ขอมาแปะรวมไว้แบ่งๆกันอ่าน
ไปอ่านLi Luปาฐกถาไว้ที่Colombia U.
ตามๆไปเจอที่วอเรนไปซื้อบริษัทผลิตแบ๊ตเตอรี่ ผลิตรถไว้ที่จีน
อ่านๆแล้วเห็นว่าบริษัทนี้มีสิทธิพลิกโลกได้เลยนะ
ผมว่าอนาคตบิลเกตส์ ไม่มีสิทธิหืออือกับวอเรนได้เลย
Warren Buffett takes charge
Warren Buffett hasn't just seen the car of the future, he's sitting in the driver's seat. Why he's banking on an obscure Chinese electric car company and a CEO who - no joke - drinks his own battery fluid.
Last Updated: April 13, 2009: 9:29 AM ET
(Fortune Magazine) -- Warren Buffett is famous for his rules of investing: When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is usually the reputation of the business that remains intact. You should invest in a business that even a fool can run, because someday a fool will. And perhaps most famously, Never invest in a business you cannot understand.
So when Buffett's friend and longtime partner in Berkshire Hathaway (BRKB), Charlie Munger, suggested early last year that they invest in BYD, an obscure Chinese battery, mobile phone, and electric car company, one might have predicted Buffett would cite rule No. 3 above. He is, after all, a man who shunned the booming U.S. tech industry during the 1990s.
But Buffett, who is 78, was intrigued by Munger's description of the entrepreneur behind BYD, a man named Wang Chuan-Fu, whom he had met through a mutual friend. "This guy," Munger tells Fortune, "is a combination of Thomas Edison and Jack Welch - something like Edison in solving technical problems, and something like Welch in getting done what he needs to do. I have never seen anything like it."
Coming from Munger, that meant a lot. Munger, the 85-year-old vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, is a curmudgeon who frowns on most investment ideas. "When I call Charlie with an idea," Buffett tells me, "and he says, 'That is really a dumb idea,' that means we should put 100% of our net worth into it. If he says, 'That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard,' then you should put 50% of your net worth into it. Only if he says, 'I'm going to have you committed,' does it mean he really doesn't like the idea."
This time Buffett asked another trusted partner, David Sokol, chairman of a Berkshire-owned utility company called MidAmerican Energy, to travel to China and take a closer look at BYD.
Last fall Berkshire Hathaway bought 10% of BYD for $230 million. The deal, which is awaiting final approval from the Chinese government, didn't get much notice at the time. It was announced in late September, as the global financial markets teetered on the abyss. But Buffett and Munger and Sokol think it is a very big deal indeed. They think BYD has a shot at becoming the world's largest automaker, primarily by selling electric cars, as well as a leader in the fast-growing solar power industry.
Wang Chuan-Fu started BYD (the letters are the initials of the company's Chinese name) in 1995 in Shenzhen, China. A chemist and government researcher, Wang raised some $300,000 from relatives, rented about 2,000 square meters of space, and set out to manufacture rechargeable batteries to compete with imports from Sony and Sanyo. By about 2000, BYD had become one of the world's largest manufacturers of cellphone batteries. The company went on to design and manufacture mobile-phone handsets and parts for Motorola (MOT, Fortune 500), Nokia (NOK), Sony Ericsson, and Samsung.
Wang entered the automobile business in 2003 by buying a Chinese state-owned car company that was all but defunct. He knew very little about making cars but proved to be a quick study. In October a BYD sedan called the F3 became the bestselling sedan in China, topping well-known brands like the Volkswagen Jetta and Toyota (TM) Corolla.
BYD has also begun selling a plug-in electric car with a backup gasoline engine, a move putting it ahead of GM, Nissan, and Toyota. BYD's plug-in, called the F3DM (for "dual mode"), goes farther on a single charge - 62 miles - than other electric vehicles and sells for about $22,000, less than the plug-in Prius and much-hyped Chevy Volt are expected to cost when they hit the market in late 2010. Put simply, this little-known upstart has accelerated ahead of its much bigger rivals in the race to build an affordable electric car. Today BYD employs 130,000 people in 11 factories, eight in China and one each in India, Hungary, and Romania.
Its U.S. operations are small - about 20 people work in a sales and marketing outpost in Elk Grove Village, Ill., near Motorola, and another 20 or so work in San Francisco, not far from Apple. BYD makes about 80% of Motorola's RAZR handsets, as well as batteries for iPods and iPhones and low-cost computers, including the model distributed by Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop per Child nonprofit based in Cambridge, Mass. Revenues, which have grown by about 45% annually during the past five years, reached $4 billion in 2008.
In acquiring a stake in BYD, Buffett broke a couple of his own rules. "I don't know a thing about cellphones or batteries," he admits. "And I don't know how cars work." But, he adds, "Charlie Munger and Dave Sokol are smart guys, and they do understand it. And there's no question that what's been accomplished since 1995 at BYD is extraordinary."
One more thing reassured him. Berkshire Hathaway first tried to buy 25% of BYD, but Wang turned down the offer. He wanted to be in business with Buffett - to enhance his brand and open doors in the U.S., he says - but he would not let go of more than 10% of BYD's stock. "This was a man who didn't want to sell his company," Buffett says. "That was a good sign."
***
We're lost in Shenzhen. I've flown 8,000 miles to meet Wang, and on the way to the interview, my driver pulls to the side of a dusty highway. He's yelling in Cantonese into his phone and frenetically sketching Chinese characters on the touchscreen of a GPS navigator. The PR woman beside me looks worried. "The GPS isn't working," she says. "Too many new roads."
I can't blame the driver or the GPS - which, it occurs to me, was probably made nearby, since Shenzhen is the manufacturing hub of the global electronics industry, the place your cellphone, digital camera, and laptop probably came from. Just across a river from Hong Kong, Shenzhen is the biggest and fastest-growing city in the world that most Americans cannot find on a map. It's also the Chinese city most like America, because people who live here have come from elsewhere in search of a better life.
When Deng Xiaoping designated Shenzhen as China's first "special economic zone" in 1980, inviting capitalism to take root, it was a fishing village; today, it's a sprawling megacity of 12 million to 14 million people, most of them migrant workers who toil in vast factories like those run by BYD and earn about 1,300 renminbi, or $190, per month.
When we find BYD's new headquarters - a silvery office building that would not look out of place in Silicon Valley - I'm given a tour of the company "museum," which celebrates products and milestones from the firm's brief history, and then escorted into a conference room where plates of apples, bananas, and cherry tomatoes are spread on a table. Wang takes a seat across from me - he is 43, a smallish man, with black hair and glasses - and begins, through an interpreter, to tell me his story.
He started BYD with a modest goal: to edge in on the Japanese-dominated battery business. "Importing batteries from Japan was very expensive," Wang says. "There were import duties, and delivery times were long." He studied Sony and Sanyo patents and took apart batteries to understand how they were made, a "process that involved much trial and error," he says. (Sony and Sanyo later sued BYD, unsuccessfully, for infringing on their patents.)
BYD's breakthrough came when Wang decided to substitute migrant workers for machines. In place of the robotic arms used on Japanese assembly lines, which cost $100,000 or more apiece, BYD actually cut costs by hiring hundreds, then thousands, of people.
"When I first visited the BYD factory, I was shocked," says Daniel Kim, a Merrill Lynch technology analyst based in Hong Kong, who has been to the fully automated production lines in Japan and Korea. "It's a completely different business model." To control quality, BYD broke every job down into basic tasks and applied strict testing protocols. By 2002, BYD had become one of the top four manufacturers worldwide - and the largest Chinese manufacturer - in each of the three rechargeable battery technologies (Li-Ion, NiCad, and NiMH), according to a Harvard Business School case study of the company. And Wang stresses that BYD, unlike Sony and Sanyo, has never faced a recall of its batteries.
Deploying the armies of laborers at BYD is an officer corps of managers and engineers who invent and design the products. Today the company employs about 10,000 engineers who have graduated from the company's training programs - some 40% of those who enter either drop out or are dismissed - and another 7,000 new college graduates are being trained. Wang says the engineers come from China's best schools. "They are the top of the top," he says. "They are very hard-working, and they can compete with anyone." BYD can afford to hire lots of them because their salaries are only about $600 to $700 a month; they also get subsidized housing in company-owned apartment complexes and low-cost meals in BYD canteens. "They're basically breathing, eating, thinking, and working at the company 24/7," says a U.S. executive who has studied BYD.
Wang typically works until 11 p.m. or midnight, five or six days a week. "In China, people of my generation put work first and life second," says the CEO, whose wife takes responsibility for raising their two children.
This "human resource advantage" is "the most important part" of BYD's strategy, Wang says. His engineers investigate a wide array of technologies, from automobile air-conditioning systems that can run on batteries to the design of solar-powered streetlights. Unlike most automakers, BYD manufactures nearly all its cars by itself - not just the engines and body but air conditioning, lamps, seatbelts, airbags, and electronics. "It is difficult for others to compete," Wang says. "If we put our staff in Japan or the U.S., we could not afford to do anything like this."
Wang himself grew up in extreme poverty. His parents, both farmers, died before he entered high school, and he was raised by an older brother and sister. The train ride from the village where he grew up to Central South Industrial University of Technology, where he earned his chemistry degree, took him by Yellow Mountain, a popular destination for hikers and tourists, but he has never visited there. "I didn't go then because we had no money," he says. "I don't go now because we have no time."
As for accumulating wealth? "I'm not interested in it," he claims. He certainly doesn't live a very lavish lifestyle. He was paid about $265,000 in 2008, and he lives in a BYD-owned apartment complex with other engineers. His only indulgences are a Mercedes and a Lexus, and they have a practical purpose: He takes their engines apart to see how they work. On a trip to the U.S., he once tried to disassemble the seat of a Toyota owned by Fred Ni, an executive who was driving him around. Shortly after BYD went public, Wang did something extraordinary: He took approximately 15% of his holdings in BYD and distributed the shares to about 20 other executives and engineers at the company. He still owns roughly 28% of the shares, worth about $1 billion.
The company itself is frugal. Until recently, executives always flew coach. One told me he was appalled when he learned that Ford, which lost billions last year, had staged a gala at the Hotel George V during the Paris auto show. By contrast, the last time BYD executives traveled to the Detroit auto show they rented a suburban house to save the cost of hotel rooms.
This attention to costs is one reason that BYD has made money consistently even as it has expanded into new businesses. Each of BYD's business units - batteries, mobile-phone components, and autos - was profitable in 2008, albeit on a small scale. Overall, net profits were around $187 million. BYD, which is traded on the Hong Kong exchange, has a market value of about $3.8 billion. That's less than Ford (F, Fortune 500) ($7 billion at the beginning of April), but more than General Motors (GM, Fortune 500) ($1.3 billion).
Near the end of our conversation, I ask Wang about the company name. It's been reported that BYD stands for "Build your dreams," but he says he added that as the company motto only later. Others say that as Motorola, Apple, and Berkshire Hathaway have made their way to Shenzhen, the name has taken on yet another meaning: Bring your dollars.
***
When David Sokol toured BYD's operations last summer, Wang took him to a battery factory and explained that BYD wants to make its batteries 100% recyclable. To that end, the company has developed a nontoxic electrolyte fluid. To underscore the point, Wang poured battery fluid into a glass and drank it. "Doesn't taste good," he said, making a face and offering a sip to Sokol.
Sokol declined politely. But he got the message. "His focus there was that if we're going to help solve environmental problems, we can't create new environmental problems with our technology," Sokol says.
Sokol, author of a slim volume on management principles called Pleased but Not Satisfied, sized up Wang during that visit and decided he was an unusually purposeful executive. Sokol says, "Many good entrepreneurs can go from zero to a couple of million in revenues and a couple of hundred people. He's got over 100,000 people. Few can do that." When he got back to the U.S., Sokol told Buffett, "This guy's amazing. You want to meet him."
Even before visiting BYD, Sokol believed in electric cars. His people at MidAmerican have studied clean technologies like batteries and wind power for years because of the threat of climate change. One way or another, Sokol says, energy companies will need to produce more energy while emitting less carbon dioxide.
Electric cars will be one answer. They generate fewer greenhouse gas emissions than cars that burn gasoline, and they have lower fuel costs, even when oil is cheap. That's because electric engines are more efficient than internal-combustion engines, and because generating energy on a large scale (in coal or nuclear plants) is less wasteful than doing it on a small scale (by burning gasoline in an internal-combustion engine).
The numbers look something like this: Assume you drive 12,000 miles a year, gas costs $2 a gallon, and electricity is priced at 12¢ per kilowatt, about what most Americans pay. A gasoline-powered car that gets 20 miles to the gallon - say, a Chevy Impala or a BMW X3 - will have annual fuel costs of $1,200 and generate about 6.6 tons of carbon dioxide. Equip those cars with electric motors, and fuel costs drop to $400 a year and emissions are reduced to about 1.5 tons.
The big problem is that they are expensive to make, and the single largest cost is the battery. Manufacturing a safe, reliable, long-lasting, and fast-charging battery for a car is a complex and costly undertaking. BYD claims to have achieved a breakthrough with its lithium ion ferrous phosphate technology, but no one can be sure whether it will work as promised.
Skeptics say that BYD's battery cannot be both more powerful and cheaper than those made by competitors, and the U.S. Department of Energy has purchased an F3DM to take the battery apart. Chitra Gopal, an analyst with Nomura Securities in Singapore who follows the company closely, says BYD is betting on "entirely new technology, and the ability to produce it at scale and at a low cost remains unproven." William Moore, publisher and editor-in-chief of EV World, an electric car website, says, "They need to persuade people that they are selling a reliable, durable, quality automobile."
Even BYD's admirers say the fit and finish of the company's cars leave much to be desired. "Their cars are way behind Toyota, for sure," Sokol admits. BYD currently exports gasoline-powered cars to Africa, South America, and the Middle East, but they compete on price, not quality.
BYD's first plug-in hybrid, called a dual-mode car, is designed to run primarily on electricity, with an internal- combustion engine for backup. Two all-electric cars - the E3 and the E6 - will follow later this year. Both will be sold first in China, primarily to fleet users: the government, post office, utilities, and taxi companies, all of which will build central fast-charging facilities. Europe, with its high gas prices, is the most promising export market for BYD's electric cars. Wang signed an agreement last year with Autobinck, a Dutch dealer group, to distribute its cars in the Netherlands and five Eastern European countries.
The company hasn't yet decided whether it will enter the U.S. market, where the economics of electric cars are not as compelling. Sokol, who now sits on BYD's board, says BYD could instead become a battery supplier to global automakers. Some Americans, though, are eager to do business with BYD. The day after Fortune's visit to BYD, Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski arrived to test-drive an electric car and urge the company to import through the port of Portland. Meanwhile, BYD researchers are on to their next big idea, a product they call a Home Clean Power Solution. It's essentially a set of rooftop solar photovoltaic panels with batteries built in to store power for use when the sun's not out, all to be designed and manufactured by BYD. "Solar is an endless source of energy," Wang says. "With better technology, we can reduce the costs."
Wang is also focused on building a stronger executive team to drive the company forward. "The good news is, he's 42 years old," Sokol says. "The bad news is that he's clearly the brains behind the organization, and the drive. He has to develop a team faster, but I think he knows that." Last winter it was Sokol's turn to lead Wang on a tour of his home country. They started in Detroit, where BYD's cars generated buzz at the North American Auto Show, and wound up on the West Coast, where Wang met for the first time with Charlie Munger. In between, they stopped in Omaha.
"How did BYD get so far ahead?" Warren Buffett asked Wang, speaking through a translator. "Our company is built on technological know-how," Wang answered. Wary as always of a technology play, Buffett asked how BYD would sustain its lead. "We'll never, never rest," Wang replied.
Buffett may not understand batteries or cars, or Mandarin for that matter. Drive, however, is something that needs no translation.
รูปป๋าไม่ต้องแนะนำแล้ว
รูปWang Chuan-Fu,
Munger tells Fortune, "is a combination of Thomas Edison and Jack Welch - something like Edison in solving technical problems, and something like Welch in getting done what he needs to do.
รูปหนุ่มจีนขวาล่าง Li Lu
ในรูปฝรั่งอีกท่านนึงSokolทำงานให้วอเรน
BYD E6 รถพลังงานไฟฟ้าจีน บุกเมืองลุงแซม ชูแบตเตอรี่ Fe คุยระยะทางทำการ 330 กิโลเมตร
by Ed on January 15, 2010
แม้ว่า Detroit Auto Show จะจัดไกลถึงอเมริกาในถื่นที่ถือว่าเป็นศูนย์กลางการผลิตรถยนต์อันดับ 1 ของโลกมาแต่ไหนแต่ไร BYD ค่ายผลิตรถยนต์จากจีนที่ไม่คุ้นหูคนไทยขอบุกไปประกาศศักดา ก่อนที่ปลายปีนี้จีนน่าจะกลายเป็นศูนย์กลางการผลิตรถยนต์ใหญ่ที่สุดในโลกแซง หน้าอเมริกาไปแบบไม่ยากเย็น ในงานนี้ BYD ได้นำเอา E6 รถ crossover พลังงานไฟฟ้าทั้งคันไปอวดทั้งโฉมและเทคโนโลยี โดยเฉพาะการใช้แบตเตอรี่แบบ Fe หรือลิเธี่ยมอิออนฟอสเฟต (Li-Fe) ที่ไม่เพียงราคาถูกกว่าแบบลิเธี่ยมอิออนธรรมดาถึงเท่าตัว แถมยังเป็นมิตรกับสิ่งแวดล้อมมากๆ ปลอดภัย ชาร์จไฟได้ไว แถมยังมีอายุการใช้งานนานถึง 10 ปีเลยทีเดียว
Peter Lynch didn't just beat the Street ... he absolutely destroyed it.
Reflect on his record for a second. Lynch ran Fidelity's Magellan Fund from 1977 to 1990, beating the S&P 500 in all but two of those years. He averaged annual returns of 29%. That's a mind-blowing figure. It means that $1 grew to more than $27; if you invested as little as $37,000 with him in 1977, you were a millionaire in 1990.
Fortunately for us, he's willing to share his secrets. To achieve his stunning track record, he clung to eight simple principles. Here they are.
1. Know what you own
Seems elementary, right? But as someone who talks to lots of investors, I can report that you'd be shocked at how few investors actually do their research. Scroll down to No. 7 for a good first step in getting ahead of the game.
2. It's futile to predict the economy and interest rates (so don't waste time trying)
After 2008's crash, I noticed a distinct increase in armchair economists. We financial types do enjoy water cooler talk about interest rates, trade deficits, debt levels, etc. But there's a danger in converting thought into action.
The U.S. economy is an extraordinarily complex system, with 300 million people acting in their own self-interest and responding to each others' actions, government incentives, and external shocks. And that's before we factor in our increasingly frequent interactions with the rest of the world.
Trying to time the market is futile. Set up a financial plan that allocates your assets based on your risk tolerance, so that you can sleep at night.
3. You have plenty of time to identify and recognize exceptional companies
Lynch mentions that Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) was a 10-bagger -- i.e. its stock rose to 10 times its initial price -- 10 years after it went public. Even if you had gotten in after waiting a decade, though, you'd be sitting on a 100-bagger.
Some would argue that it's still not too late to get in on Wal-Mart, decades after going public. While the company's no longer a monster growth story, it continues to crank out 20% returns on equity year after year. That type of consistent ROE is a huge positive indicator of management's ability to effectively allocate capital.
I could tell a similar tale about Microsoft's early growth years, right on down to its still-impressive current return on equity (42%).
And Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN), though only 13 years old as a public company, has seen its stock double since its 10th birthday. Of these three, it's the only company still trading at growth-stock valuations. Bulls are hitching their wagon to Amazon.com's ability to expand its role as the premier online retailer, and its upside in the cloud-computing space.
The lesson of Wal-Mart, Microsoft, and Amazon.com? You don't need to immediately jump into the hot stock you just heard about. There's plenty of time to do your research first. See No. 1.
4. Avoid long shots
Lynch claims he was 0-for-25 in investing in companies that had no revenue but a great story. Remember, the guy who averaged 29% returns went oh-fer on long shots. You and I are unlikely to do much better.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Use companies with proven track records as your baseline. ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM), IBM (NYSE: IBM), and Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) are selling for 9, 11, and 16 times forward earnings, respectively. This is what the market is charging for solid, low-to-moderate-growth companies that dominate (or at least co-dominate) their spaces. Expect to pay more for higher-growth prospects, but make sure the risk-reward trade-off on an unproven company is worth it.
5. Good management is very important; good businesses matter more
The pithier Lynchism is: "Go for a business that any idiot can run – because sooner or later, any idiot is probably going to run it."
For a prototypical example of a so-easy-a-caveman-could-run-it company, think the aforementioned Procter & Gamble.
6. Be flexible and humble, and learn from mistakes
Lynch has said: "In this business, if you're good, you're right six times out of 10. You're never going to be right nine times out of 10."
You're going to be wrong. Diversification and the ability to honestly analyze your mistakes are your best tools to minimize the damage.
7. Before you make a purchase, you should be able to explain why you're buying
Specifically, you should be able to explain your thesis in three sentences or less. And in terms an 11-year-old could understand. Once this simply stated thesis starts breaking down, it's time to sell.
8. There's always something to worry about.
Lynch noted that investors made a killing in the 1950s despite the very new threat of nuclear war. There are plenty of fears to choose from right now, but we've survived a Great Depression, two world wars, an oil crisis, and double-digit inflation.
Always remember, if our worst fears come true, there'll be a heck of a lot more to worry about than some stock market losses. Lynch's parting shot is that investing is more about stomach than brains.
Peter's principles in action
So there you have it. These are the eight principles Peter Lynch used to bring the market to its knees. They seem simple, but trust me, sticking to them is harder than it sounds.
The Power of the High-Yield Portfolio
By Todd Wenning
March 12, 2010
My timing couldn't have been worse.
On Aug. 14, 2008, I built a mock high-yield portfolio (HYP) based on an investment strategy put forth by our friends at Motley Fool U.K. back in 2000.
The idea of the HYP strategy is to buy 10 to 15 stocks with above-average dividend yields and hold them indefinitely, focusing on income generation and making capital appreciation a secondary objective. One of the benefits of this strategy is that you don't overtrade because daily price fluctuations aren't part of the picture. Instead, you begin to focus on the long-term value of owning strong businesses that produce real returns year after year.
To be included in the portfolio, the stocks must:
• Be large-caps
• Have a history of increasing dividends
• Have relatively low debt levels
• Have sufficient free cash flow coverage
• Hail from diverse industries
It's a fine strategy and still is. Problem was, I strayed from the strategy in some cases and my mistakes were quickly exposed.
Five weeks after I started the portfolio, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection, and all heck broke loose in the markets. Within months, my HYP was in disarray.
Needing a bailout
At the time, the market conditions seemed at least viable for starting an HYP -- the S&P 500 was 16% off its 2007 highs, so dividend yields were higher, and though there were known concerns about subprime mortgages and the housing market, the full extent of the crisis had yet to be revealed.
The HYP I set up had an initial trailing annual yield of 4.6%, it was well diversified across sectors, and every member had a strong record of dividend payouts. Still, that didn't spare me from the great dividend panic that ensued.
Pretty ugly, huh?
It's humbling to admit that six of my original 15 picks had their dividends cut or eliminated. While late 2008 and early 2009 was the worst year for dividends in generations, it's still no excuse.
• Bank of America's 8% yield should have been a big red flag -- the market seriously doubted the company's ability to maintain that level.
• International Paper's $6 billion acquisition of Weyerhaeuser's containerboard and recycling assets severely crimped the company's free cash flow, and by extension, its ability to pay dividends.
• In a similar vein, Carnival had more than enough cash from operations to fund its dividend, but also had massive capital spending for its cruise ships, which limited its ability to maintain its payout when credit tightened.
In hindsight, these mistakes seem obvious, and they were all errors of judgment and not inherent flaws of the HYP strategy. In fact, had I adhered more closely to the tenets of the strategy (particularly the low debt requirement), I would have been much better off.
Now, let's take a look at what went right.
• My two utility stocks, Southern and Consolidated Edison, held up well during the downturn and modestly boosted their payouts, proving yet again the defensive value of this sector.
• With more than enough free cash flow to increase their payouts, Altria, Waste Management, and Kraft were exceptions in the dividend-cut era.
• Home Depot smartly slowed its store growth during the recession, which freed up more cash, improved the balance sheet, and helped maintain the dividend.
The silver lining
As bad as the past 19 months were for my portfolio, the discipline of the HYP strategy prevented much more significant losses. For one, each position was weighted equally, with the same amount of money allocated to each position, so despite the large cuts by a few companies (and subsequent reallocations), the overall portfolio yield decreased to just 3.6%.
Second, by diversifying across industries, I limited my exposure to widespread dividend cuts in the financial sector, which before the crash had made up 30% of the S&P 500 dividends and today account for just 9%. Had I chased more of the high-yielding bank stocks at the time, the dividend cuts in that sector would have likely led to massive losses for this portfolio. By intentionally mixing in lower-yielding stocks from other sectors, the portfolio's overall yield remained well above the S&P 500 average.
Finally, while the HYP strategy discourages tinkering with the portfolio once it's in place, it does allow you to sell stocks that have cut or suspended their dividends. Selling Bank of America and Carnival in late 2008 allowed me to reallocate capital (at a loss, of course) to acquire better dividend-paying stocks at great prices. In the long run, this will benefit the portfolio.
Down, but not out
The true power of the high-yield portfolio strategy is its ability to save you from your own mistakes. As long as you don't stray from its core principles (as I did in some cases) of selecting only industry-diversified large-cap stocks with a history of increasing dividends, relatively low debt levels, and sufficient free cash flow coverage, you not only stand a better chance of generating above-average dividend income but avoiding some huge losses, as well.
A year and a half later, the sun has broken through the clouds a bit, and a remarkable thing is happening -- the companies in the current HYP are beginning to raise their dividends again and the overall yield is ticking higher. Even the capital returns haven't been all that bad -- the average return of each investment is ahead of the S&P: minus 8.6% versus minus 9.5% for the index. Given that this all happened during the worst dividend environment in generations, the HYP has held up remarkably well compared with other dividend-based strategies.
One Investment to Avoid in Today's Market
By Todd Wenning
March 5, 2009
Dividend-paying stocks are compelling to investors for many reasons. Not only do they tend to be less volatile as a group and provide a real cash return right away, but they can also reflect management's long-range visibility on profits and show its commitment to partnering with shareholders.
Back in 2006, WisdomTree Investments presented its concept of weighting some of its equity ETFs not by each company's market value (as was the traditional indexing approach popularized by Vanguard), but rather by total dividends paid. WisdomTree's rationale made some sense -- at least in theory.
Indeed, it supported this theory by back-testing the strategy from 1964 to 2005 and found that not only did the portfolios exhibit lower volatility, but that "four of the six WisdomTree Domestic Dividend Indexes generated greater price appreciation than the S&P 500 Index, even without the reinvestment of dividends."
The problem was, this dividend-weighted theory rested on one enormous assumption: that the dividend-paying environment would continue to behave roughly the same way it had for that 41-year testing period.
Oops
As we're all now well aware, the dividend landscape has dramatically changed. The past 14 months have been the worst stretch for dividend investors in modern history. Sixty-two S&P 500 companies slashed their payouts some $40.6 billion in 2008 alone.
Another $16.6 billion in dividend cuts -- a record -- already came in the first 50 days of 2009, including cuts from traditional stalwarts like Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) and Dow Chemical (NYSE: DOW). Standard and Poor's expects S&P 500 dividends to decline some 13.3% this year -- the worst decline since 1942.
Needless to say, these massive dividend cuts have adversely affected WisdomTree's dividend-weighted strategy. As of Jan. 31, none of the six domestic dividend ETFs had outperformed the S&P 500 since their respective inception dates.
In fact, the worst-performing WisdomTree domestic dividend ETF has been the High-Yielding Equity Index (DHS) -- or as it was recently and curiously renamed, the Equity Income Index. Whatever name it goes by, this dividend-weighted ETF is down 59% since inception in 2006, much worse than the 40% lost by the S&P over the same period.
The wide underperformance of the ETF is largely a result of its dividend-weighted design, which is to "reflect the proportionate share of the aggregate cash dividends each component company is projected to pay in the coming year, based on the most recently declared dividend per share." In other words, if company A is expected to pay $500 in cash dividends next year, it should have a larger weight in the index than company B, which is expected to pay $250.
Handcuffed
Under normal circumstances, that sounds like a nice way to generate extra dividend income and stack your bets behind strong companies. This year, though, has been anything but normal. It's been the higher-yielding stocks whose dividends have been under the most pressure.
To illustrate this problem, as of Dec. 31, 2008, the High-Yielding Equity Index's top holdings were:
Adding insult to injury, the ETF only rebalances once annually, rendering it effectively helpless in a rapidly changing dividend environment. As dividend-dependent investors flocked out of stocks that dramatically cut their payouts, this ETF has had to sit and grin it out. All 10 of these stocks remain in the ETF's top 15 holdings to this day, despite the massive dividend cuts.
A better way
For investors seeking to benefit from the advantages of dividend-paying stocks, the WisdomTree Equity Income ETF is one investment to avoid. With dividends being slashed left and right in this market, selectivity is essential and mechanical strategies like this one are left at a major disadvantage. Among other things, savvy dividend investors will want to look for companies with solid balance sheets, a history of increasing dividend payouts, and plenty of free cash flow to cover the payments.
One company that fits this bill is Johnson & Johnson and is one that our Motley Fool Income Investor team has classified as a "Buy First" stock. At present, Income Investor picks yield 8% on average. http://www.fool.com/investing/dividends ... arket.aspx
China's Housing Bubble: Imminent Disaster or No Big Deal?
By Tim Hanson
June 25, 2010
The Motley Fool Global Gains team is headed to China in July for research. Ahead of that trip they're taking time to discuss some of the issues facing China and investors in China today.
If you thought the real estate bubble and subsequent fallout here in the U.S. was bad, know that China has a chance to be worse. Real estate investment grew 26% annually in China from 2001 to 2008, and prices in the market have tripled while capacity has doubled.
While urbanization is one driver of these trends, speculation is clearly another. The Chinese government recently tried to put on the brakes by banning loans for third homes and raising the down payment requirement on second homes to 50%. What happens next is anybody's guess. So is this an imminent disaster or no big deal, and what does it all mean for investors?
Sean Sun: The housing bubble is no doubt speculative and unsustainable, but the chances of it causing a total meltdown are slim. Chinese real estate buyers/investors/speculators face higher down payment requirements and more stringent lending regulations, and, on the whole, a larger proportion of the capital being invested in the property markets comes from people's savings accounts rather than bank balance sheets.
With less credit in the market, there's a lower chance of a systemic domino effect. That's not to say people aren't going to lose their shirts, but at least they'll probably walk away with their pants, socks, and maybe even their shoes on.
Without sounding too optimistic, I do wonder if the current hubbub has the potential to become a contrarian dream come true. Since most of the speculative investments are especially concentrated in tier-1 cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, could there possibly be a tier-2 or tier-3 real estate developer that is getting unfairly hammered? I think there is: Xinyuan Real Estate (NYSE: XIN). It's trading at just 4 times last year's earnings and grew sales 92% over the past year.
Tim Hanson: I agree with Sean that there's a discrepancy in the real estate valuations between tier 1 and tier 2 and 3 cities, although lesser cities are catching up. The price appreciation in China's real estate market has been steep and reversion to the mean tells us sector may be cruising for a bruising -- or at least a correction.
I don't, however, know the magnitude of that looming correction, which is why I'm keeping even tier 2 developers such as Xinyuan and Xian's China Housing & Land (Nasdaq: CHLN) in my "too hard" pile despite their valuations. That said, I don't expect a real estate correction, as some bears do, to obliterate China's economy, and so I am finding opportunities in defensive consumer stocks such as China Mobile (NYSE: CHL).
Nathan Parmelee: Yes, the obliteration of China's economy seems like a stretch. There are simply too many Chinese looking to move upward. They should -- eventually -- absorb excess capacity. But that doesn't mean there won't be some pain.
China has had a remarkable string of growth over the last 20 years, and even though the real estate bubble is primarily a problem in tier 1 cities, my best guess is that its popping will create a good old-fashioned recession and bring this streak to an end.
The large down payments Sean referenced provide a buffer from disaster, but wealth will still be lost, and people who feel less wealthy tend to spend less. This means a slowdown in consumer spending -- the part of the economy China most needs to grow.
With China's market already off 20%, the companies that would get hit by the spillover are already priced for it in some cases. Those are exactly the kind of companies we want to be looking at now. But I recommend staying away from capital-eating, cyclical companies such as China Petroleum & Chemical (NYSE: SNP) and overvalued second-fiddles like Sina (Nasdaq: SINA).
Nate Weisshaar: I agree with the idea that this bubble will pop at some point, and that it doesn't mean the end of the Chinese investment story. Few things in history have moved in straight lines, and China is no different. Most likely a collapsing real estate market will shake things up enough to frighten short-term-oriented foreign investors out of the market, giving us the chance to enter at a reasonable price.
To fully take advantage of the situation, I think you have to go along the lines of what Tim said and play the rising Chinese consumer. We've already seen signs that wages are rising throughout the country, and as this continues, China may lose some of its export advantage, but a whole new domestic consumption market should spring up. Along this line, appliance manufacturer Deer Consumer Products (Nasdaq: DEER) is in an intriguing position if they can build up their brand in China.
If we do see strong growth in domestic consumption, exports will become a less vital source of employment, so Beijing will be less averse to letting the yuan appreciate. A stronger yuan would give Chinese consumers more buying power when it comes to imported goods. So another way to play this angle would be a premier Western brand like Coach (NYSE: COH), whose purses have a small but rapidly growing presence on the arms of well-to-do Chinese women.
China Sinking Signals 65% Rally to Morgan Stanley
By Bloomberg News - Jun 29, 2010
China, the worst-performing stock market after Greece, looks like a buy by almost any measure, according to top-ranked analysts of the Asian nation’s shares.
The Shanghai Composite Index’s 26 percent plunge this year, including yesterday’s 4.3 percent slump, sent its price-earnings ratio to 18, the lowest level versus the MSCI Emerging Markets Index in a decade. The largest owners of yuan-denominated stocks have turned net buyers for the first time since equities bottomed in 2008, while international investors are paying the biggest premium in 21 months to bet on a rally in funds that hold China’s yuan-denominated or A shares, data compiled by Macquarie Group Ltd. and Bloomberg show.
Morgan Stanley, BNP Paribas SA and Nomura Holdings Inc. say stocks will rally as China’s June 19 decision to end the yuan’s two-year peg to the dollar helps curb inflation and asset bubbles. The Shanghai index rose 62 percent in 12 months after China last allowed a more flexible exchange rate in July 2005.
“We are very bullish,” said Jerry Lou, the Hong Kong- based strategist at Morgan Stanley, among the top-ranked analysts for China stocks by Institutional Investor, who predicts the Shanghai Composite may climb 65 percent to 4,000 by June 2011. “We like valuations and inflation will peak. All we need is a catalyst such as a change in yuan policy.”
Prospects for a stock rebound may be cut as China’s exports face “strong headwinds” in the second half and loan growth may slow by the end of 2010, Citigroup Inc. said this week, even as the average of 14 economist estimates in a Bloomberg survey calls for economic growth of 10.2 percent this year and 9.2 percent in 2011.
Revision
The Conference Board yesterday revised its leading economic index for China, contributing to the biggest sell-off in Chinese equities in six weeks. Agricultural Bank of China Ltd., which priced the Shanghai portion of its $20.1 billion initial share sale, also drove banking stocks lower.
The Shanghai Composite’s slump this year is second only to the 35 percent plunge in Greece’s ASE Index among the world’s 60 biggest stock markets, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Companies on the Shanghai gauge will increase earnings by 40 percent in 12 months, more than double the pace of the ASE, analysts’ estimates by Bloomberg show.
Rising profits reduced the Shanghai Composite’s valuation premium over the MSCI emerging index to 26 percent, down from an average of 140 percent since 1997, based on weekly price- earnings ratios compiled by Bloomberg. The last time the gap was so small in February 2000, the Shanghai Composite gained 27 percent in 12 months, while the MSCI measure sank 26 percent.
Lower Valuations
Lower valuations spurred the biggest Chinese investors to buy last month. Shareholders who own at least 5 percent of a company’s stock boosted their holdings by 1.1 billion yuan ($162 million), according to Macquarie analysts Michael Kurtz and Shirley Zhao in Shanghai, basing their analysis on data from Wind Information. Similar purchases in October 2008 signaled the end of the Shanghai Composite’s year-long bear market, with the gauge rallying 82 percent from its low on Oct. 28, 2008 through October 2009.
Yuan-denominated shares, restricted almost exclusively to local investors, fell below Chinese stocks traded in Hong Kong this month for the first time in almost four years, according to the Hang Seng China AH Premium Index. When A shares last traded at a discount in November 2006, the Shanghai Composite tripled in 12 months, outpacing a 156 percent gain in the Hong Kong benchmark index and a 58 percent rise in the MSCI gauge.
‘Pay for Exposure’
“The premium between A and H shares is disappearing,” said Hao Hong, Beijing-based global equity strategist at China International Capital Corp., the top-ranked brokerage for China research in Asiamoney’s annual survey. That indicates “foreign investors are willing to pay for exposure to China’s stocks.”
International investors pushed the price of BlackRock Inc.’s iShares FTSE/Xinhua A50 China Index exchange-traded fund to 11 percent above the value of its underlying assets last week, the highest level in almost two years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The fund trades in Hong Kong and tracks the 50 biggest A-share companies.
The Shanghai Composite fell 22 percent this quarter, lagging behind gauges in the other so-called BRIC markets of the largest developing economies, after China raised banks’ reserve requirements to the highest level in at least three years and curbed real-estate speculation. Property prices rose 12.4 percent in May from a year earlier, the second-fastest pace after April’s 12.8 percent record gain.
BRIC Markets
Brazil’s Bovespa index dropped 8.7 percent during the period and Russia’s Micex slipped 8 percent, while India’s Bombay Stock Exchange Sensitive Index advanced 0.2 percent. The MSCI emerging gauge lost 7.6 percent.
The New York-based Conference Board corrected its April gauge for the outlook of China’s economy this week, saying its leading index for the country rose the least since November, rather than registering the biggest gain in 14 months.
A flood of new stock may also weigh on the market, according to Credit Suisse Group AG’s Sakthi Siva. Chinese companies will sell about 320 billion yuan ($47 billion) of new shares in Shanghai and Shenzhen this year as they fund expansion and banks bolster capital after a record amount of government- led lending, PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts.
Agricultural Bank’s share sale in Shanghai and Hong Kong is the biggest initial public offering since Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd.’s $21.9 billion sale almost four years ago.
‘Quite Cautious’
“I’m still quite cautious,” Siva, the Singapore-based top-ranked Asia strategist in Institutional Investor’s 2010 poll, said in an interview. “There’s quite a lot of supply.”
Ending the fixed 6.83 yuan peg to the dollar should help “contain inflation and asset bubbles,” China’s central bank said in a June 20 statement. Inflation will probably peak at 3.7 percent toward the end of the third quarter then “level off” the rest of the year, according to CICC’s Hong.
Chinese authorities had prevented the currency from strengthening against the dollar since July 2008 to help exporters cope with the global financial crisis.
The yuan appreciated 21 percent in the three years after a managed float against a basket of currencies was introduced in 2005. Twelve-month non-deliverable forwards yesterday indicate investors are betting the yuan will strengthen 1.6 percent. A yuan revaluation won’t happen quickly or fix all of the global economy’s imbalances, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said this week.
Vanke, China Merchants
China Vanke Co., the Shenzhen-based property developer that sank 37 percent this year, trades for 13 times reported profits, down from 35 times a year ago, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Earnings growth of 29 percent this year will help lift the stock 42 percent, according to analyst estimates on Bloomberg.
China Merchants Bank Co.’s 2.7 price-to-book ratio is near a record low relative to the MSCI Emerging Markets Financials Index after the Shenzhen-based company declined 24 percent this year. The stock is poised to surge 49 percent in 12 months, according to analysts, who have 35 “buy” ratings and one “sell,” according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Consumer-related shares will benefit from a shift in the economy to increase domestic spending, said Leo Gao, who helps oversee about $600 million at APS Asset Management Ltd. in Shanghai, whose APS China Alpha Fund has beaten 87 percent of peers in the past year, according to Bloomberg data.