Changing Course for 2024

You’ve got to know when to hold ’em
Know when to fold ’em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run
You never count your money
When you’re sittin’ at the table
There’ll be time enough for countin’
When the dealin’s done
– The Gambler, Kenny Rogers

This seems to be the most appropriate song to describe the feeling I am getting at the close of the calendar year.

Probably the biggest sign of whether you have a grasp of reality or not is whether your mental model of the world can correctly predict the future.

Unfortunately, as I have written here before, one does not necessarily need a truthful model of reality in order to survive. Donald Hoffman is a cognitive psychologist that has made some very interesting lectures on the matter and this disconnection between truth, reality and survival – this has always been in the back of my mind.

In particular in our 21st century age of information, mis-information and dis-information at our fingertips, coupled with AI bots, deepfakes, etc., it is getting very difficult to distinguish truth from fiction.

Ironically during the Covid era (from March 2020 onwards) I felt like (who knows whether I actually did!) I had a better grasp of reality than most, and indeed as it translated into the financial markets, it was a very rare time where most participants were so strongly positioned for disaster that it was possible to make reasonable gains when people’s perceptions of reality normalized to some semblance of truth (i.e. we’re not all going to die – just look at a chart of Moderna (MRNA) or Alpha Pro Tech (APT)!).

The financial marketplace is actually a reasonable place to measure the perception of one’s reality against others. Note I did not say “truth” – the old cliche of “the market may remain irrational longer than your ability to remain solvent” is true in many cases, say for those that wanted to short the economically unprofitable cannabis sector in 2016, the dot-com market in 1998, or the short-lived upsurge of plant-based meat companies IPO’ing around 2018-19. Never mind Gamestop! Even if your sense of reality is closer to the truth than others, the market can dictate reality for longer than one thinks.

Going back to present, the Covid effect has slowly abated over time and sometime around 2022 the markets began to be the same old efficient market machine that we have been used to – the primary difference between 2022’s market and onwards was that we exited out of the zero interest rate environment.

In retrospect, I was inappropriately positioned for 2023. It seems increasingly likely that the reality in my brain is not corresponding with what is actually going on out there, and as a result, I need to discard these narratives out of my head and start from the foundation again.

You could already tell that I had significant amounts of self-doubt in the middle of 2022 – where I mercilessly started to cull elements of the portfolio and raise cash, and I was soothed by the fact that cash had obtained a reasonable yield once again. The baseline performance for doing nothing (or rather resting on the sidelines) was actually pretty reasonable.

My doubts on my grip on financial reality have continued to increase even further – one should never invest when you are flying blind. The other rule is a break in thesis – one of my tenants going into the fossil fuel trade back in 2020 was that North American production would not be able to eclipse their Q4-2019’s highs for various reasons (resource exhaustion, drilled and uncompleted numbers low, lack of capital spending, later on – Russia being cut out of the oil equation, costs of drilling, self-induced ESG restrictions, etc.) but this is a failed and broken thesis. US production in particular is now at all-time highs, despite all the narrative.

World demand also continues to be very high but for whatever reason, there seems to be ample production capacity.

My continuing fossil fuel trade in 2023 has been incredibly offside with reality. I consider myself lucky to still be marginally positive YTD performance in what has been a very uninspiring year financially riddled with errors of omission (i.e. not listening to my instincts earlier and getting out at higher pricing).

Instead, what we are going to get might be similar to what happened in 2014, and is typical of cyclical industries – a terrible race to the bottom. Low cost producers and those that can provide additional value (e.g. refineries, mid-stream, etc.) will survive, but returns are likely going to be muted going forward. This is the conventional financial playbook and it is one that is telling me to fold ’em. And that I have been doing.

I did venture away from my Covid playbook a tiny bit in 2023, but not to a significant degree. 2024 will also exhibit a change in focus. The markets have always been about adaptation and survival and I am fortunate to begin the new year with half a clean canvas to work with. I am not in any rush to deploy capital, however – I am not at all sure that my grip on reality or the truth is quite where it needs to be. I am worried that my thoughts are currently too close to the consensus out there. As a result, if there are going to be any movements, they will be baby steps.

Bank of Canada – holding interest rates

In a decision that surprised nobody, the Bank of Canada kept the interest rates steady at 5% and gave the usual cautionary language that they’re watching the situation carefully.

However, my post is about the press conference the Bank of Canada held a day later, titled “What population growth means for the economy and inflation“.

In the Bank of Canada’s page describing this December 7 press conference, they highlighted the following quote (bold emphasis my own):

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“Strong immigration since the start of 2022 has helped increase Canada’s workforce…. And the larger workforce has boosted the level of our potential output by 2% to 3% without adding to inflation. This is a significant improvement, especially considering Canada’s otherwise rapidly aging population.”

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Then just a little bit lower down, we have the following (again, bold emphasis my own):

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The impact on inflation

When newcomers move to Canada, they need to buy many necessities to help them get settled. This increases demand for goods and services, which can have an impact on inflation.

Not all newcomers affect the economy in the same way. For instance, because of their high tuition fees, international students typically add to consumption more than many other newcomers. Overall, though, the initial boost to spending from the recent rise in newcomers has had very little impact on inflation.

But newcomers also need housing, and that’s a different story. Canada has long had housing supply challenges for many reasons, including:

* zoning restrictions
* lengthy permitting processes
* a shortage of construction workers

The result is that new housing construction has not kept up with population growth for many years.

With these housing supply challenges, the recent increase in newcomers has added to the pressure on rent and housing prices. And this has affected inflation.

Ultimately, Canada needs more housing, and the recent focus by all levels of government to increase construction is a welcome development.

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I take amusement in the phrases “without adding to inflation”, “which can have an impact on inflation”, “has had very little impact on inflation”, “this has affected inflation” all bundled together – talk about covering your bases!

The Bank of Canada is just as much a political beast as our members of parliament are in Ottawa, but the way they express it is different in flavour. They are trying to telegraph something fairly obvious, in that the component of CPI that is contributing the most to inflation is related to real estate:

It does not take a Ph.D. in economics to determine that if you admit a million people into the country a year, and the increase in housing stock is well less than a million homes, that prices are going to rise.

That said, the year-over-year comps for mortgage rates (looking at 5-year and variable) is about to level off in 2024 and this component of CPI will abate. The Bank of Canada raised to 4.5% on January 25, 2023 before taking a pause and then raised to 4.75% on June 7, 2023 and 5.00% on July 12, 2023. Energy prices have dropped considerably year-to-year and this will also provide a tailwind to the economy.

It reminds me of a fictional economic scenario where a loaf of bread costs $1.00 and next year it goes to $2.00. Inflation is 100%, people panic, and then some action is taken. Next year, the load of bread costs $2.04 and then everybody cries victory that they have conquered inflation. This will likely be the result of some disastrous economic decisions made during the Covid crisis.

No free lunch – CASH ETFs revisited

On October 31, 2023, OSFI gave out a huge “trick or treat” to high-interest savings ETF owners (CASH, PSA, etc.) in the following technical bulletin.

There is a transitional period until January 31, 2024 whereby banks and HISA ETF operators will come to a separate rate structure that will most likely involve another haircut of gross yield – the media quoted one analyst from TD that claimed it would be about 50bps, but my suspicion it will be about half of that.

This will still make cash ETFs competitive, but not the no-brainer compared to alternatives, which include high-credit short-duration corporate bond funds.

In other words – there is no free lunch.

CASH.to right now yields a net 5.18%, while the nearest corporate bond alternative (looking at ZST.to as a reasonable proxy for this – they survived March 2020 fairly intact) is netting 5.47% for half a year duration risk. Government of Canada 6 month debt is at 5.11%. CBIL.to is an average 1.8 month duration government bond ETF that yields a net 4.92%. Another relatively innovative product is target date maturity ETFs (looking at RBC’s RQL.to), which has an average duration of 0.63 years and a 5.16% net yield and by all accounts looks inferior to ZST.

What other proxies for Canadian short-term investment-grade corporate debt are out there? Most of them have duration of 2-4 years which involves a significant interest rate component exposure. The other question is whether half a percentage point is adequate compensation for (albeit very low) credit risk.

The yield curve continues to remain heavily inverted – 1 year to 30 year is roughly a -146bps differential, while the more quoted 2-10yr spread is -80bps.

The glacial speed of quantitative tightening

Bank of Canada bond holdings

MaturityCoupon rateISINPar valueOf which on repo
2024-02-010.75CA135087M9203,566,474,000
2024-03-012.25CA135087J5466,611,368,00095,000,000
2024-04-010.25CA135087L69023,275,739,0001,775,000,000
2024-05-011.5CA135087N4231,005,000,000
2024-06-012.5CA135087B4516,304,081,00030,000,000
2024-09-011.5CA135087J96710,042,352,0001,352,000,000
2024-10-010.75CA135087M5084,062,206,000572,000,000
2025-03-011.25CA135087K52812,055,174,000643,000,000
2025-04-011.5CA135087N340600,000,000
2025-06-019CA135087VH40545,039,00031,000,000
2025-06-012.25CA135087D5074,281,933,000
2025-09-010.5CA135087K94025,819,675,000
2026-03-010.25CA135087L51820,536,229,000362,000,000
2026-06-011.5CA135087E6797,715,229,000244,000,000
2026-09-011CA135087L9308,403,101,000435,000,000
2026-12-014.25CA135087VS05440,000,000
2027-03-011.25CA135087M8472,194,445,000
2027-06-018CA135087VW172,454,089,000
2027-06-011CA135087F8258,534,306,0001,091,000,000
2028-06-012CA135087H2358,435,363,000
2029-06-015.75CA135087WL434,909,719,000
2029-06-012.25CA135087J3977,890,136,000169,000,000
2030-06-011.25CA135087K37917,477,505,000
2030-12-010.5CA135087L44317,051,478,000
2031-06-011.5CA135087M27610,856,641,000
2031-12-011.5CA135087N2663,648,167,000
2031-12-014CA135087WV25406,000,000
2032-06-012CA135087N597595,000,000
2033-06-015.75CA135087XG495,099,690,0005,000,000
2036-12-013CA135087XQ21440,000,000
2037-06-015CA135087XW987,740,024,000880,000,000
2041-06-014CA135087YQ126,953,855,000
2041-12-012CA135087YK42429,000,000
2044-12-011.5CA135087ZH04424,600,000
2045-12-013.5CA135087ZS688,925,652,000
2047-12-011.25CA135087B949392,700,000
2048-12-012.75CA135087D3586,371,150,000
2050-12-010.5CA135087G99776,000,000
2051-12-012CA135087H72218,006,997,000
2053-12-011.75CA135087M6802,965,110,000
2064-12-012.75CA135087C9392,194,182,000
279,735,409,0007,684,000,000

In 2024, $55 billion will mature, and in 2025, $43 billion, in addition to a couple billion in mortgage bonds. This is still below the $130 billion that are held in reserves at the bank, but at the rate things are going, coupled with projected deficits of the Government of Canada, means the reserves will be drained out sometime in 2025. Things will indeed get interesting once again, but it will require patience. That said, anticipation of illiquidity may cause it to occur earlier!

Farmer’s Edge – that’s all folks!

Fairfax is generously offering 25 cents per share for the shareholders of Farmer’s Edge (TSX: FDGE).

This offer is about 24 cents more generous than it needed to be. Shareholders are getting really, really lucky!

They ended September 30 with negative $32 million in stockholder’s equity, and the three months they blew through $13 million in cash. They had $75 million in debt (lent to them from Fairfax) and $9 million in cash. Needless to say you did not need a CFA to know how this one was going to end up.

What does Fairfax get out of it? The following from the 2022 annual report:

The Company has not recorded any current or deferred income tax benefit for its tax losses in any of its reporting periods. The Company had $470.0 million of accumulated non-capital losses as of December 31, 2022, with expiry dates ranging between 2030 and 2042. These losses may be used to offset future taxable income. In addition, the Company has undeducted Scientific Research and Experimental Development expenditures of approximately $39.0 million which may be carried forward indefinitely and unused investment tax credits of approximately $3.0 million which expire between 2034 and 2039.

Fairfax just needs to find some assets in the same field of business to utilize these NOLs and they are all set.

Here’s one last fun calculation. The stock nearly doubled today on the announcement since it will not take two brain cells for the “independent committee” of directors to come to the conclusion there’s no choice.

Let’s pretend you were a fly on the wall of Fairfax and had 10 trading days of prior notice that this deal was occurring. Let’s also pretend that you were able to capture 100% of the liquidity of the stock that actually traded in those 10 trading days.

You would have been able to purchase 77,495 shares for $8,096.22. Those shares would be worth $19,373.75 if sold at 25 cents. No institutional manager would get remotely close to this even if they had the information in advance. Would have made for a perfect FHSA trade though!