Tag Archives: Value Investing

February 25, 2014 · 8:00 am

Our investment fund in 2013

It is 5 years now since Luca and I started investing together. This is the 4th year publishing this post in which I explain how our investments fared along the year (1). In previous years’ post I had explained how we had adopted for our personal investments the same approach mutual open-ended funds have.

Brief recap for newcomers:

As I explained last year, we had to define a net asset value per share (valor liquidativo de la participación) at the beginning of the period. This net asset value per share rises and decreases as the aggregate share prices of the stocks in the portfolio rise or decrease. When an investment fund informs about its yearly results it is referring to the performance of this net asset value per share.

Each time that there is an addition of capital (new investments, in this case by Luca or me) it is treated as an issue of new shares to ourselves. It doesn’t matter that we are the only “shareholders”. Depending on whether the net asset value has increased or decreased we are acquiring the new shares at a higher or lower price than we acquired the previous ones. Exactly as it works in a fund.

Let’s go to this years results: How did the year 2013 go? In line with 2013 good year for stock markets it wasn’t a bad one.

In 2013 we have not been very active investors, not doing many transactions nor adding lots of funds to the investments (with a wedding in sight for mid year and a baby to come we had a preference for cash). We mainly held previous investments and sold a couple of positions which already earned what we expected (2).

During 2012 I took note of the fund value about 22 times, so we could get an idea of how the fund evolved. As you may see in the graphic below, the net asset value per share at the beginning of 2013 was 44.63€ while at the end it increased to 51.03€, that is +14.34%. That was the performance of the fund in 2013 (not good enough to sell subscriptions to the fund! :-) ).

J&L investment fund performance during 2013.

J&L investment fund performance during 2013.

How does it compare with the main indexes?

  • S&P 500, +29.6% in $ terms [+23.9% in € terms, after taking into account F/X (3)] (this is the target index)
  • Dow Jones, +26.5% in $ terms [+20.9% in €]
  • NASDAQ, +38.2% in $ terms [+32.1% in €]
  • IBEX 35, +21.4% 
  • Euro Stoxx 50, +18%

The gains of the fund since its creation in January 2009 have been+66.51%, with a compounded annual gain of +10.85% (remember this always refers to the net asset value per share – marked by the first 2 positive years – and cash gains cannot be directly derived from the net asset value performance times the total assets).

Two years ago, I introduced the comparison with leading Spanish value investing fund managers from Bestinver (4). Let’s do the exercise again:

  • Bestinfond, +31.82%;
  • Bestinver Internacional, +32.54%;
  • Bestinver Bolsa, +29.72%.

All in all, 2013 has been a good year to present results, though it would had been even better if we had a bigger stake in Bestinver ;-).

I’ll keep you informed next year of this year’s results.

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(1) See previous posts showing 2012, 2011 and 2010 results.

(2) Unhappily among others we are not any longer shareholders of Metlife (will miss the iconic view of its landmark building in NY) and GE (will miss the good feeling when seeing a GE truck anywhere)…

(3) Since our investments account is based in the Euro zone, it is important to take into account dollar-euro exchange fluctuations for good and bad. Take a look at this website for interesting graphics, perpe. The USD gained 4.70% against the EURO in 2013 (or the EURO lost a 4.49%)

(4) Disclaimer: Since sometime in 2011, we have also positions in Bestinver, though I don’t get any fees for promoting it in the blog. (Our positions with Bestinver are excluded from the calculations of “J&L” fund to allow for clean comparisons).

NOTE: “J&L fund” numbers are pre-tax of capital gains realized, include dividends (twice taxed) and are net of transaction costs & brokerage commissions.

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January 26, 2013 · 12:00 pm

Our investment fund in 2012

It is 4 years now since Luca and I started investing together. This is the 3rd year publishing this post in which I explain how our investments fared along the year. In previous years’ post I had explained how we had adopted for our personal investments the same approach mutual open-ended funds have.

Brief recap for newcomers:

As I explained last year, we had to define a net asset value per share (valor liquidativo de la participación) at the beginning of the period. This net asset value per share rises and decreases as the aggregate share prices of the stocks in the portfolio rise or decrease. When an investment fund informs about its yearly results it is referring to the performance of this net asset value per share.

Each time that there is an addition of capital (new investments, in this case by Luca or me) it is treated as an issue of new shares to ourselves. It doesn’t matter that we are the only “shareholders”. Depending on whether the net asset value has increased or decreased we are acquiring the new shares at a higher or lower price than we acquired the previous ones. Exactly as it works in a fund.

Let’s go to this years results: How did the year 2012 go? As last year, this is going to be a humbling exercise :-).

In 2012 we have not been very active investors, not doing many transactions nor adding lots of funds to the investments (with a wedding in sight we had a preference for cash). We mainly held previous investments and sold a couple of positions which already earned what we expected (1).

During 2012 I took note of the fund value about 30 times, so we could get an idea of how the fund evolved. As you may see in the graphic below, the net asset value per share at the beginning of 2012 was 47.28€ while at the end it fell to 44.63€, that is -5.6%. This was the performance of the fund in 2012 (again not good enough to sell subscriptions to the fund! :-) ).

"J&L" investment fund 2012 performance (built in Google spreadsheet linked to Google Finance data, thanks to a friend's invaluable suggestion).

How does it compare with the main indexes?

  • S&P 500 ~ +13.41% (this is the target index)
  • Dow Jones ~ +7.26%
  • NASDAQ ~ +15.91%
  • IBEX 35 ~ -4.6% 
  • Euro Stoxx 50 ~ +13.65%

The gains of the fund since its creation in January 2009 have been+53.69%, with a compounded annual gain of +11.3% (remember this always refers to the net asset value per share – marked by the first 2 positive years – and cash gains cannot be directly derived from the net asset value performance times the total assets).

Two years ago, I introduced the comparison with leading Spanish value investing fund managers from Bestinver (2). Let’s do the exercise again:

  • Bestinfond ~ +16.52%;
  • Bestinver Internacional ~ +16.89%;
  • Bestinver Bolsa ~ +14.88%.

All in all, 2012 has been a good year to present general results, except in Spain and for us, due to some shipping and mining stocks that didn’t fare well in 2012. Let’s see how they go in the coming years.

I’ll keep you informed next year of this year’s results.

—–

(1) Unhappily we are not any longer shareholders of Pzifer, with its bluish star pill…

(2) Disclaimer: Since sometime in 2011, we have also positions in Bestinver (which we increased in 2012), though I don’t get any fees for promoting it in the blog. (Our positions with Bestinver are excluded from the calculations of “J&L” fund to allow for clean comparisons).

NOTE: “J&L fund” numbers are pre-tax of capital gains realized, include dividends (twice taxed) and are net of transaction costs & brokerage commissions.

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January 10, 2012 · 8:00 am

Our investment fund in 2011

Luca and I have been investing together for 3 years. Last year I wrote a post in which I explained how we had adopted for our personal investments the same approach mutual open-ended funds have.

As I explained last year, we had to define a net asset value per share (valor liquidativo de la participación) at the beginning of the period. This net asset value per share rises and decreases as the aggregate share prices of the stocks in the portfolio rise or decrease. When an investment fund informs about its yearly results it is referring to the performance of this net asset value per share.

Each time that there is an addition of capital (new investments, in this case by Luca or me) it is treated as an issue of new shares to ourselves. It doesn’t matter that we are the only “shareholders”. Depending on whether the net asset value has increased or decreased we are acquiring the new shares at a higher or lower price than we acquired the previous ones. Exactly as it works in a fund.

And why do we go through all this hassle? So we can now handily compare how our investments fare in relation to broad market indexes or specific investment funds.

How did the year 2011 go?

Let’s start with the humbling exercise :-). I had taken along the year above 50 samples, so we could get an idea of how the fund evolved. As you may see in the graphic below, the net asset value per share at the beginning of 2011 was 57.19€ while at the end it fell to 47.28€, that is -17.3%. This was the performance of the fund in 2011 (not good enough to sell subscriptions to the fund! :-)).

"J&L" investment fund 2011 performance (built in Google spreadsheet linked to Google Finance data, thanks to a friend's invaluable suggestion).

How does it compare with the main indexes?

  • S&P 500 ~ +0.07% (this is the target index)
  • Dow Jones ~ +5.5%
  • NASDAQ ~ -2.3%
  • IBEX 35 ~ -13.1% 
  • Euro Stoxx 50 ~ -18%

The gains of the fund since its creation in January 2009 have been+57.8%, with a compounded annual gain of +16.6% (remember this always refers to the net asset value per share – I will come back to this point in a future post, as cash gains or losses cannot be directly derived from the net asset value performance).

 Last year I introduced the comparison with the leading Spanish value investing fund, Bestinver (*). Let’s do the exercise again:

  • Bestinfond ~ -10.3%;
  • Bestinver Internacional ~ -10.1%;
  • Bestinver Bolsa ~ -12.7%.

All in all, 2011 hasn’t been a good year to present general results (for us, Bestinver or some indexes) however from the value investing perspective it hasn’t been that bad for buying (we performed 18 buy operations, while we only sold shares of 4 companies).

As any investment fund would do, prior to buying shares of a specific company we calculate the range in which we believe the target price shall be for us to sell the stock (and if the margin of safety is wide enough we buy). Taking the conservative values for each of the shares in our portfolio, we believe the target net asset value per share should be around 159€, thus having an estimated potential upside of about x3.3.

The latest factsheet of Bestinfond [PDF, November  2011] informed about a potential upside of x2.3. We may be optimistic; time will tell. And precisely that, time, being long-term value investors, we have plenty of :-).

I’ll keep you informed next year of this year’s results.

—

(*) Disclaimer: Since sometime in 2011, we have also positions in Bestinver, though I don’t get any fees for promoting it in the blog. (Our positions with Bestinver are excluded from the calculations of “J&L” fund to allow for clean comparisons).

NOTE: “J&L fund” numbers are pre-tax of capital gains realized, include dividends (twice taxed) and are net of transaction costs & brokerage commissions.

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March 1, 2011 · 11:00 am

Snowball (Compound interest)

I wanted to share with you in this post a speech I gave last Saturday at Rosemasters club contest. I was not contesting but a speech was needed for the evaluation contest, so I volunteered.

Why do I share this speech in particular? Not because it was especially good (nor especially bad), but because it has some insights that could help some of you in case you hadn’t reflected on them or made the numbers yourself.

I titled the speech “Snowball” but a more suitable title would have been “Snowball, or the beauty of compound interest”. Please, note that the metaphor of the snowball it’s not mine, so no need to praise my originality here. I borrowed it from Alison Schroeder’s biography of Warren Buffett “Snowball”, which I reviewed in other post in this blog (I take the opportunity to recommend the book again).

Below you can watch the video uploaded in Youtube (from the second 0:42 some helping hand lifts the camera, please be patient during those first seconds). Below the video I share the script of the speech so you can actually see the formula and the charts I showed. Reflect on it; it may help you a lot a long way down the road.

—–

Script:

“How many of you used to play with snow when you were a child?

Do you remember what the process you followed to build snowballs was? You started by making a small ball with your hands, like this. Then, you left it on the ground and let it roll over itself, so it was gaining more snowflakes and thus getting a bit bigger with every roll… for you it was a small effort, and after some time of rolling and rolling over, you easily could end up with big snowball like this.

Mr Contest chair, fellow members and guests,

Today I haven’t come to talk about snow. I want

  1. to explain the concept of compound interest
  2. to show how important it can be for or future and
  3. maybe to persuade you to take some action.

Let’s start:

This is the formula.

It shows what is the future value (FV) of an investment’s present value (PV) that gains a fixed interest rate (i) for n periods.

To put it simple, it means that the interest that we earn over the investment in the first year, will enter the calculation in the second year. In a very similar way that small snowflakes are making the snowball bigger.

  • The importance of compound interest for our future.

Who is the younger member of the audience today? I will ask you one question, let me see if I get the answer I want.

Are you saving and investing with your retirement in mind? Do you have pension plan or fund?

An extremely important factor in this discussion is that time in the formula appears in the exponent. This means the longer the time period, the better. Or put it in another way, the sooner we start investing or saving, the better.

I made two quick calculations to show you. Imagine a 25 year old person who just started working. If he or she is able to save 250 euros per month, that is 3,000 euros per year, and puts it in a conservative fund which earns 3% a year… by the time he is 65 he will have around 230.000€. His yearly contribution would have been 123.000€. So another 110.000€ will have come from the interest. He will practically have doubled his money.

On the other hand, take a 50 year old person who never saved any money beforehand. He will have to save it in only the last 15 years of his working life. To make the comparison, I supposed that he contributed the same 123.000€ in those 15 years, for this he has to save 8.200 per year or 680€ per month… when he is 65 he will have 150.000€, having earned about 30.000€ from the interests, 4 times less!

Effect of a 3% compound interest over 40 years.

If the young person would invest in more volatile asset, for example the stock market, which historically earns about 8% every year, the new figures would be these ones.

  • 840.000 – earning 720.000 from interests
  • 222.000 – earning 100.000 from interests / 7 times less.

Effect of a 8% compound interest over 40 years.

Finally, with this discussion I wanted to explain little bit the compound interest, how it is making your savings grow, and even though at the beginning the growth seems very slow this is because the growth with time is exponential and we human beings are not very patient, thus it is important to start early saving small amounts, as snowflakes… in the end you will have a big snowball.

Start saving and see you at the retirement age.”

—–

Final comment: as you may have noticed there several passages when what I say differs from the script. I didn’t learn it by heart. During my first speeches in Toastmasters I tried to do so. Now I am departing from that approach. However, I do write the speech to give it a clear structure, to polish some parts, spot words I may have difficulty in pronouncing (so I can replace them for others) and count the amount of words so I am sure it fits in 5 to 7 minutes (often 7’30”… never more or fellow Toastmasters will start clapping).

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January 4, 2011 · 7:00 am

My investment fund

After two years of investing for fun, I was troubled because neither the ING internet banking tool nor Google Finance enabled me to correctly monitor the profitability of our investments.

  • Google Finance shows each new addition of capital as an increase of assets (price) in the same way as if a particular stock had increased its market price. So after a year our portfolio showed an increase of 97%… but most of it was due to new additions of capital.
  • While with ING, each time we added some cash it lowered the profitability as it went directly to the denominator of the equation (the same happens with Google Finance “gain”).

I discussed this with Luca, read a little bit and then I found out that the best way would be to treat ourselves as a mutual open-ended fund (fondo de inversión). I had to define a net asset value per share (valor liquidativo de la participación) at the beginning of the period and then treat each addition of capital as an issue of new shares to ourselves.

After spending sometime digging in the files and emails of the past two years, reading a bit about how to treat these values, etc., from now on we can readily compare at any moment our “J&L investment fund” with any other fund, stock or index. So did I…

If we had a commercial mutual fund we would announce ourselves with something like:

  • In the year 2010 the gains of the fund were +22.8% compared to
    • S&P 500 ~ +13% (target index)
    • Dow Jones ~ +11%
    • NASDAQ ~ +17%
    • IBEX 35 ~ -17%
    • Euro Stoxx 50 ~ -10%
  • The gains of the fund since its creation in January 2009 have been +86.6%, with a compounded annual gain of +37.6%.

Not bad.

Nevertheless, if we compare it to the leading Spanish value investing fund managers from Bestinver, in 2010:

  • Bestinfond ~ +19%;
  • Bestinver Internacional ~ +26%;
  • Bestinver Bolsa ~ +5%

Since January 2009 both Bestinfond and Bestinver Internacional have fared better than “J&L”, though not Bestinver Bolsa.

Today, now that is already defined, the net asset value per share is 57.19€… however “J&L fund” is not yet that open-ended: it’s open to our own additions to the fund but not to third-party capital… maybe in a couple of years we go and set up an investment club or fund :-).

After reading Ben Graham’s book “Intelligent Investor” I wanted to give it a try with investing, this is why I invest in stocks myself, but, clearly, if you are tempted to follow third-party advice, rumours, tips, etc., you’ll be better off just investing in a low-cost index fund (a strategy described by Burton G. Malkiel’s book “A Random Walk Down Wall Street”) or take a look at the above-mentioned value investing managers.

NOTE: “J&L fund” numbers are pre-tax of capital gains, include dividends (after-tax) and are net of transaction costs & commissions.

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April 26, 2010 · 12:00 pm

Value investor: Joel Greenblatt

Last week, I watched an online interview by Steve Forbes to Joel Greenblatt, a value investor, author of the book: “The Little Book That Beats the Market”.

I read this book about two or three years ago and I remember it as a very enjoyable read (just about 150-200 pages). He proposes a formula to automate the stock picking process that would result from applying value investing principles by a person that doesn’t want to get too much involved.

During much of the interview he discusses how they have tested the formula, how it beat the market in this and that time, etc…

Summarizing, he admits that he based the formula in:

  • From Benjamin Graham: buying cheap.
  • From Warren Buffet: not only buying cheap, but buying a good company.
  • Last but not least: you need long periods of time, thus, patience.

This last requirement is what most speculators (vs. investors) lack of.

If you are interested in the formula, you may use it for free in his website.

Nevertheless, if I were you I wouldn’t stop there, but read “The Intelligent Investor” (especially chapters 8, 14 & 20)… the sooner, the better.

To my friends: if you are interested in Greenblatt’s book, I also got it, if you want to borrow it…

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February 19, 2010 · 1:35 am

Three centuries of confusion

Last Monday I was reading an article in FT by Tony Jackson: “Is China an investment sweet spot or a sour lesson?”.

Not that I am thinking about investing there, but in this article I started reading sentences which rang bells… “the long-run correlation between real growth in gross domestic product and real equity returns is in fact slightly negative”, “reminder of the futility of long-range forecasting”, “how to explain the underwhelming performance of emerging equities, besides a simple propensity to overpay for growth?”…

Nevertheless, the best I got from this articles it wasn’t those reflections but that it referred me to the Credit Suisse annual study from the academics Dimson, Marsh and Staunton. 

This annual study contains wonderful data and graphics. Let me share some of them.

Later on the report very well summarises what we have read and heard so many times from Graham and/or Buffet:

“Value stocks sell for relatively low multiples of earnings, book value or dividends. They may be mature businesses with an unexciting future, or they may have a depressed share price that anticipates setbacks. Growth stocks sell for relatively high valuation ratios, reflecting favorable prospects for the business, and their stock price anticipates cash flows that are expected to get larger in the future.

For larger US companies, over the longest available period (end-1926 to end-2008), the difference between the annualized returns on the Fama-French value and growth indexes is 2.5%. In other words, the premium for US value stocks, relative to large companies as a whole, is approximately +1.2%, while the «premium» for growth stocks is of the same magnitude but negative.”

Finally the report reviews the case for different countries and regions. Among them The Netherlands, where the stock exchange originated with Dutch East India Company. Here we find a reference to the book “Confusión de confusiones” by Jose de la Vega (1688), an Spaniard who wrote the first book ever on the stock exchange business. 

I will end this post with one quotation from the book: “What really matters is an awareness of how greed and fear can drive rational people to behave in strange ways when they gather in the marketplace.” (We have heard this lately from someone else as well).

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