Michael Covel: News & Info.

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Michael - some feedback for you. I’ve been in the “startup” mode in my trading business for a year and a half now. This seems a far cry from the “spend a couple of months getting going” plan I started with. Yes, I too fell for the quick and easy, fast buck, this trading game is a cinch, fairy tale of the ignorant masses. I had the misfortune of making 3 months’ earnings in one and a half days early in the game; this was followed by a 1 months’ earnings overnight trade soon after. Do you suppose I was a wee bit heavy on those two? Now, after watching a near 90% drawdown last year and a much more docile 10% drawdown so far this year, I find the need to replenish my trading equity and salvage a few remaining strands of gray, albeit short, hair. Why did I tell you this? Because in the midst of the blood, sweat, and tears, you send out the Battle at Kruger video clip. I would say I can identify most with the calf - never give up. So, with the nauseating prospect of going back to a wage to bolster the old equity and put food on the table, I had to chuckle at the allegory of the calf and my struggle to succeed at this game. I also realized how much I look forward to your “f’morn f’mation” audio clips and the great reference material. Thanks for the inspiration. Keep up the great work! Rick R.

From the AP today:

“Historically, we’re at lows,” said Michael Church, portfolio manager at Church Capital Management, referring to interest rates. “I don’t think 5 percent is some sort of hard and fast number where this market turns. I don’t think 5 percent is going to compel people to take money out of equities.” “Everyone seems to like to focus on this 5 percent level. I think it’s in many ways mythical. Five percent is really not that high of an interest rate.” He contends that after the run-up in stocks that began in the second half of last year and accelerated in recent weeks, Wall Street was due for some retrenchment. “I would be concerned if we didn’t have some profit-taking and some mild pullbacks here and there.”

After you read that, what do you do? The ability to speak noise seems to be one of the best skills on Wall Street.

From Reuters:

“I knew the market would go down, but I did not expect it would be this fast. After a small plunge, it should go up, but it is not going up,” said Madame Wang, a pensioner in her 50s, who put some of her savings into stocks during the bull run. “Next time I will remember — once the market falls, I will sell all my stocks.” Another disillusioned investor at an Everbright Securities branch in Shanghai’s financial district, a woman in her 30s surnamed Xu, said: “I used to have confidence in the stock market. But how can I have confidence now that it has fallen so much. I have no more confidence. Even if the government wants to regulate the stock market, it should not be done like this.”

Why did she have confidence when it was going straight up, but not now?

From Hedge Fund Daily comes the hedge fund world through the lens of a newbie reporter:

For hedge funds, it does not compute to use human analysts, when an electronic version can do basically the same job. And thus, Reuters reports, hedge funds, which were early to adopt new investment methods, are being credited (or perhaps, blamed, if you’re an analyst), for the burgeoning growth of quantitative strategies. “It’s all about trying to create an artificial analysts,” one unnamed portfolio manager at a quant hedge fund told Reuters. “It may not do it as well (as a human), but it makes up for it in volume.” Reuters cites as evidence of quant success to two of the industries top hedge funds that use them, D.E. Shaw and Renaissance Technologies, which were formed by math professors and are well-staffed with scientific types. Following their example, even non-quant hedge funds are expanding their use of computer models. “It doesn’t necessarily mean that Wall Street analysts are going to go out of business,” Ron Papanek, director of strategy at RiskMetrics Group, said in a Reuters interview,” but it does mean that there are other ways to be successful in identifying value.” He further noted that the fact that the biggest hedge funds are using its means “this form of analysis has legs.” Taking some of heat off hedge funds for equity analysts woes, Brad Hintz of AllianceBernstein, said the human kind are “doomed” also because regulatory investigations into analyst conflicts years ago has resulted in lower trading commission, and that’s put research on the cutting block as firms try to save on operating costs.

How can an author write about quantitative trading strategies in June 2007 and with a straight face make the case that these efforts are innovative or new? Systems trading has been around since the time of Richard Donchian - that’s back to the 1950s and earlier. Don’t get me wrong, Simons is a trading stud, a legend, but the basic ideas of 100% mechanical systems is not ground breaking.

James Altucher writes about investing in China with an example stock to consider:

First on the list is CNOOC Ltd. (CEO), also known as China National Offshore Oil, which pays a yield of 3.6%. It has a P/E of 9.4 and a PEG of 0.32. Cash in the bank totals $4.6 billion. It’s understandable to be worried that companies in communist China can be shut down at a moment’s notice. But this is a company with $4.6 billion in the bank, trading at a tiny multiple of earnings and returning cash to shareholders. With such a low P/E, steady earnings growth, dividend growth, and a low PEG, I can easily see the stock doubling by year-end. SAC Capital also owns CNOOC. The hedge fund, run by Stevie Cohen, has returned over 30% per year since it started in the early 90s. And that’s after taking up to a 50% performance fee. This means that gross returns before fees (which is all we care about since we’re just piggybacking, not investing in the fund) often exceeds 60 percent. Citadel Associates also owns it. This fund is run by Ken Griffin, who started it out of his Harvard dorm room when he was 19 with a $100,000 investment. Now Citadel has over $15 billion under management. A recent New York Times profile speculated if Citadel would be the next Goldman Sachs. One of my favorite hedge funds, Renaissance Technologies, also owns CNOOC. Renaissance is very quant driven and only hires Ph.D.s but that formula has been very successful. Currently, Renaissance is are out raising a $100 billion hedge fund, which would be by far the largest ever. My theory is they are buying every stock that has a lot of cash in the bank and a low P/E ratio. CNOOC certainly qualifies.

Three billionaire hedge fund managers supposedly own this stock. That means what?

1. How does anyone really know these hedge fund pros own anything? And if you did, are they going to call you when it is time to sell?
2. Calling Simons’ fund, Renaissance, a favorite is hardly difficult. Everyone knows Simons is in a different league.

My point? Think critically…please!

Wall Street might have “10 myths” (read article), but you alone are responsible for making your decisions with your money. No excuses.

I should have posted a note earlier, but if you live or work in Tokyo, drop me a line. I am in town for a few days for a speaking engagement and will have time to get an interview or two in for print and or video.

Give me a break from John Stossel (read full):

Were you “gouged?” buying gas this week? Or maybe over the Memorial Day weekend? Did you pay those record high prices we’ve heard about? It’s time to say give me a break! But & to whom? Drivers we spoke with called gas prices “ridiculous.” And the media says it’s a new record. Newscasts on CBS, NBC, ABC all announced new record highs. On Fox News, Jon Scott told viewers, “the average price of gas has hit a record high of, get this: $3.18 a gallon.” Well, get this: It’s not a record high. That’s what they say in the media, but it’s only a record high if you don’t adjust for inflation. And that’s just silly. You might as well say the movie “Rush Hour II” made more money than “Gone with the Wind.” The media ought to quote prices in real dollars, but maybe when they get excited, they just don’t bother. Once you adjust for inflation, it turns out gas cost more 25 years ago, in March 1981. When the 1981 price is converted to 2007 prices (not 2006 prices, as the EIA did), last week’s average price of $3.22 is seven cents below the record, $3.29, which by the way was a monthly average.

So true. So true.