Trends in REIT spin-offs

Loblaws (TSX: L) a few months ago announced they were bundling their real estate assets and spinning them off into a REIT. They will retain control of the REIT.

Now, Canadian Tire (TSX: CTC.A) is doing the same thing.

I detect quite a bit of froth in this space.

Financial-engineering wise, this makes sense because the real estate assets are currently overvalued with very low cap rates for such assets, more so than the underlying valuation of the businesses in question (in Loblaw’s case, groceries, and in Canadian Tire’s case, retail junk).

It makes me wonder if an entity such as McDonalds will consider the same – the amount of real estate assets they have is not inconsiderable.

Markets are partying on – when will it stop?

Stock markets are reaching all-time highs. The S&P 500 is well beyond the peak it reached in 2007. Sentiment is positive, what can go wrong?

spx

Please realize I am a horrible chartist and the trendlines drawn are merely approximations. However, over the past three years, the S&P 500 has seen three major periods of rallying and note the dates/values are approximate:

08/2010 to 02/2011 (6 months): 1,040 to 1,340 (+29%)
11/2011 to 03/2012 (5 months): 1,160 to 1,420 (+22%)
06/2012 to 09/2012 (3 months): 1,270 to 1,470 (+16%)
11/2012 to ??/???? (6 months and ongoing): 1,350 to 1,620 (currently) (+20%)

Given historical trends, this rally is about to run out of gas. The party will likely stop sooner than later, so be careful and raise cash.

Positioning for deflation

I’ve been doing some research on which sectors perform best under deflationary conditions.

Obviously, cash is first and foremost as it will generate a natural real return over time without having to do anything, plus the nominal return you get from parking it in short-term funds (the Bank of Canada short-term rate right now is 1%).

Long-term bonds of solvent entities also are a good investment during deflationary conditions.

However, on the equity side things are a little more muted. The only direct play which I know explicitly has taken a position on deflation is the Canadian equivalent of Berkshire Hathaway, Fairfax Financial (TSX: FFH). Prem Watsa was fairly early to the subprime mortgage crisis in the USA but was able to profit handsomely on it, and he seems to be early on the deflationary game as well. His company has also been significantly short on S&P 500 equity index futures which also resulted in their portfolio performance suffering losses they really shouldn’t have been suffering. So while Watsa is likely paranoid, inevitably if you believe deflation is going to hit the marketplace and still need some form of equity exposure coupled with fairly competent management in asset allocation, then Fairfax is probably a good meal ticket. Regrettably, it is trading a shade over book value and historically it gyrates around it so there is likely a better opportunity in terms of market timing.

Interestingly enough, Watsa was also quite early in accumulating his (via FFH) 10% stake in Blackberry (TSX: BB). It remains to be seen whether this will be a win for him.

Price of gold

Gold got hammered today:

gold

What is interesting is that you’re going to start hearing people talk about marginal cost of extraction and about how that figure is a floor for commodity pricing.

It is not.

While marginal production cost is one component of commodity pricing, markets can go deeper below the cost of production because commodity markets measure instantaneous supply and demand. Eventually there will be some equalization but it does not have to be immediate – in fact, it can take a gut-wrenchingly long time to moderate to prices where costs are reflected.

I believe with the perception that gold is a safe haven from all the currency printing that is going on that there is a significant amount of the marketplace that is essentially going to be trapped in the commodity and the real question is going to be: when will this washout in-progress end? Markets usually trend longer and deeper than most people anticipate.

Most commodities (except for natural gas) are down across the board. If this trend continues, it will have a material impact on countries with commodity exposure – this includes Canada. As such, I am comfortable with my relatively large (2/3rds) US-denominated exposure. I also have no direct exposure to commodities.

Genworth MI’s sensitivity to unemployment rates

Genworth MI took a dive today because of the rise of unemployment in the Statistics Canada March release of the labour profile. Employment of full-time workers went down 54,000 workers.

mic

A rise in unemployment will increase the frequency of claims on mortgage insurance, while a decrease in property value will result in an increase in the severity of claims.

I believe the market is over-reacting to this news, but it is true that the default and delinquency rates for Canadian mortgages at present is quite low compared to historical norms.

On the brighter side, a lower share price makes the share buyback option more attractive.