Tag Archives: investing

Google's Mobile Browser Has Doubled in Popularity

Source Google. Over the last year, Alphabet ‘s Google has seen the popularity of its mobile browser surge. In November, Google announced that Chrome’s mobile user base had doubled in the

S&P 500 Valuation Dashboard – December Update

Summary 5 key fundamental factors are calculated across sectors. They are compared to historical averages. It results in a value score and a quality score for each sector. This article is part of a monthly series giving a valuation by sector of companies in the S&P 500 index (NYSEARCA: SPY ). I follow some fundamental factors for every sector and compare them to historical averages, so as to create a synthetic dashboard with a Value Score (V-score) and a Quality Score (Q-score). The choice of the valuation ratios has been justified here . The Q-score uses the Return on Equity (see why here ). In this series you can find numbers that may be useful in a top-down approach. There is no individual stock analysis or recommendations. You can refine your research reading articles by industry experts here . Methodology The median value of 4 valuation ratios is calculated for S&P 500 companies in each sector: Price/Earnings (P/E), Forward Price Earning for the current year (Fwd P/E), Price to sales (P/S), Price to free cash flow (P/FCF). It is compared to its own historical average Avg. The difference is measured in percentage (%Hist). For example, %Hist= 10 means that the current median ratio is 10% overpriced relative to its historical average in the sector. The V-score of a sector is the average of %Hist for the 4 factors, multiplied by -1, so that the higher is the better. The Q-score is the difference between the current median ROE (return on equity) and its historical average. Why and how using median values Median values are simpler than capital-weighted averages or aggregate ratios on each sector considered a mega company. They are also better reference data than averages for stock-picking. Each number in the table below is the middle point of a sector data set, which can be used to separate the good elements and the bad ones for the sector and the factor. Median values are also less sensitive to outliers than averages. A note of caution: for ETF investors, the most relevant valuation ratio would be the result of an aggregate calculation, neither a median value nor a capital-weighted average of individual stock factors. Example The next chart shows an example: the median P/E for all S&P 500 companies (updated on the week of publication). (click to enlarge) The latest value is compared to the average of the reference period to calculate %Hist. Sector valuation table on 12/14/2015 The next table reports the median valuation ratios. For example, the P/E column gives the current median value of P/E in each sector. The next “Avg” column gives its average between January 1999 and August 2015, which is my arbitrary reference of fair valuation. The next “%Hist” column is the difference between the historical average and the current value, in percentage. So there are 3 columns relative to P/E, and also 3 for each ratio. The first column “V-score” shows the value score as defined above. V-score P/E Avg %Hist Fwd P/E Avg %Hist P/S Avg %Hist P/FCF Avg %Hist All -18.48 21.15 19.18 10.27 16.6 14.83 11.94 2.16 1.58 36.71 28.41 24.7 15.02 Cons.Disc. -19.48 20.07 18.7 7.33 15.99 14.56 9.82 1.61 1.12 43.75 27.52 23.52 17.01 Cons.Stap. -31.01 25.6 20.48 25.00 19.57 16.27 20.28 2.33 1.54 51.30 50.06 39.28 27.44 Energy -7.36 20.31 17.8 14.10 25.89 14.38 80.04 1.48 1.94 -23.71 18.05 30.59 -40.99 Financials -36.60 18.19 16.16 12.56 14.77 12.38 19.31 2.81 2.03 38.42 21.59 12.26 76.10 Healthcare -6.04 27.92 23.76 17.51 16.3 16.85 -3.26 3.38 2.93 15.36 28.41 30.04 -5.43 Industrials -10.82 18.66 18.75 -0.48 16.15 14.52 11.23 1.47 1.24 18.55 29.25 25.66 13.99 I.T. & Tel. 2.22 24.79 27.16 -8.73 16.47 19.29 -14.62 3.17 2.72 16.54 25.48 26.02 -2.08 Materials -19.35 22.41 19.74 13.53 16.92 14.36 17.83 1.37 1.15 19.13 34.94 27.53 26.92 Utilities -27.66 17.63 15.21 15.91 15.81 13.15 20.23 1.63 1.11 46.85 Energy: P/FCF Avg starts in 2000 – Utilities: P/FCF not taken into account because of frequent outliers in this sector. V-score chart Sector quality table The next table gives a score for each sector relative to its own historical average. Here, only one factor is accounted. Q-score (Diff) Median ROE Avg All -0.50 14.43 14.93 Cons.Disc. 3.99 21.33 17.34 Cons.Stap. -2.86 21.2 24.06 Energy -14.14 0.75 14.89 Financials -2.38 9.93 12.31 Healthcare -4.71 12.89 17.6 Industrials 2.90 19.85 16.95 I.T. & Tel. 1.88 14.99 13.11 Materials 4.85 18.74 13.89 Utilities -2.25 9.1 11.35 Q-score chart Interpretation The S&P 500 looks overpriced by about 18.5% relative to the historical reference period. Since last issue’s statistics (11/10): SPY is down by more than 2.5%. Overpricing has increased by about 1%. Quality is stable globally and for every sector. 4 sectors have improved in valuation: Energy, Consumer Discretionary, Consumer Staples and Industrials. The only attractive sector regarding these metrics is Technology (including Telecom). It looks underpriced and has a median ROE above the historical average. The least overpriced sector among the rest is Healthcare. The most overpriced sector is Financials. For Materials, Industrials and Consumer Discretionary, a quality factor better than the historical average can justify at least a part of the overpricing. If you want to stay informed of my updates on this topic and other articles, click the “Follow” tab at the top of this article. Data: portfolio123

Has Risk Parity Jumped The Shark? Asness Says No

By DailyAlts Staff According to AQR’s Cliff Asness, anyone who thinks risk parity caused the massive selloff in August has gone “all tinfoil-hat”. A better argument against risk parity, Mr. Asness concedes, is the fact that it has underperformed over the past several years. But is this underperformance a result of the strategy having jumped the proverbial shark ? Or is it simply a bad run to be expected with any strategy? Not surprisingly, Mr. Asness thinks it’s probably the latter, and this is the view he articulates in ” Putting Parity Performance into Perspective ,” the alliterative latest in his Cliff’s Perspectives series of white papers. Risk Parity Basics Mr. Asness takes the first few paragraphs of the paper to refresh readers on the basics of risk parity : “an alternative long-term strategic asset allocation” used to “diversify a more traditional equity-dominated allocation.” Rather than weighting holdings by market cap, risk parity weights them based on their anticipated contribution to overall portfolio risk – and in order to achieve the right mix, this means leverage is used to ramp up low-risk fixed-income holdings. From Cliff’s perspective, risk parity offers a “real but modest long-term edge” over traditional approaches because many investors are “too averse” to applying leverage. Risk parity is often described as an “all-weather” solution, succeeding regardless of the broad market’s ups and downs, and Mr. Asness believes this is true – on average . Unfortunately, we’re not living in “average” times, and as a result, risk parity has underperformed since 2009. Longer-Term Returns It’s impossible to do true risk parity back-testing as far back as 1947, so AQR uses “Simple Risk Parity” for historical analysis. The firm’s findings indicate that the “real but modest long-term edge” that risk parity enjoys over indexing really adds up over time. This is evident in the image below, which charts the cumulative excess return of Simple Risk Parity over the past 68 years: The image above shows Simple Risk Parity’s excess returns above cash. The image below shows its excess return above a “60/40” stock/bond portfolio. This helps put the strategy’s underperformance since 2009 into longer-term historical perspective: Forward Outlook Risk parity is designed to diversify away from equity risk. Instead of adding equities to a portfolio in pursuit of desired returns, risk-parity strategies favor using leverage to ramp up fixed-income risk. With equities outperforming for the past six years, it should be no surprise that risk parity has underperformed. Moreover, risk-parity strategies have also been slammed by the bear market in commodities, whereas “60/40” portfolios don’t even have direct exposure to that asset class. But do these facts mean that risk parity’s happy days are over? Not in Cliff Asness’s view. He suggests that the recent underperformance is of the sort that’s to be expected with long-term strategies, and adds that periods of underperformance are often followed by periods of outperformance. The problem, as he sees it, is that short-term periods of poor performance can feel awfully long – and this can lead to investors bailing at the wrong time. If traders have tactical reasons for wanting to allocate away from risk parity, that’s one thing – but selling because of painful results that should be expected from time to time is unwise, in Asness’s view, even if resisting the urge to do so is “one of the hardest but most important parts” of an investment professional’s job.