Employment Data As Economic Predictor

Every month the financial press makes a big deal about the total payroll report. I have never really paid attention to it, as it seems like its just headline material rather than anything one can act on financially. Recently, I was poking thru the FRED data sets looking for an employment indicator that I could plug into my valuation model, and the one that caught my eye was a subset of the big monthly number – the Temporary Help Services number.

I put together this chart below comparing the numbers of the Wilshire 5000 stock market index, the Temporary services number, and the headline Nonfarm Payrolls number.

wilshire 5000, temporary employment and full employment chart
(click on image to enlarge)

As far as an early indicator of economic downturn (and hence a stock market downturn), it seems like the temporary help number is a much better indicator. The temporary help number started trending downward months before the non-farm payroll number, and even started rising sooner after the 2001 and 2008 recessions. There are some ‘headfakes’ in the temporary help number, but with a little smoothing I think my stock market model can be taught to ignore those.

One thing I have learned over the last several years while looking for correlations is there are a lot of coincidental correlations. So when I add data factors to my model, I give the data a good old fashioned smell test – does this data seem reasonable? In this case, I have rationalized that yes, it seems reasonable that in an economic downturn, companies would start jettisoning temporary employees early as they start to slow down, since those are typically the easiest and cheapest employees to part ways with.

So now when the monthly noise comes out about the jobs number, I will continue to ignore that number – but that will trigger me to look deeper at the temporary help number that gets released at the same time.

Townsquare Media Goes Digital

Townsquare Media is a company I have followed for a few years. I decided to post an article on Seeking Alpha about the company because I think it has an interesting story. The company primarily runs a number of rural radio stations, but is now working on tools to upsell its advertisers.

This stock has long been a value trap (and may still be), but if this new strategy pans out, it might be worth a look. For more details check out the article on Seeking Alpha.

Townsquare Media: Digital Solutions Could Be Catalyst For Growth

UFPI – To Sell or Not to Sell

Note – Post updated on 4/27/19 – see below.

The other day I was looking over my portfolio to make changes based on what my valuation model suggested. One of the stocks in my top 10 holdings, Universal Forest Products, Inc (UFPI), came up as a stock to underweight based on relative valuation. UFPI is a pretty inexpensive, low growth stock, and it had a small run in the last few months.

As I often do with stocks in which I have a short term gain, I give some pause to selling. My model predicted a .44% increase in May, so its not like I was bearish on the stock, just thought there might be better alternatives in other securities. So I took a quick look to see if it might make sense to sell a covered call against my position, collect some extra income since I don’t think the stock is going to move much in May. So I pulled up the options chain, and saw an interesting tidbit:

It is interesting to see that the volume on most UFPI options is zero. This is a small 1.89 billion market cap stock, not followed by many people. But curiously, in this list of zero options, someone tossed down a 40 contract trade betting that the stock would go from its current price ($31) to over $35 by May 17th. Granted that is only a $400 investment (40 contracts @ $.10 * 100 shrs a contract), so this isn’t likely the so called ‘smart money’, but it is curious. UFPI releases earnings tomorrow (April 24th) after the bell – perhaps some small roller is ‘playing a hunch’ and trying to earn some extra cash.

At any rate, this raised my curiosity enough for me to hold onto my position until after the earnings release. I am not in any big hurry to sell, and maybe this is telegraphing some good news around the corner.

4/27/19 Update

Earnings came out more positive than expected, pushing the share price from around $30 to a $36.65 close on Friday. those options purchased for $0.10 are now worth approximately $1.90. That $400 option investment translates to a current value of $7,600. So it appears that if you are going to sell a stock, it may be worth always check the options trades to see if anybody might be making a big bet.

The Trouble with Boeing

I have owned Boeing stock, but sold out of it last year due to a couple reasons. First, its a very large cap stock that grew a lot, and I didn’t understand why it jumped so much. My current opinion is on large cap stocks, you are competing more against institutional money that really models the company and the profits, so I don’t know if I want to try to outperform those companies with those resources.

The second reason I unloaded Boeing was more anecdotal. A group of guys I socialize with have and had worked for Boeing for the last 30 years. They were always very positive on Boeing and its management – until a few years ago. All of these employees were disgusted with management, and felt things were going downhill. I try to make a point in investing in superior management, and so this change in sentiment was enough to convince me to stay away.

With the recent drop in the price of Boeing stock due to the whole 737 Max events, I gave some thought to re-entering Boeing stock. The consensus had been that the problem is a software problem, easy enough to fix with software update. But more info is starting to come out, and now, I am beginning to think weak management is showing its hand.

This article on Quartz provides a great overview as to the issue surrounding the 737 Max. To summarize, when Airbus came out with a fuel efficient A320, Boeing had to quickly adapt the 737 to stay competitive. And to adapt the 737 to the new engines, they had to move the engines on the wing. This led to some handling problems, so they created software ‘as a kludge’ to offset the handling problem. So this is much more than just a software fix – the need for the software is due to a design flaw, which is additional complexity in the airplane. It seems this need to rush out a new plane for competitive needs may have led to deadly consequences. Also hitting the news is headlines about the approval process and the training provided to the airlines, none of it positive for Boeing.

So now, given this complexity and the headline risk, why would an airline pick the 737 Max over the A320? It seems this puts Boeing at a real competitive disadvantage. Indonesian airline Garunda already cancelled their orders for the Max – I would guess more will follow. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Boeing received no new orders for the 737 Max in March, and only 10 orders in the first quarter of 2019. Add on congressional investigations into the FAA certification process, the extended groundings, passenger perceptions of the airplane, and pilots concern related to the training, and I think the story gets worse before it gets better.

So if your bull thesis on Boeing is based on this 737 Max problem just being a software fix – think again. I think this could be the sign of cracks in the company culture and missteps by management. I think this plane that management forced out for competitive purposes could end up being a long term disaster for Boeing.

10,000 Millionaires

An interesting thing to ponder based on this article –

Thousands of New Millionaires Are About to Eat San Francisco Alive

With the Lyft IPO yesterday, this kicks off the creation of a new wave of an estimated 10,000 silicon valley millionaires. In addition to Lyft, Uber, Airbnb and Pinterest are expected to IPO in 2019, and given the compensation structures of San Francisco startups, this will result in a huge wealth realization for all those employees who hold stock options.

Should this number of newly minted millionairres materialize, it raises some interesting social issues. What happens to a city when a large amount of money floods a city (San Francisco is approximately 7 square miles)? The supply and demand of housing and premium services is going to be off the charts, likely worsening the homeless crisis currently in San Francisco.

It will also be interesting to see this wealth reverberate up and down the west coast. Historically housing prices in the Pacific Northwest correlate to California, so I would assume we will see ripples of this wealth bomb.

I fear this will also make the growing divide in the US between the technology disrupters in Silicon valley, and the declining income of those unskilled workers who lose their jobs to the disruption of the technological revolution. With all that money from the stock IPO’s going into those companies, it will only speed up the progress of the disruption.

So it will be interesting to see what happens in 2019. The impact on San Francisco will be interesting to watch, and hopefully it will drive some discussion about how to deal with this continued disruption across the country.

One Of Our Submarines

I am going to go a little outside my norm here and do a pop culture post.  The other day I went down a musical rabbit hole on the web and stumbled across an interesting historical artifact regarding a song that I had recalled from my youth.

If you are a fan of techno-pop from the early 80’s, you may recall a quirky album from 1982 by Thomas Dolby – The Golden Age of Wireless.  Lots of interesting songs with unique sound effect textures.  Anyway, one of the songs that I remembered on this album was a song about a relative of his that died on on a WWII Submarine.  ‘One of Our Submarines’ details the story as he understood it from his youth.

It turns out, with the declassification of records, the story behind this song was all wrong.  On a recent post, he revealed the true story is far different than the one written in his song – you can read the true story here.

Just a reminder that history is always changing.

If you are not familiar with the song,  you can take a listen here:

And if you want more, other interesting songs of note from this album are Europa and the Pirate Twins, Windpower,  Flying North and Radio Silence.

 

 

My Most Recent Home Automation: Electronic Blinds.

Kind of a random off topic post, but I thought it might be helpful for anybody considering buying electronic blinds out there.

For about 15 years my wife and I have been wanting to buy electronic blinds for my west facing windows, and have been stymied by the shortcomings of the different options and the cost.  Last month, we finally took the plunge, and made a decision.  If you are looking electronic blinds, my shopping experience and decision making process may be of help.

I had been looking at two options – Somfy (sold with Hunter Douglas, Graber and other blinds provider) or Lutron.  Lutron had been my preferred choice, as it has the best integration with my Wink hub and has been working on home automation interface for a long time.  Recently a third option came into view as the Shade Store is gaining traction as they are expanding nationally.  They recently opened a showroom in my neighborhood, and I was able to go in and view the options and see the differences

We had a few requirements for our installation.  We only wanted white solar shades, which simplified things.  However, we didn’t easily have access to wired power near our windows.  Also, we didn’t want the shades to degrade from the wood trim around our windows.  We got quotes from all three providers, and the prices were pretty similar, so cost wasn’t much of a factor (though beware – motorized shades are not cheap!).

Here are the pros and cons of each option as I see it:

  • Somfy:  We met with a Hunter Douglas rep who was very helpful in defining the options.  Unfortunately, the Sompfy battery operated shade bar looked a little clunky.  Each shade required 8 D batteries, so in addition to the motor bar, you had a battery bar right above it. So it doubled the profile of the roller bar, which was the biggest negative.  Not to mention I would have to by D batteries in bulk to keep them running (We needed 7 shades @ 8 batteries a piece = 56 D batteries).
  • Lutron:  Lutron did have a mini display at the Best Buy in our neighborhood, so I stopped in and checked it out.  The shade demo was tucked away in the same room as some speakers and audio equipment, so it wasn’t easy to see.  However, the big drawback with Lutron was for battery powered shades you have the same D battery dilemma, but also they have a 4″ tall fascia to hide the batteries and roller bar.  So these would be pretty noticable installed on our window trim, adding a dimension we didn’t want.
  • Shade Store:  I was leaning against going with upstart Shade store, as they are rapidly expanding (going into a potential economic downturn), so it would be more of a risk for ongoing support if they were to go out of business.  The Shade store offers both Somfy and their proprietary motorized shades, and after seeing their proprietary motors, I think they are the best option currently out there.  The roller bar is single width, and in the roller bar is a lithium iron battery that you recharge (once a year’ish according to the sales team).  This was by far the sleekest profile of them all, and also noticeably quieter than the Somfy’s.  However, the home automation app with the shade store motor is pretty limited as compared to the others, and the phone app got terrible reviews.

After going around and around on the various options, we finally chose the Shade Store brand.  In my opinion, their hardware was the best of the options, so I was willing to risk the company’s upstart nature.  The customer service experience I had with everybody in the company was excellent, from the designer to the measurer to the online customer service.  The best customer service experience I have had in recent memory.

Now that we have had the shades for awhile, I found out a few things.  There is a small wifi hub that comes syncs the blinds with the app, and the first thing I did was set my shades to go up and down on a timer.  I found that every once in awhile one of my shades would not go up or down on the timer, so I moved the hub closer to the shades (even though my hub was only a room away) and that has solved the problem for now at least.  Also, after conversing with customer service, I found out that the Shade Store does support IFTTT, which is a service that allows you to integrate various home automation platforms.  So I can set my shades to go down at noon if the solar index is going to above a certain level (i.e. a sunny day), and go up or down at sunrise / sunset each day.  I can also program my own rules.. another project on the programming backlog.

Regarding the mobile app that got such bad reviews, I have found it just fine. I don’t use it that often, as I just use the remote that came with the blinds instead.  If you have a burning need to open or close your shades when you are not home however, the app should suit your needs just fine.

If you are in the market for motorized shades, I hope this info helps.  This was a surprisingly difficult shopping experience for me based on the options available.  Once you get over the sticker shock and select a brand, they are pretty cool.  If you stumble across this post during your buying experiece, and have any questions – feel free to drop me a line.

The Stock Market and the Fed

2019 has started out as an interesting year for the stock market. The year was set up with a disastrous December 2018, leading to some gloom and doom over the holidays. I recall telling friends in December (following the 5% Christmas Eve drop) that I thought there was a decent chance January would be positive, and if so, take that as a selling opportunity as the rest of the year will be crap.

I was right about January, as the market (as measured by the S&P 500) was up a solid 8%. Time to sell? Now… I am going to answer maybe not. In December the Federal Reserve was signalling 3 rate hikes, and there is an old Wall St saying – ‘don’t fight the Fed’. The saying refers to when the Fed is raising rates, be cautious. Now it turns out, in January the Fed has signaled that it may go more cautiously, presumably because the stock market threw a tantrum. Now there are predictions of a rate cut in 2019, even though the economy is presumably as strong as it has been in recent years.

In my opinion a rate cut may be economic malpractice – but even worse (from a fiscal responsibility perspective) there is now talk that the fed may slow quantitative tightening. This you may recall is the selling off of all the securities the government bought up during and after the 2008 market crash:

Federal Reserve Balance Sheet Expansion

Of course we were told that when good times return, the government would sell off those securities and shrink down the balance sheet. And maybe it’s no coincidence that the stock market had a down year in the first year of quantitative tightening. But now there is talk of stopping this drawdown in 2019 or 2020, presumeably over concern that the economy is slowing too fast. The Federal Reserve now appears to be overly sensitive to the movements in the stock market, which for stock investors I guess is a good thing. This removes one big negative factor for the market I had going into 2019.

If the Fed has our back and is working to protect shareholders, I guess I am less negative than I was over the holidays. Other negative factors still exist, such as slowing growth in Europe, continued governmental dysfunction (i.e. the past and potential future shutdown), and Brexit. So I am still not calling for a great year, maybe just not as bad as I thought. I still think we have some major economic reckonings in the future, it’s just that the Fed is now willing to ‘run up the credit card’ to delay the economic downturn.

2018 Solar Year In Review

Time for my fourth annual solar power progress report.  This is the fourth year of having solar panels on my roof (for the full story click here), and production has been humming along.  For 2018, the panels produced 3591 kilowatts of power, 6 kilowatts less than last year.   Below is a chart of my 4 years of production by Month:

Solar Production Chart
Solar Production 1/15/15 – 12/31/18

We had a sunnier than average year overall, however our summer skies were filled with smoke from wildfires, and I think that is what kept me from beating last years number.

Payback Update

As I have mentioned in previous posts, I had originally penciled out a 6 year payback when I made the decision to move forward with this plan.  Last year I was projecting an 8 year payback on my investment, and this year, that is looking optimistic for the following reasons:

  • Drop in Incentives.  While may incentive rate per kilowatt remained at 50 cents for 2018, I think it is highly unlikely the rate will be above 20 cents after 2020.  It may even be 0, as the only reason I am getting an incentive is because my installation was grandfathered in (if I am reading the revised code of Washington correctly).  New solar installations do not receive any incentives, which has pretty much stopped installations as the payback is just not there.
  • Electricity rates dropping.  My assumption back in 2015 assumed electricity rates would increase around 5% a year, given the cost of phasing out coal generated electricity.  In 2015,  Puget Sound energy was charging 11 cents a kilowatt.  My latest electricity bill shows the current price at 9 cents a kilowatt, down 18%.  There doesn’t seem to be any pressure to reduce energy production from coal, as Puget Sound energy uses coal from a plant in Montana to generate 38% of its electricity:

Given this drop in incentives and electricity prices, I am now targeting a payback of 15 – 18 years.  When the incentives presumably end in 2020, my annual revenue will be in the neighborhood of $370 dollars, unless electricity spikes back up or if they extend the incentive program past 2020.

The good news is the panel production has not been significantly dropping off, so they should last for a long time.  Interestingly,  I noticed on Amazon.com that you can buy panels now for about 80 cents a watt, the first time I have seen it under a dollar.  I suppose if I wanted to double down on solar power,  I could buy them as they get cheaper to reduce my payback time.  I think some rough calculations show that at 80 cents a watt, that would have around a 4 year payback, assuming I could easily add them into the current array.

Regarding maintenance, still pretty easy.  Twice a year or so I use a mop to wash them off with dish washing soap, then rinse them.  I don’t notice a big spike in production after I clean the panels, so more frequent cleaning doesn’t seem to make sense.  I am collecting a lot of tree debris underneath the panels, so I may have to figure out how to clear that out so as to not hurt my roof from rot.  I may invest in some racks that elevate the panels so I can clean under them, and the racks also allow for better angles for the sun.

Power Use Report

As long as we are on the subject of power, I also recorded my power usage again this year.  Usage was down again this year, but by only 1%.  I again attribute it to replacing more lights with LEDs as the old incandescent ones burn out.  I am guessing one of my biggest power expenses if the refridgerator, and we got a new larger one this year, so I will not be surprised if my power usage is up next year.

Overall, still happy with my investment, and I still think residential solar / utility scale wind and solar is the power model of the future.  I will get most my investment back in the first 5 years, so it still wasn’t a bad investment in a low interest rate world.

eMagin – Still Just Potential

My latest article for Seeking Alpha was just posted – titled eMagin Is Still Just Potential. This covers a company I followed for a long time -eMagin. They make high quality micro-displays, and have been trying to crack the virtual reality market for a long time. I have been waiting / hoping for them to find success, but so far it has been elusive. Recent developments have knocked the stock price down below $1, at a time where it would appear it is starting to perform. It’s an interesting story (I think..).