Nuffnang Ads

Thursday, January 13, 2011

7 Reasons to Expect a Bear Market in 2011

While it seems that a lot of analysts and people are bullish about the new year, here's an article that states the contrary. 

Cheers,
~K


Taken from an article written by Mr. Claus Vogt of Money and Markets, entitled "The Contrarian View"


7 Reasons to Expect a Bear Market in 2011
1) The stock market is highly overvalued. It follows then that stock investments are nearly guaranteed to deliver poor, long-term returns.
2) The rally since August 2010 isn’t based on sound and sustainable economic factors, but on unsound and fragile faith in the Fed’s ability to inflate asset prices.
3) Longer term interest rates have risen considerably since the Fed’s first announcement of QE2. In the past, bull markets were usually on borrowed time during a rising yield environment — even when fundamentals were much sounder than today.
4) Stocks are extremely overbought when momentum indicators and the number of stocks reaching new 52-week highs stay below their cyclical highs, thereby not confirming the current run up.
5) There is a debt crisis brewing, not just in Europe, but also in Japan and the U.S. The U.S. municipal bond market is already under pressure.
6) The financial sector’s problems have not been solved, but only papered over with money printing and a suspension of mark-to-market (fair-value) disclosure.
7) In China a huge bubble economy has developed. Since Beijing has already implemented a turn in monetary policy, this bubble is prone to pop in 2011, posing a major threat for a still very fragile global economy.

3 Signs the U.S. Market is Approaching Danger Zone

A recent article by Claus Vogt of Money and Markets highlights three danger signs that a crash in the U.S. market may be approaching. I'll summarize below.

Danger Sign 1:
A Major New Debt Crisis Striking Thousands of Local Governments Throughout the United States

To highlight a section from the article, Mr. V states that,

"In prior debt crises, a major central government or bank came to the rescue. This time:
  • The Federal Reserve has neither the authority nor the will to come to the rescue; and
  • The U.S. Congress is even less inclined to open the Pandora's box that a city or state bailout would involve.
... This one is striking at the very heart of the U.S. economy!

Result: A big threat to the U.S. GDP growth in the second quarter AND to the U.S. credit markets at the same time."

Danger Sign 2:
A Major Divergence in the Stock Market

A key indicator pointed out is "the number of stocks hitting 52-week highs.
  • During a healthy, durable bull market, as the major indices move to new highs, there should be an increase in the number of stocks making new highs, as growing number of issues participate. And for the rally to continue, stocks must repeatedly hit new cyclical highs. But ... 
  • At the tail end of the bull market, this picture starts to change. The breadth of the move weakens. More and more stocks enter topping formations or start to roll over. And the number of stocks making 52-week highs levels off or actually declines.
...Although the broad indices are still making new highs, fewer stocks are doing so. In other words...

The whole rally depends on a shrinking number of stocks!"

The "negative divergence" is obvious from the evidence presented in the two charts below:



To quote, "As you can see the current move to new index highs is not confirmed by the number of 52-week highs...

The indicator's high for the current cycle was way back in April 2010. So the market is actually showing multiple divergences: A succession of higher highs in the index and ... at the same time ... a succession of lower highs in this indicator...

...the number of 52-week highs is a time honoured indicator. Historically, it has given important warning signs well before a major bear market commenced. Just look at 2007 and you'll see an example of a negative divergence similar to the one we're experiencing now!" 

Danger Sign 3:
Great Overvaluation

This line says it all. 

"The U.S. stock market is severely overvalued ... possibly by 50% or more!"

Put the three signs together and it's wise to invest with caution in the year ahead. What's that latin saying again? Oh yes...

Caveat Emptor,
~K

P.S. If you're interested in the complete article, it can be found here.

Facebook's Expected IPO

By now I'm sure most of us have heard about the expected IPO of Facebook by latest 2012. I too was interested as my opinion is that Facebook is probably going to be to social networking sites what Google is to search engines. 

Why do I think so? Because firstly, I never liked social networking sites but for some reason I sold out and am now on Facebook as well. It's like back in the days of Altavista and Lycos search engines. I used to keep using Altavista despite Google's appearance. And for some reason I just decided to switch over. Google even became a word as in "Don't know the answer? Try googling it." And now, Facebook seems to be used in that context too. "Oh yeah I uploaded my pics. You can facebook 'em if you wanna take a look." or "Yeah, I'll be facebooking later. I'll add you then." That's a second sign of the importance this social networking site is becoming.

If I had known about investing back then in the days of multiple search engines, that would have been a big signal to invest my money in Google. That said, I think Facebook may grow like Google eventually for the reasons above. However, would the IPO price be a good price to buy in? For that I like to refer you to this article below written by Ed Pawalec of the Tycoon Report which I found most informative.

Enjoy!
~K

Another Brick in the Wall: Fool's Gold or Value Play?
by Ed Pawalec

News of Goldman Sach's investment in Facebook has been all over the news, so I thought I would play with the numbers a little to see if an impending IPO would end up being a scam or a value play when the company does go public.

The exact financials are vague at best at this point, and can only be guessed at by reports in the financial press, but we can have some fun with this anyway.

The value of the company according to a variety of reports is in the $50 billion range, which some have said is ridiculous. In fact, The Wall Street Journal quoted one former Goldman partner who was offered a piece of the action as saying, "Google's trading at 7 times sales. I'm not going to buy Facebook at 25 to 50 times." Interesting.

The valuation is based on the portion of the company to be purchased in a joint investment by Goldman Sachs ($450 million) and Digital Sky ($50 million) for $500 million. However, Goldman is also reported to have been putting together an additional $1.5 billion through a Partner Private Opportunity Fund, so how they come up with $50 billion is a little unclear. Nevertheless, I'll go with the $50 billion number.

Now, Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook's founder and CEO) is trying not to go public, which requires these investments to be bundled into Special Purpose Vehicles (SPV) so as not to go a foul of the SEC's 500 investor rule. Essentially, this requires any company that has 500 or more shareholders and $10 million in assets to file their financials with SEC, thus making it public information. This rule is rumoured to have been the motivation for Google to go public in 2004. If you have to report publicly anyway, why not do an IPO?

According to the rule, a company that exceeds that threshold must begin reporting within 120 days of the close of the fiscal year in which it reaches 500 shareholders. Since the current offering from Goldman, which could put Facebook over the 500 shareholder mark, is occurring in 2011, and Facebook's fiscal year ends on December 31, the expectation is for an IPO no later than April of 2012.

This might be avoided if the SEC accepts Goldman's SPV as a single investor. The SPV is, in its simplest terms, a group of investors clumped together as a single entity, which then invests in Facebook and is counted as only one investor. We will see how that works out. 

Enough with the background, lets jump into the numbers.


Who says a dollar isn't worth what it used to be?

For 2009, Facebook is said to have earned $200 million on revenues of $777 million -- a tidy 25% margin. For the first 9 months of 2010, reports are that the company is up $355 million on revenues of $1.2 billion -- an even better 29.5% margin. For all of 2010, estimates are for $500 million in earnings, which would suggest revenues of $1.6 billion.

Based on a $50 billion estimated market capitalization, that puts a PE ratio of 100 on Facebook. Seems a little rich by most standards. That being said, stocks frequently trade based on how fast they can grow their earnings and, assuming we can take the $500 million expected for 2010 at face value, Facebook grew earnings at 150% year over year. Maybe 100 times isn't too ridiculous if you make the assumption that they can maintain that growth rate.

Internet World Stats numbers Facebook subscribers at 517 million plus (as of Aug 30, 2010) compared to recent estimates of 600 million. I have to admit, either number is impressive. But, if you think about it: $500 million net income divided by 600 million subscribers means that each subscriber is worth $.83 to Mark Zuckerberg and his investors -- just under a buck per year.

Zillions of man hours wasted on Facebook each year so some 26 year old nerd from Harvard can make $.83 on each user.

Think about that.


Critical Mass

But you have to give the guy credit for finding 600 million people he could squeeze $.83 out of.

Hold on a minute! How many people are on the planet?

Well, recent estimates are in the neighbourhood of 6.8 billion. By 2020 there will be about 7.7 billion people, and most of these would need to be worth at least $.83 for Facebook to be fairly valued at $50 billion today. But you can't have Facebook without the internet, and not everybody in the world is wired ... at least not yet.

Unsurprisingly, the growth in the number of internet users has dropped considerably over the years ...


With the number of users doubling every year during the heyday in the late 1990's, things had to cool down. Over the last five years, growth has steadied to a strong 13-15% annual rate. Again, according to World Internet Stats, nearly 2 billion people have internet access. Almost 29% of the world is wired for the web and 26% of them use Facebook, each worth $.83. 

Now if internet access continues to grow at a 13% rate for the foreseeable future, sometime during 2021 every person on earth will be connected to the web. Yes, you will be able to check your Facebook page from anyplace in sub Saharan Africa, as long as there are people, by 2021 ... maybe not. 

Since Facebook is just about 7 years old, its growth rate has been exponential. For argument's sake, however, let's just say that it can grow subscribers at a 25% annual rate. By early 2023, everyone on earth, who has already had the internet for two years, will now be available for friending on Facebook. 

While this is clearly something to look forward to, stay with me -- I do have a point. In this outlandish scenario, with the world population valued at $.83 a head, and if Facebook kicks all of its earnings back shareholders, it becomes a perpetuity. This means that the present value of the company can be determined simply by choosing a discount rate. Since we are talking about just over 10 years, the approximate 3.4% rate on the ten year note is as good as any. And the calculation goes:

(World Population in 2021 x $.83) / 3.4% =

(7,900,000,000 x .83) / .034 = $192.85 Billion

Before you deem this exercise silly, think about a more feasible scenario:

If by 2021, half the world is wired and half of them use Facebook, using this same crude calculation the numbers come to $48 billion, which happens to be darn close to the $50 billion number being bandied about these days. 

The point here is that Facebook is a unique company in that it actually has the potential to reach the entirety of the internet capable world and therefore, to its detriment, it does have a maximum value that can be calculated. I realize that the company could increase its per subscriber value and that the discount is somewhat arbitrary, but I found it interesting how doing some back of the cocktail napkin math came so close to the value ascribed by the pundits and analysts. 

In any event, at least now you have some idea what it would take to make this company worth $50 billion today.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Please Visit My Sponsors

Best Deals From Amazon