreciating assets nor cash-producing investments; rather government debt is spent on programs and make-work projects that will never have a profitable rate of return.  1.4 trillion dollars was borrowed in the 2009 budget year and it has led to inflation of the US currency as I predicted in January.  Let’s consider the difference in Canadian dollar:  On Jan 23, the Canadian dollar traded at 1.234 to the US Dollar; now today it is at 1.03 per US.  This is a drop of nearly 17%.  But it is not as though Canadian currency is not also being inflated by low interest rates.  In Canada, most investments, including stocks and real estate, have nearly completely recovered from the downturn.  Housing is now completely recovered in much of Canada, and this has financial writers worried about a bubble in housing prices.

I am still shorting the US dollar (it means that I gave borrowed US to purchase Canadian-based Barrick Gold (ABX: NY), Enerplus (ERF: NY), and Daylight Resources Trust (DAY.UN: Toronto).

Writers and analysts often refer to the Federal Reserve Bank “printing” money.  Actually they don’t have to literally print money, because the central bank has the ability to create money without printing it.  This is done especially well when the Federal Reserve buys US treasury notes.  The dollar is called a “fiat” currency, because money can be made from nothing and out of paper and ink.  Eventually, however, printed money flow will have to increase in order to keep up with prices.  But until then, inflation remains an invisible monster which devours people’s savings and cuts into how much they can earn.

The Carter years (1979-1981) were formative for me, as I graduated from high school in 1981.  I remember them like yesterday, and I remember its high inflation and how Reagan implemented so-called Reagonomics, reining in profligate Federal Spending.  Reagan halted an out of control Congress and put America back on track.  Being a beneficiary after my mother’s death in 1977, I remember my own Social Security check being cut.  Unfortunately, Obama was apparently too busy taking drugs during those years (marijuana and cocaine when he could afford it) and so has returned us to the pre-Reagan economic policies and ideas; but he has, in collusion with the Democrat Congress, implemented economic policies which are even worse than what we had during the Carter malaise.

I met a man from Singapore whose father lived in want much of his childhood and therefore as an old man hoarded enough rice for many years.  In like manner, I am afraid of inflation, because that’s what I saw as a child, and I have been preparing for this moment since I first heard about the Obama budget.  I fear inflation as much as any other investment risk, perhaps more.  The so-called safe haven of the dollar is a complete myth, all the more so when it is the Obama dollar.

Spreading the risk: Investment tips from an amateur

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Early in 2005, I asked my investment adviser for suggestions regarding stocks I could buy in US dollars, and he didn’t come up with one.  When my wife asked to buy Catepillar, he said it wasn’t a good idea.  For these reasons, and because he also received 2% commission for every transaction, I decided to try a self-directed trading account (DIY, do-it-yourself). On November 1, 2005, I bought my first DIY stock, CAT, at $50 per share and sold it at $70 the following February.  That marked my beginning as an investor.  So I have an answer now to that thorny question, “What do you do?”  That question has been embarrassing since 1996 when I finished my doctoral studies.  As a biblical scholar, I’ve never had a full-time job in the field.  Rather, I’ve taught as an adjunct in Canada and as a visiting professor in Africa, I’ve continued my research in the Acts of Paul, I’ve been the director of a charitable project called the Barnabas Venture since May 2004, and I have been very active in my local church.  I do work for my wife’s company too, but only part time.  But imagine trying to explain all that to people.  Now I just say, “I’m an investor.”

Being involved in philanthropy, I’ve desired to increase our ability to be charitable.  This has been one of the driving factors in leading me into DIY; but also, in the last half of his life, my grandfather and role model, Wallace Wilkinson Dunn, Sr., was an investor.  An inheritance from grandfather paid for the first year of my studies at Cambridge.  My father, who received the bulk of grandfather’s estate, paid for the next two years.  Thus, I enter investing with full confidence that it can be done profitably.  Finally, when it comes to our retirement accounts and Tax Free Savings Accounts (TFSA, which is the Canadian equivalent of a Roth IRA), we dare not put them in fixed income with constant ebb of inflation taking away most of our gains.  So I manage all but one of our retirement accounts, TFSAs, and small but growing non-registered account.

This morning I sat down and made short list of my investment strategies which included the following points:

(1) Pay attention to the macro trends in the economy.  Information is key, but one must realize that much of the information out there is provided by incompetent writers or supporters of disastrous policies such as Keynesian economics (keyword, “stimulus”) and Obama’s presidency, which have led to huge budget deficits and inflation.  The conservative world view serves me well as an investor.

(2) Always maintain sufficient cash or credit instruments to take advantage of market downturns.  But I try always to maintain an extremely low debt to equity ratio (far below 1:1–the goal of a business is to be in business the next day–while failed banks like Bear-Stearns had ratios of 30:1).  The investments must also be able to pay for themselves through their dividends.

(3) Keep the watch list down.  It is very difficult for me to watch more than about 20 stocks.

(4) Specialize:  Most investors have their specialty, a nook where they have a better feel for the market.  Some are commodity traders; others trade gold or foreign currencies.  I trade in bank, oil and gold mining stocks.  I am not a competent in options or short selling.  I stay away from investments that I don’t understand.  That’s why I don’t do options trading, because I don’t understand them.  Not being an expert, I also have to depend on analysts at TD Waterhouse and Scotia iTrade to inform me if a stock is a “buy” or a “hold” or “sector outperform” or “underperform”.

(5) Spread the risk:  When we still had an investment adviser, he told us the story of how certain Nortel employees who lost their jobs also had retirement portfolios which were predominantly made up of shares and options in Nortel.  As a consequence, they were severely hurt by the demise of Nortel.  Once while in my bank, a representative mentioned that one would do well to buy, as she had done, bank stocks (which were at an all time low).  She had invested in TD Bank; I told her that she shouldn’t do that since she was employed by the bank.  Well she would have made money, without a doubt, because TD Bank is back up to $68 per share.  But it is necessary to maintain the principle of spreading risk which means that one should never have everything in a single sector or a single company (Don’t put all your eggs in one basket). My wife’s company is in aviation maintenance, so I have chosen never to purchase a stock related to that sector.  So Air Canada, Boeing, Bombardier are all on my never-buy list.

Obviously there is some tension between specializing/keeping the watch list down and spreading the risk.  Buying 100 stocks in several sectors effectively spreads the risk even more.  But I can’t know enough about every sector to manage that; so I am trying to learn more about the gold mining and oil and gas sectors to be able to trade and invest effectively.

In late 2008 and most of 2009, when people asked me what I do, I said I was an unsuccessful investor.  But today, thanks to the recent upswing in the market, I’m still investing, while many professional financial advisers are delivering pizzas, waiting on tables, driving taxi, or just sitting at home unemployed.  For that, I, a DIY amateur, am thankful

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