Market has very little upside - My grand plan for 2009 (second half)
June 17, 2009
– Comments (8) |
RELATED TICKERS: SPY
, ERY
, UPL
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On a Fundamental Level - the market is not cheap
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As I said earlier I got too bearish - expecting multiple contraction on top of earnings contractions.
I do think my prior stance will prove to be right and so I am going to stick with it for the remainder of the year.
Remember my thinking in the fall of 2008 was that the best case scenario for the S&P 500 was 840 at the beginning of the year (15x earnings) and 960 by the end of the year (15x 2010 earnings).
The market is not very cheap here at ~14x next year's earnings...
Currently we're 16x this years earnings and about 14x next years earnings.
We're ~16x Goldman Sachs expected earnings for the S&P 500 ($56), per their end of 2008 forecast I'm not if they've upgraded it (I don't care if they have - cuz if they did they'll just downgrade it later).
16 x $56 = 896 for the S&P 500 ... (we're about 10 poitns above that)
Normalized earnings for the S&P 500 are probably $65 - $75 without a bunch of leverage.
15 x $65 = 975 - we're only about 75 points below that.
NOW ASSUME
1.) THAT PROFIT MARGINS WILL CONTRACT OVER THE NEXT 12 MONTHS (THEY ALWAYS REVERT TO THE MEAN... THEY ARE THE MOST CONSISTENT MEAN REVERTING METRIC).
2.) GROWTH WILL BE BELOW AVERAGE FOR AT LEAST THE NEXT TWO YEARS...
THEN ASK YOURSELF - DO YOU WANT TO PAY 15X EARNINGS FOR THAT ANYWAY?
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MY GAME PLAN GOING FORWARD
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I'm buying some discount (WMT, FDO) retailers because the consumer recession will continue for another year. I'm also buying quick service (cheap food) restaurant JACK.
I'm shorting oil related themes via ESV, 3x energy shorts, ARD. I'm only in 1/3 of my desired position because I'd prefer to short all of these things if/when oil hits $75
My ideal shorts if/when the market gets to > 975 would be
Hi Multiple and not profitable semiconductor equipment (LRCX)
High cost oil stocks (WTI)
Nat gas levered stocks (UPL, SD) - they are reflecting $8 gas
Transportation stocks at high multiples and peak margins (CHRW, LSTR, etc)
The three industries I'd love to short on sizable rallies are
1. Refiners (They'd need to rally 30-40% to get me involved again)
2. Homebuilders (RYL needs to rally 25% to get me short)
3. Nat Gas Stocks (not the commodity - a 10% rally would get me short)