In our quarterly market overview published last week, we opined that markets need to redefine and pay closer attention to the difference between investing and trading....between long-term risk and sector analysis versus quick profit-taking. Why? Because the hybridization of global trading platforms has damaged the prospect for sustainable global economic growth. A perpetual obsession with trading for short term gain not only bastardizes one's thinking about making money from his investments, but also forces the corporations whose shares are being bought and sold to fabricate and manipulate unrealistic timelines for their production and delivery paradigm.
In
short, traditional quarterly analysis of business creates a climate that
marginalizes upside potential by limiting creative thought.
One
tends to forget just how harmful "immediate profit" might be when
everything is going well and everyone is making money from trading the
market. But the pressures that are
exerted upon our collective psyche...and upon corporate governance...by this
cowboy mentality leads ultimately to excesses such as the kind that occurred in
housing, banking, pharmaceutical pricing, and a host of other industries that
crashed under the weight of expectations and excesses that were created by a
"got to have it now" culture.
"Stop
whining". "Why
should we care?" "This is how things are done
today". "Don't fight progress".
To
which I say, "Yes, but at what
cost?"
When
firms focus upon the short-term to appease their shareholders and Wall Street
market analysts, those firms end up steering financial resources towards the
present rather than developing innovation and new product development. The "next great thing" might be
right there in their grasp if only they had the freedom and prescience to be
forward-looking and visionary with their thinking. This kind of dumbing-down of corporate
strategy has the potential of sacrificing our tomorrow for the sake of
immediate gratification today.
Careful
The
remarkable rally in the stock market following the Great Recession (2009) was
fueled in part by value hunting amongst
depressed share prices, economic (monetary) stimulus, share repurchasing, and low
interest rates that resulted in few alternative investment opportunities. Given that rather lengthy list of causes for
the rebound, there is very little room to include other factors such as "prudent corporate governance"
or
"inordinate consumer demand for
innovative products". You see, fundamentals got trumped by technical
factors as opportunists rushed in to buy the market when it was inexpensive.
In
other words, the financial markets are on pace for building a new dynamic in
financial investing.....a do-it-yourself 24 hour trading platform, which is
about as diametrically different from asset allocation and strategic
risk-adjusted investing as one can get.
By
itself, there is nothing inherently wrong with making money no matter the
timeframe and keeping equity prices moving upwards. However, the market is morphing into a
technological hedging platform that moves share prices instantaneously, and
appears sometimes to bypass fundamental analytical thought or specific
methodological patterns. This delineation
has become exacerbated over the years and the cause, I believe, for the
withdrawal of the traditional retail investor from the equation. It also is the cause of his diminution of
confidence in financial institutions, as well as his feeling that morality and
hope have disappeared from his vernacular.
Indeed, many consumers are dismayed that no individuals, and fewer
financial firms, have been held directly responsible for their egregious
actions, and that some of those "product
first, customer second"
behaviors persist even today.
All
the while, the same staccato pace that has taken the markets up in the past
half-decade now might also be the drift element which moves prices, and
expectations, lower......
If
last week's volatility is any indication, the markets have already begun to
factor in some of those concerns. It's
interesting, because while I see no seismic consequences to a small cyclic
capitulation at this time, it is nevertheless emblematic of an inability of
good news to demonstrate a more powerful influence over any other narratives.
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