In my previous blog post about Austrian School beliefs regarding price fixing and the gold standard, I described how fixing the rate of change in price is essentially the same as setting simultaneous floor and ceiling prices. This is technically untrue, since a rate of change implies the involvement of a time variable, however my floor and ceiling price limits have nothing to do with time. In other words, the price of a good can fluctuate between those price limits as quickly or as slowly as it may. All the price limits accomplish are a minimum and maximum absolute value difference between a good's starting price and its ending price, whichever point in time that may be.
Price limits aside, I was reading through a blog post on Mises.org ("Is Inflation about General Increases in Prices?") and realized that I may have misinterpreted some Austrian School beliefs, as I suspected I might have at the end of the last blog post.
The key difference that I failed to distinguish previously was that inflation is dilution of the money supply, not an increase in size of the money supply. For example, if gold is the medium of exchange in an economy and someone mines more gold, he is participating in the market's demand for gold. If he decides to cheat and dilute the money supply by melting down gold coins and reproducing them with less gold content, or by printing extra gold recipts (paper money), this person would be using the new "money" to buy something for nothing. In other words, he did not exchange wealth for wealth, he exchanged nothing for welath, which leads to a misallocation of resources in the economy.
This one paragraph doesn't do the concept justice, so I suggest you read through the original Mises.org article. In conclusion, Austrian School advocates of a gold standard aren't trying to regulate the size of the money supply; they are trying to control dilution of the money supply. Having real gold as the medium of exchange makes it much more difficult (although not impossible) to dilute the money supply than if the medium of exchange were a fiat currency (as we have today).
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Giving Cash Back To Shareholders is Nice... When You Can Afford It
Over the past few weeks, I've been looking at various stocks trying to find my very first Warren Buffett-style value investing stock pick. One of my main considerations was Hasbro, Inc. Hasbro has a lot of brand power under their belts: Monopoly, Battleship, Boggle, Pictionary, Risk, Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit, Transformers, Nerf, not to mention more targeted brands such as Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons. I went to Zellers the other day and took a stroll through the toy section. Many of the toys were made by Hasbro, meaning that Hasbro has a lot of retail store shelf space at stores like Wal-Mart, Zellers, Toys R Us, and so on. Hasbro has also been diversifying their brands toward movie production, such as Transformers and G.I. Joe. Upon examining the management, I found that the CEO of Hasbro personally heads the Corporate Social Responsibility Committee, a task that could easily have been delegated to a sub-manager. To me, that shows that the CEO actually cares about what goes on at those committee meetings.
When considering Hasbro's financials, I found a lot that matched a checklist I've built, based on reading how value investors like Warren Buffett pick stocks. Hasbro has low capital expenditure, consistent profit margins, return on assets in the 9-10% range, growth in net income and growth in what Buffett calls "owner earnings". Owner earnings, or free cash flow, are equal to the company's net income, plus depreciation/amortization, minus capital expenditures. Since depreciation/amortization are a non-cash expense, the cost is added back in to the equation, and offsetting depreciation/amortization is taken into account by subtracting capital expenditures. The result is the amount of cash that the company can decide to re-invest in the business, use to acquire other companies, or pay out to shareholders in the form of dividends or share repurchases.
Something Buffett likes to see in a stock is good treatment of shareholders. At the time of this writing, Hasbro currently has a dividend yield of just over 4%, which is pretty good. They also have an on-going share repurchase program. Since 2008, Hasbro has repurchased about 10.6 million shares. The result has been a steady increase in earnings per share. After valuing Hasbro's future cash flows with a modest 5% growth per year, I came up with a valuation of the company that is higher than its current share price, offering a margin of safety around 25%. If I were to assume a higher growth rate, that margin of safety would be larger, but I don't want to over-estimate. In any case, I had all but convinced myself that this stock would be a good buy, according to the value investing principles I have been learning about. The only reason I haven't purchased this stock yet is that I'm still waiting on transferring my RRSP account over to a self-directed account that I can use to buy individual stocks. Perhaps this was a blessing in disguise.
Buffett says that when you find a good investment, you should place a sizeable chunk of cash on it. Since I would be placing a sizeable chunk of cash on Hasbro, I want to be sure that I'm right about its prospects. After all, the whole strategy of focus investing is simply to just buy good companies, and avoid bad ones. I wanted to make sure I wasn't buying a bad one. It seemed strange to me that shareholders were being so lavishly rewarded year after year with dividend payouts and share repurchases, when news pieces on Hasbro had such a modest or grim outlook. I whipped up a quick spreadsheet, and here is what I found:
From what I see in the spreadsheet, Hasbro has been paying out more than 100% of its owner earnings to shareholders! At the same time, it has been borrowing hundreds of millions each year. It looks to me like this is unsustainable. Cash should only be paid out to shareholders if it can't be better used elsewhere to grow the company and add value for shareholders. From what I can tell, at least some of the cash being borrowed and/or paid out to shareholders could probably be better used by re-investing in the business. This realization has led me to reconsider my plans to purchase shares in Hasbro for the time being.
Edit: I did some follow-up research on this topic, and wrote a blog post summarizing my findings.
When considering Hasbro's financials, I found a lot that matched a checklist I've built, based on reading how value investors like Warren Buffett pick stocks. Hasbro has low capital expenditure, consistent profit margins, return on assets in the 9-10% range, growth in net income and growth in what Buffett calls "owner earnings". Owner earnings, or free cash flow, are equal to the company's net income, plus depreciation/amortization, minus capital expenditures. Since depreciation/amortization are a non-cash expense, the cost is added back in to the equation, and offsetting depreciation/amortization is taken into account by subtracting capital expenditures. The result is the amount of cash that the company can decide to re-invest in the business, use to acquire other companies, or pay out to shareholders in the form of dividends or share repurchases.
Something Buffett likes to see in a stock is good treatment of shareholders. At the time of this writing, Hasbro currently has a dividend yield of just over 4%, which is pretty good. They also have an on-going share repurchase program. Since 2008, Hasbro has repurchased about 10.6 million shares. The result has been a steady increase in earnings per share. After valuing Hasbro's future cash flows with a modest 5% growth per year, I came up with a valuation of the company that is higher than its current share price, offering a margin of safety around 25%. If I were to assume a higher growth rate, that margin of safety would be larger, but I don't want to over-estimate. In any case, I had all but convinced myself that this stock would be a good buy, according to the value investing principles I have been learning about. The only reason I haven't purchased this stock yet is that I'm still waiting on transferring my RRSP account over to a self-directed account that I can use to buy individual stocks. Perhaps this was a blessing in disguise.
Buffett says that when you find a good investment, you should place a sizeable chunk of cash on it. Since I would be placing a sizeable chunk of cash on Hasbro, I want to be sure that I'm right about its prospects. After all, the whole strategy of focus investing is simply to just buy good companies, and avoid bad ones. I wanted to make sure I wasn't buying a bad one. It seemed strange to me that shareholders were being so lavishly rewarded year after year with dividend payouts and share repurchases, when news pieces on Hasbro had such a modest or grim outlook. I whipped up a quick spreadsheet, and here is what I found:
 |
| Data taken from Google Finance |
Edit: I did some follow-up research on this topic, and wrote a blog post summarizing my findings.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Book Review: Warren Buffett and the Interpretation of Financial Statements
On the advice of a friend, I just recently purchased a book on how to read and interpret financial statements (income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements) for publicly-traded companies. Since I wanted to learn how to read these statements in the context of Warren Buffett's style of investing, I found the perfect title: Warren Buffett and the Interpretation of Financial Statements: The Search for the Company with a Durable Competitive Advantage.
The book is a short one, weighing in at only 175 pages of reading. It also includes appendices containing model financial statements, an index, and a particularly useful glossary that not only defines a list of financial terms, but also explains the term's significance when it comes to finding signs of a durable competitive advantage in a company. The book goes through each type of financial statement, line by line, and explains its meaning, possible abuses, and usefulness in determining the health and advantages of a company. After each financial statement is covered, the book also has a few chapters on valuation of stocks, Buffett's equity-bond theory, and when to buy and sell a stock in Buffett style.
Overall, I've found this to be a helpful book that has expanded my knowledge of fundamental analysis of companies. It was an easy and informative read; I ended up finishing it in under 24 hours (which is saying a lot for me!) After reading the book, I summarized what I had learned by skimming each chapter over again and creating a Word document that contains a checklist of things to look for in financial statements when searching for whether a company has a durable competitive advantage.
I currently only own one stock position (it's been almost 4 months since I bought it) that I had researched a fair amount at the time of purchase. Armed with my new and deeper knowledge of financial statements, I did another analysis of the stock's financial statements based on my new checklist. Happily, the stock passes nearly all the line items on my checklist. This has renewed my resolve to hold on to the stock for a long period of time. However, good financials and a bargain price are not the only things Buffett relies on to become so wealthy. Warren Buffett is a believer in investing inside one's own "circle of competence", or "invest in what you know". The stock I own is a uranium mining company. Admittedly, I know very little about uranium mining, the accompanying industry, competition or external factors that can influence the company whose shares I own. In any case, I will hold on to my stock regardless and hope for the best, but in the future I plan on investing within my circle of competence. As Warren Buffett once said, "You don't have to be an expert on every company, or even many. You only have to be able to evaluate companies within your circle of competence. The size of that circle is not very important; knowing its boundaries, however, is vital."
Coming back to the book review, I would definitely add this book to my list of recommended reading. It remains to be seen how financially beneficial this book will be to me in the future, but my guess is that it will be greatly valuable.
To buy the book from Amazon, click the link below. If all you can see is an Amazon ad, just refresh this page. Disclaimer: If you do so, I will earn a small commission.
The book is a short one, weighing in at only 175 pages of reading. It also includes appendices containing model financial statements, an index, and a particularly useful glossary that not only defines a list of financial terms, but also explains the term's significance when it comes to finding signs of a durable competitive advantage in a company. The book goes through each type of financial statement, line by line, and explains its meaning, possible abuses, and usefulness in determining the health and advantages of a company. After each financial statement is covered, the book also has a few chapters on valuation of stocks, Buffett's equity-bond theory, and when to buy and sell a stock in Buffett style.
Overall, I've found this to be a helpful book that has expanded my knowledge of fundamental analysis of companies. It was an easy and informative read; I ended up finishing it in under 24 hours (which is saying a lot for me!) After reading the book, I summarized what I had learned by skimming each chapter over again and creating a Word document that contains a checklist of things to look for in financial statements when searching for whether a company has a durable competitive advantage.
I currently only own one stock position (it's been almost 4 months since I bought it) that I had researched a fair amount at the time of purchase. Armed with my new and deeper knowledge of financial statements, I did another analysis of the stock's financial statements based on my new checklist. Happily, the stock passes nearly all the line items on my checklist. This has renewed my resolve to hold on to the stock for a long period of time. However, good financials and a bargain price are not the only things Buffett relies on to become so wealthy. Warren Buffett is a believer in investing inside one's own "circle of competence", or "invest in what you know". The stock I own is a uranium mining company. Admittedly, I know very little about uranium mining, the accompanying industry, competition or external factors that can influence the company whose shares I own. In any case, I will hold on to my stock regardless and hope for the best, but in the future I plan on investing within my circle of competence. As Warren Buffett once said, "You don't have to be an expert on every company, or even many. You only have to be able to evaluate companies within your circle of competence. The size of that circle is not very important; knowing its boundaries, however, is vital."
Coming back to the book review, I would definitely add this book to my list of recommended reading. It remains to be seen how financially beneficial this book will be to me in the future, but my guess is that it will be greatly valuable.
To buy the book from Amazon, click the link below. If all you can see is an Amazon ad, just refresh this page. Disclaimer: If you do so, I will earn a small commission.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)