Indexology^® Blog

2013 was a seminal year for US equities with markets going up 33%. Emerging markets on the other hand did not fare so well and were relatively flat with a negative 1.27%. India ended the year down at 4.8%, hit strongly by currency woes, but the year was very volatile for most emerging markets. Some countries, famously dubbed as the ‘Fragile Five’ , namely Brazil, India, South Africa, Indonesia and Turkey are seen as more vulnerable than others, largely because of slowing economic growth, high inflation, large fiscal deficits, and depreciating currencies. These countries have come to symbolize what seems to ail emerging markets in general, which have depended on large foreign investments to fund their economic growth and fill their current account deficits. Some have even likened the situation to the Asian crisis of 1997, but a number of factors including the emerging markets own higher sophistication and awareness of such perils discounts such a possibility.

The US Federal Reserve’s announcement last summer of tapering the Quantitative easing sent shivers down the emerging markets spine. When liquidity dries up in the largest market in the world, albeit slowly and surely, the first to be hit are the riskier investments and emerging markets will be the first to feel that impact. The US economy is working under a cautious note of optimism that economic growth is back on track post 2008, and tapering will not really hurt growth prospects. Indeed the decision on tapering is itself seen as a vote of confidence that the economic growth is on track in the 2-3% range. Emerging markets are feeling the impact of the announced tapering more. The Indian government has put curbing inflation high on its agenda ahead of economic growth as can be seen by a number of rate increases in the previous months. Plans are being laid out to limit fiscal deficit to 4.6% of GDP as per the interim budget and the Indian Rupee has remained somewhat stable in the RS 62-63 range.

Overall, the short term volatility seen in emerging markets need not become a long term trend, but is more a result of uncertain economic and political situation in some of the emerging markets including India, but if the measures to limit the deficits and boost investment and growth are successful we can expect to see more stable market trends in the coming months. Over the long term investors remain committed to India, but over the short term a few see this as a buying opportunity while the majority prefer a wait and watch policy with expectations that the bottom may be finally close.

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The weekend meeting of 20 major global economies representing 85% of world GDP called for adding half a percentage point of growth each year to 2018 through renewed and aggressive stimulus.  So far this is talk, but there is a chance for action.  The G20 will convene again in November to show what they’ve done.  Policy shifts and the move to stimulus will be focused on the developed countries – emerging markets will focus on debt and currency issues. Stimulus programs will differ from one country to another. Europe is likely to see renewed calls for more easing from the ECB and more open labor markets.

US picture is different: The Fed is firmly on course to taper QE3 and gradually move to tighter monetary policy, especially after the FOMC mentioned raising interest rates.  As a result the focus will shift to fiscal policy.  This fits with the Administration’s goals to talk about taxes and income distribution and to increase spending in anticipation of the fall mid-term Congressional elections.  With the debt ceiling set aside until March 2015, there is a chance for a fiscal policy discussion that isn’t driven by fears of the deficit.

Stimulus — both domestic and international – should be a plus for the stock market, but probably not a big enough plus to give us a repeat of 2013’s market results.  For fixed income, stimulus and tighter Fed policy mean higher interest rates.

Your portfolio is like a hockey team.  You don’t think so?  It is.  And VIX plays a key role.  Stay with me while I explain.

Equities are your guys playing at center and on the wings.  You expect production from them.  Your team largely lives and dies by how consistently they score.  Bonds are your defensemen.  They come forward to create some additional offense at times, but their key responsibility is minimizing downside risk.  The goalie?  Perhaps not a perfect analogy, but let’s liken him to cash.  Your last line of defense.

Where does the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) fit in all this?  Yes, if VIX were a hockey player, it would likely be on defense.  But VIX is a special type of defensive player.  In hockey parlance, VIX is an enforcer.

Someone took the time to write up a great description of what a hockey enforcer is.  “An enforcer’s job is to deter and respond to dirty or violent play. . .the enforcer is expected to respond aggressively. . .”  Further, “Enforcers are typically among the lowest scoring players on the team and receive a smaller share of ice time.”  In other words, most of the time you can’t expect much from an enforcer and you may not want to have him on the ice much.  But when it’s time for the enforcer to come to the rescue and protect the team, he does it in a big way — aggressively.

In your portfolio, VIX is your enforcer.  Maintaining a VIX position can be painful.  You would want to be selective as to when to allocate to VIX. But when things get really rough, you want to have VIX in the mix so it can aggressively defend your portfolio’s value, when every other asset class slinks away.

Below is a chart showing the performance of major indices during the last half of 2008, when the equivalent of a major hockey brawl broke out.  You remember it – broken teeth and blood on the ice everywhere.  VIX came to the rescue.  Those who allocated even a small portion of their portfolio to VIX linked instruments got some serious protection.

The 2008 crisis wasn’t the only time VIX stepped up.  Time after time, VIX and the instruments linked to them have responded quickly and in a pronounced way to violent market moves.

We are still in turbulent times.  If you feel under threat, you may want to hire an enforcer.

Join us for a live teleconference on the US housing market on February 25th @ 10am EST. Featured speakers to include Professor Robert Shiller, Professor of Economics at Yale University and David Blitzer, Managing Director and Chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices. Instructions to access the teleconference are as follows:

Net Enhanced and Audio Streaming Info:

https://www.mymeetings.com/nc/join.php?i=PG4463870&p=INDICES&t=c

Or follow manual steps below:

URL: https://www.mymeetings.com/nc/join/
Conference number: PG4463870; Audience passcode: INDICES

Audio Streaming: (Audio Only)

http://event.on24.com/r.htm?e=754248&s=1&k=F4FA5732F644E1C30EAE3504F39A8375

Psychologists have studied feelings of Olympic medalists  for decades to find: “If you set aside the happy people who win gold and look only at the people who come in second and third, it’s the men and women with bronze medals who invariably look happier than the athletes who won silver.”

To investors who have studied behavioral finance, it is no surprise that the silver winners feel like gold losers. In economics, we call this framework loss aversion and it implies that one will feel more pain from a loss than happiness from a gain.

Whether a transaction is framed as a loss or as a gain is very important. For example, would you rather get a $5 discount, or avoid a $5 surcharge?  The same change in price framed differently has a significant effect on consumer behavior. Though traditional economists consider this “endowment effect” and all other effects of loss aversion to be completely irrational, that is why it is so important to the fields of marketing and behavioral finance.

The concept of loss aversion was first demonstrated by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman. Later, in a publication by John Dawes, (Price changes and defection levels in a subscription-type market: can an estimation model really predict defection levels ?” Journal of Services Marketing Vol 18 No. 1 2004.), the effect of loss aversion in a marketing setting was demonstrated in a study of consumer reaction to price changes to insurance policies. The study found price increases had twice the effect on customer switching, compared to price decreases.

Silver’s performance, up 14.5% MTD and 13.0% YTD through Feb 18, 2014, may be causing the same feelings of anxiety, depending on how it’s framed. Suppose an investor picked silver as the commodity of choice in February, it seems like a winning choice.  However, it is only the second best performing commodity in the S&P GSCI, behind coffee, which gained a whopping 21.7% this month. The chance this investor is happy to have picked the second best commodity might not be so high since the mind frame may be a loss of 7.2%.

Another irrational behavior in finance is called anchoring. Anchoring which was also described by Tversky and Kahneman, occurs when people make estimates by starting from an initial value.  For example, in the Olympics, if two athletes competed in the 2010 games and one won a gold and the other won a bronze, then they both won silvers in 2014, the athlete who dropped from gold to silver might be more unhappy than the athlete who improved from bronze to silver.

Notice in the the chart below, there may be different feelings about holding or selling silver today based upon the price of purchase.  However, the irrational behavior is that it shouldn’t matter what the purchase price was considering the decision going forward to buy, hold or sell should be based on today’s price in relation to the future and not the past. An investor that bought silver in Oct 2008 may be feeling regret that s/he did not sell at the high in April 2011, and rather than being happy over a 125% gain is feeling upset over a 55% loss.  On the other hand, if an investor bought at the beginning of 2014 and has gained 13%, s/he may be feeling elated, and that of course is only if s/he is not sorry to have missed out on coffee.