William Smead
Chief Executive Officer
Chief Investment Officer

Printable Version

Dear Fellow Investors:

Last week the Federal Reserve Board released the minutes of its meetings in 2006. There were discussions of the current economy, numerous credit tightening moves and a consistent belief in the idea that the US and its policy makers could engineer a “soft landing” from our grossly over-heated residential real estate bubble. As we now know, the landing that we had from our real estate bubble was the hardest landing since the “Great Depression”. In the opinion of Smead Capital Management, this is all symptomatic of free market capitalism and the way the economy cleans itself after years of excesses. It is not an indictment of the Fed or any monetary authority in other countries. Here are a few examples of quotes from these meetings in 2006:

March 27-28, 2006—(Ben Bernanke) “Again, I think we are unlikely to see growth being derailed by the housing market, but I do want us to be prepared for some quarter-to-quarter fluctuations,” Bernanke says. He identifies housing as a crucial issue, but adds that he agrees “with most of the commentary that the strong fundamentals support a relatively soft landing in housing.

May 10, 2006—(Ben Bernanke after being warned by Board Member Susan Bies about securitization risks) Bernanke acknowledges the risks, but doesn’t sound overly worried: “So far we are seeing, at worst, an orderly decline in the housing market; but there is still, I think, a lot to be seen as to whether the housing market will decline slowly or more quickly. As I noted last time, some correction in this market is a healthy thing, and our goal should not be to try to prevent that correction but rather to ensure that the correction does not overly influence growth in the rest of the economy.”

Dec. 12, 2006– The meeting that closes out the year sees policymakers showing little rising awareness of the storm coming their way. Indeed, much of the conversation officials have was about employment and inflation. Some of the evidence of rising weakness in housing was seen largely as a correction for past excess, rather than the genesis of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

The US Federal Reserve Board has been trying to smooth out business cycles for almost 100 years. By late 2006, our monetary policy makers were not close to understanding the problems the economy was facing from the meltdown that the residential real estate market was going to create.

Why was our landing so hard and what can be learned as you analyze other massively overheated real estate markets like China? First, everyone believed and got caught up in the mania. From the first-time homebuyer to the investors owning multiple homes to the condo flippers, nearly everyone bought into the idea that real estate only goes up. Second, there was no geographical diversification safety. Florida, Arizona, California and Nevada were the most over-heated, but every state allowed too much debt to get attached to its homes. Third, the banking system got poisoned. Loan losses critically damaged the balance sheet of the major mortgage lending and securitization companies. It was so wide spread that the states of Illinois, Georgia and Washington have ranked in the top five states for the most bank failures even though they didn’t have the worst performing price action. Lastly, the liquidation in the stock market in 2008 and drastic fall in consumer confidence allowed the breaking of the real estate bubble to deeply impair the entire economy.

The chart below shows us where we are in China at the end of 2011 compared to other housing bubbles in the last thirty years:

Source: “Between Errors of Optimism and Pessimism” GMO White Paper September 11 by Edward Chancellor

China’s real estate bubble has had nearly everyone believe in it and has had additional forces driving it. The belief is first driven by movement of Chinese citizens from rural areas to the cities. The popular myth is that 20-30 million people are moving to the cities each year. According to work done by Kynikos Associates, less than a total of 120 million individuals have urbanized into China’s urban centers since 1998. The mythical part is not directional, but magnitudinal. The urbanization levels are closer to 9 million a year, which is a far stretch from the 20-30 million believed.

The real estate bubble has happened all over the country and has spread to every town of over one million people in China. Beijing and Shanghai are the most populated and have seen prices reach the most extreme multiples of household income. A lack of trust in stocks and low interest rates in banks have driven Chinese citizens to invest in what is close by and easier to understand. Private property investments have only been around for ten years and they had only gone one direction in China until last summer.

Most of the housing built in the last ten years in the major cities has been condominium projects. These developments have been funded by the four largest government owned banks in China. These loans are made to special purpose entities formed under the blessing of local municipal government officials. Of these loans made in 2009-2011, the range of estimates of loan losses on these projects runs between 70% (former party official Yin Zhongqing) to 30% (Fitch). Since these loans are equal to $2.5 trillion US dollars, it means that between $750 billion to $1.75 trillion could be written off by the four largest government owned banks in China. This would wipe out the equity of these banks many times over.

Lastly, we believe that when someone finally yells “fire” and there is a rush to sell out of the ownership of multiple condo dwellings, prices will plummet in China. When prices plummet, then consumers in China will back off aggressively. Simultaneously, a huge credit contraction will unfold and China will be faced with a deep recession/depression, in our opinion.

The Chinese version of the Federal Reserve Board has been around for thirty years. The head of China Investment Corporation, Yin Liqan, was interviewed last year by David Faber on CNBC. He said, “Our government (meaning China) over the last 30 years has developed a very much, you know, sophisticated skills to manage the macro economy.” Here are some of the recent quotes of major China experts and policy makers referring to the “soft landing” that they hope to engineer for their economy, even though the price of homes to average household income appear to be twice in China what they were at the top in the US:

The Economist
Is this the soft landing?
Jul 13th 2011, 20:39 by R.A. | WASHINGTON

–THERE has been a fair amount of anxiety over the state of the Chinese economy of late. News of unexpectedly large debt burdens among Chinese local governments generated a wave of concern that recent Chinese growth has been entirely unsustainable. As the government was forced to turn off the credit tap, some supposed, property prices would fall and a hard landing would result.

That seems an unlikely scenario to me. Chinese debt burdens are manageable and its property market dynamics are quite different from those that prevailed in western bubbles markets prior to the crash. That doesn’t mean that all is entirely well in China, however. Many observers have taken some comfort in the latest GDP report from China. Output rose 9.5% year-on-year in the second quarter. That constitutes a moderate slowdown from growth in the previous quarter, and was a little above expectations. It would seem that the government’s efforts to slow credit growth have not precipitated an uncontrollably rapid downturn in activity.

Bloomberg
World Bank Sees Soft Landing for China as Asia Withstands Europe: Economy
Nov 22, 2011

–Bert Hofman, the World Bank’s chief economist for the East Asia and Pacific region, talks about the prospects for China’s economic growth and its implications for the region. The World Bank said China is heading for a soft landing of growth in excess of 8 percent next year, and with most Asian nations has fiscal scope to cushion its economy from an escalation in Europe’s debt crisis. Hofman spoke yesterday in Singapore with Bloomberg’s Haslinda Amin.

Miningmx Reporter
Soft landing in China forecast
Jan 6, 2012

–FOURTH quarter company results should support expectations of a slowdown in minerals demand, some of it seasonal, but for 2012 a soft landing in China would buoy metal shares, said Goldman Sachs in a report published January 3.

Goldman Sachs Global ECS Research team estimated China’s gross domestic product will slow to 8.2% in 2012, a relatively soft landing for the economy, providing sufficient growth to remain supportive of metals.

And if there is some softening in commodity prices, it may be enough for China to launch another stimulus programme rather than risk lower growth, Goldman Sachs said.

At SCM, we believe all the pieces are in place for a “hard landing” in the China real estate markets. By the end of 2012, this bust in real estate will start to affect the major banks in China and severely inhibit policy maker’s ability to stimulate the economy. Credit contraction will follow in 2013, in our opinion. Commodity prices could come down as much as 50% in anticipation of drastically reduce Fixed Asset Investment and energy use in China. In other words, a “soft landing” in China following one of the biggest real estate booms in history is a “Mission Impossible”!

Best Wishes,

William Smead

The information contained in this missive represents SCM’s opinions, and should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Some of the securities identified and described in this missive are a sample of issuers being currently recommended for suitable clients as of the date of this missive and do not represent all of the securities purchased or recommended for our clients. It should not be assumed that investing in these securities was or will be profitable. A list of all recommendations made by Smead Capital Management with in the past twelve month period is available upon request.

William Smead
Chief Executive Officer
Chief Investment Officer

Dear Clients and Prospective Clients:

I’m fond of saying that the Math you need to succeed in business is learned by the end of 7th grade. If you can do percentages and simple algebraic equations, you can be a huge success! There are two very important areas of investing and our economy which simple math could tell you are going to change.

The first is in housing. The loans attached to housing are the “Achilles Heel” of this economy. All the securities and balance sheets which are poisoned by mortgages have at their core an unknown. When and at what price will housing bottom in the markets that dominated mortgage origination (California, Florida, Arizona and Nevada)? Those states have also dominated foreclosure statistics and provided the most toxic paper in the most egregious mortgage-backed securities market. If the demand for homes remains relatively constant, then it is the supply of homes on the market which tell you if some kind of equilibrium is being reached.

Here is the simple math. Housing starts were the lowest in 50 years in January at an annualized pace of 466,000 new homes. Don’t just pass that statistic by. MORE HOUSES WERE STARTED IN THE U.S. IN 1960 WHEN WE HAD A TOTAL POPULATION OF 180 MILLION THAN ARE BEING STARTED TODAY WITH A P0PULATION OF 300 MILLION! Home sales are up sharply in the worst performing states. There are about 1.3 million homes absorbed each year in the U.S. The inventory of unsold homes dropped recently to 9-months supply from a high of 11-months last year. The media and internet outlets want you to believe that additional layoffs and foreclosures are the key to housing finding a bottom. However, we believe those negatives are only slowing the positives in rebalancing supply and demand. With more babies being born in the U.S. in 2007 and likely in 2008 than any year since 1957, it is likely that demand is not constant, but rather is growing underneath the surface. The new stimulus bill gives an outright $8000 tax credit to first-time home buyers (anyone who hasn’t owned a home for three years) which does not have to be paid back if you keep the home for three years.

Conclusion: More demand and less supply will lead to equilibrium. Equilibrium in housing prices would clarify the underlying value of mortgages and mortgage-backed securities. Clarification of mortgage and mortgage-backed security values could define financial institution book values. Definition of “real” book values would refocus investors on earnings power. Refocusing on earnings power would restore confidence in the surviving financial institutions and the stock market in general!

The second area for discussion is gold. I read recently that approximately 75% of the demand for gold comes in the form of jewelry. If you read the reports of any jewelry company, you’ll find that the demand for jewelry is down significantly (Tiffany Christmas sales down 21%). The price of gold is up to $970 per ounce this morning and has risen over the last three months. If 75% of your demand drops by 20%, you have a loss in demand of 15% (assuming supply is constant). For prices to rise while that was going on, you needed speculators, who make up something less than 25% of demand, to have demanded everything that jewelry buyers normally demand and buy a great deal more! It is too bad for them that supply is not constant. Thanks to M.C. Hammer and Ed McMahon, people are turning in their gold for cash in record numbers; enough to justify expensive adds at the Super Bowl and all day on television.

Conclusion: Less demand and more supply of gold will lead to much lower prices at the point that speculators run out of bullets in their gun (remember what happened last summer when Oil speculators ran out of “Peak Oil Theory” bullets in the face of falling oil consumption). Those bullets are all “fear’ trade bullets. The “fear” trade goes away when equilibrium is reached in housing, the financial institutions are stabilized and some confidence comes back into our economy. We at Smead Capital Management recommend that long-term investors sell their gold before the “fear” trade disappears and before two plus two goes back to equaling four.

Best Wishes,

William Smead

William Smead
Chief Executive Officer
Chief Investment Officer






Dear Clients and Prospective Clients:

Jim Collins is the author of a book that I have mentioned from time to time called “Good to Great”. He has attempted to help us understand the difference between merely good companies and the few great ones which have been demonstrating “greatness” over the years. What these “great” companies do in the most difficult business circumstances could give us some clues on what to do in this current economic and investment environment. The current environment is already establishing itself as the most difficult set of circumstances we have faced since the 1930′s.

To help us understand the approach of “great” companies in difficult circumstances, Collins retells the story of James Stockdale, a POW camp survivor from the Vietnam War. Stockdale withstood the kind of long imprisonment which Senator John McCain withstood and is still fresh in our memories. This survivor explained that it wasn’t the pessimists or the optimists which survived, but rather the realists. Pessimists died early on trying to escape, knowing that they didn’t have it in them to hold on for years. Optimists expected the very best and would say things like, “We will be out of here by Thanksgiving.” Thanksgiving would come and go and the optimist would turn to Easter as the point where it would all be better. Eventually, a number of optimistic deadlines would pass and the optimist would lose hope and turn into a pessimist. The realist said, “I will do whatever it takes to get through this regardless of how long it takes to get through it.” There is an inherent optimism in the position taken by the realist. The grim reality must be balanced against the great blessing for you on the other side of the valley.We are in the midst of a business coma and stock market liquidation that has to do with financial sins committed over the last ten years. It is holding all participants (workers, investors and companies) prisoner regardless of whether or not we or our companies were part of creating the problem. We do not know how long the “business coma” will last, how long stocks will be liquidated to find a bottom and how soon the inevitable rebound will come! However, we must survive.

At Smead Capital Management we have staked the survival of our portfolios on the balance sheet strength of our companies, the necessary nature of their products and the enduring quality and “mind control” of their brands. In other words, we have sought to own the realist companies which can get through this regardless of how long it takes. And we do this to not only survive, but also because the reward on the other side of the valley is huge from a historical point of view. If you made it all the way through the Great Depression to 1937 with your blue chip stocks, you saw a huge rebound in stock prices from the 1932 lows.

What can you do to be a realistic owner and steward of your assets? Make sure you are investing money in the stock market which can stay invested for at least three to five years. Put the money you need in the next two years in a safe financial instrument like a Certificate of Deposit or money-market fund. Reduce portfolio withdrawals until things improve. Where possible, liquidate non-liquid assets like boats, cars and non-income producing real estate or use them as a charitable donations in a substitution for cash outlays. If needed, review your portfolio with us regardless of whether or not we oversee all the assets.

What should we look for to get a sense that this storm is passing? First, look for low enough new home sales figures to put some of the weaker publicly traded homebuilders into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Second, look for Arizona, California, Florida and Nevada unsold home inventories to decline. Thirdly, look for some highly respected, nationally recognized stock portfolio managers to give up or get fired (it happened right before the Tech bubble broke in early 2000). Lastly, look for the interest rate differential to narrow between high-grade corporate bonds and Treasury bonds.

We intend to survive these circumstances with you and are here to serve you in any realistic way we can.

Warmest regards,

Almost two years ago, the Arizona Republic did a feature story on their cover about a talented and successful residential real estate agent located in Paradise Valley, Arizona. He was featured because the Phoenix market had been hot for years and nobody was hotter selling high-end homes than him. Phoenix and its high-end homes were pre-ordained to fall and boy have they fallen.

Pull out yesterday’s Sunday business section of the Seattle Times and you’ll see a feature on shortsellers. It’s the kind of article they write when someone has been on a roll (in this case betting against stocks). Short Sellers have every right to bet against stocks, but the media only wants to write about you when you’ve had a hot hand lately. There were no features on short sellers in the 1990′s, as stock rose dramatically off and on for a decade.

These cover stories come from the media all the time, both nationally and locally. Examples include T. Boone Pickens, Donald Trump and Shawn Alexander (the former Seahawks running back). The media had Boone Pickens all over their covers during the big run up in Oil prices. The price of oil has since been chopped in half and Picken’s Hedge Fund has lost $2 billion.

When real estate was hot, the “Donald” and his smiling face were everywhere. Sell real estate when Donald Trump is popular and buy when he is in bankruptcy court. Former Seahawks running back, Shawn Alexander graced the cover of Sports Illustrated two plus years ago (after being named league MVP). He couldn’t find a team that would hire him at the start of this year. The Seahawks can barely win a football game. The fall from the cover is a hard one.

The media is in love with the Hedge Fund managers and shortsellers who have had the hot hand in the decline of the last few years. We think they and their investors could be singing the blues in two years. Remind me to be cautious down the road when the cover stories are about value buyers like us, who stayed the course around the bottom of the Panic of 2008. We are looking forward to getting to the top of the performance mountain from this difficult valley and believe that it is being set up by the current cover stories.

Best Wishes,


William Smead

William Smead
Chief Executive Officer
Chief Investment Officer

Dear Clients and Prospective Clients:

Stocks

As we saw from June 30th to now in the price of Oil, price is a great regulator of price. Stocks are way down, having dropped the most in October since the crash of 1987. An abundance of selling supply coming from hedge fund liquidations, margin calls, mutual fund redemptions and individual stock owners (reaching their pain threshold) has overwhelmed the few lonely buyers. Most of the selling is being done in panic. The lonely buyers are people like corporate insiders and value-oriented, patient investors like Warren Buffett, John Neff, Marty Whitman and us at Smead Capital Management. Supply is high, demand is nil and prices are low.

Treasury Bonds

Demand is the highest since the 1930′s as investors want U.S. Government assurance of payment of principle and interest. Sellers are lonely and prices are high. Watch out though, because the Federal Reserve and Treasury are looking to massively increase supply as they trade Treasuries at high prices for preferred stock in depressed banks and out-of-favor mortgage loans.

Real Estate

Lonely buyers are coming out of the woodwork at lower prices to snatch up bargains in California, Nevada, Arizona and Florida on short sales and foreclosures in an ocean of supply. This bubble, which broke at the end of 2005, is now being bottomed as the media misses the law of supply and demand. The media rails about huge drops in housing permits, starts and sales. These are a big supply reducer and leaves buyers shopping among the existing supply.

Corporate and Municipal Bonds

Investors are so scared that they don’t trust state and municipalities. Lonely buyers are seeing the biggest spreads to treasury bonds since the 1930′s and supply is contracting fast.

Money markets/Cash/T-bills

These are the world’s most popular investments. There are hardly any lonely sellers and there is currently the world’s biggest army of buyers. Money-market prices are at record highs and interest rates at or near 70-years lows.

Commodities

This asset class was hotter than a pistol from 2003 to four months ago. However, price regulates price and that rule is no exception in the price of oil, grains, basic materials and other commodities. Supply comes out of the woodwork and alternatives become very attractive. I would expect this asset class to be dead money in the “Next Great U.S. Stock Market.”

I remember being a lonely seller of Tech stocks in late 1999 and feeling incredibly foolish as I talked to unhappy clients who were watching their rabid neighbors get wealthy overnight on the latest Initial Public Offering (IPO) of common stock. Supply was exploding and buying was frenzied. We are at the exact opposite today. Sellers are dumping the best companies with the brightest futures and there are virtually no IPO’s. As the “Motels” sang in 1982, “It’s like I told you, only the lonely can play.”

William Smead