My allocation to international equities

Tim Hale in his book ‘Smarter Investing : Simpler Decisions For Better Results’ states that ‘investing in a range of developed equity markets such as those in North America, the European Union, Japan and Australasia, provides the potential to deliver comparable returns, given similar levels of risk, long term rates of economic growth and reasonably comparable levels of governance, law, political stability and capitalist economics...’

However, he also mentions that investing in developed international equity markets can expose you to economic cycles / pressures that are out of sync and currency exchange rates. These types of effects can be clearly seen by looking at the chart above which has been prepared using the Yahoo Finance website. The period used is December 1989 to the present day with the red line being the S&P 500 (USA), the blue line being the FTSE 100 (United Kingdom) and the green line being the Nikkei 225 (Japan).

It is these types of effects that I am looking to take advantage of in my retirement investing strategy by regularly balancing back to my desired regional allocation within my international equities allocation. This is exactly the same principle I am using with my total low charge portfolio allowing me to buy when the market is low and sell when the market is high.

When choosing what regions to invest in I wanted to also ensure that my allocations were large enough to make a difference within my total low charge portfolio. For example my nominal allocation (before allowing for corrections in line with PE10 ratios) to international equities is 15%. If within my international equities I have an allocation to a region at 20% then this will affect 3% of the total portfolio which matters. If I went down as low as 5% then the total affect would be only 0.75%. A 10% swing in stock market prices in this region would then only make a difference of 0.075% to the total portfolio which in my opinion is insignificant.

So what regions am I allocating to my international equities asset allocation? I’ve kept it really simple with desired allocations of:
- 40% United States
- 40% Developed Europe (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Switzerland etc)
- 20% Japan

My current asset allocation is:
- 38% United States
- 38% Developed Europe
- 21% Japan
- 3% Other

Others include South & Central America, Emerging Europe, Middle East & Africa and Developed Asia. These other regions have not been deliberately chosen but are merely the by product of buying low cost funds that cover a little more than the regions I am interested in.
Sectors within these regions include energy, materials, industrials, consumer discretionary, consumer staples, health care, financials and information technology.

As always DYOR.

UK Property Market – January 2010 Update

I am yet to buy myself a flat or house even though the ownership of one is important to my retirement investing strategy in the longer term. The reason for this is that in my opinion UK house prices are still overvalued by a huge margin. Yesterday the Nationwide reported that average house prices had risen from £162,103 to £163,481, a rise of 0.8%, in a single month pushing house prices to yet more highs of un-affordability.

Chart 1 shows the Nationwide Historical House Prices in Real (ie inflation adjusted) terms. The Real increase is much less than that reported by the Nationwide with prices rising from only £163,140 to £163,481 as the UK Retail Prices Index (RPI) also increased by a high of 0.6% in a single month.

This chart also demonstrates that compared to average earnings property is very expensive when a ratio is created of the Nationwide Historical House Prices to the Average Earnings Index (LNMM) and it is for this reason I have yet to buy. In 1996 this ratio was as low as 607 and today the ratio stands at 1,172. If we were to return to that number the average house using the Nationwide Index would be £84,670. Will we ever get that low again?

Last month I questioned whether we may have been at the point of the ‘Return to “normal”’ phase kicking in. Chart 2 today highlights why I may have been early in my call. The red line shows the monthly average of UK resident banks interest rate of new loans secured on dwellings to households. I have taken the average of five data sets which are the floating rate, fixation <=1year, fixation >1year<=5years, fixation >5year<=10years and the fixation >10years. This interest rate had been as high as 6.3% in September 2008 (before the Bank of England panicked and lowered the Official Bank Rate to a record low of 0.5%) and then had reduced to a low of 4.2% by June 2009.

This has meant for new loans the average interest payable has reduced by a 1/3. So when a typical person walks in to a bank and asks for the maximum they can borrow the low interest rate is going to mean they can borrow more principle which will then push up house prices. The good news however is that even though the Bank of England has not moved, the Official Bank Rate the interest paid on loans is starting to increase from the low of 4.2% to 4.5% in November 2009. This will reduce affordability which unless peoples earnings start to increase should start to push house prices back down again and there is little the Bank of England can do unless they completely ignore inflation and drop interest rates even further or perform more Quantitative Easing. They clearly won’t be able to do this without risking a bond strike or hyperinflation however personally I do think they won’t raise interest rates even though inflation is rising quickly when they meet in a few days.

Chart 3 shows the annual change in Nationwide property prices and compares this with the change in the average earnings index extrapolated a couple of months to match the Nationwide time period as LNMM is still only released to November 2009. It shows that the annual change in earnings is now around 1.4% which is significantly less than the Retail Prices Index (RPI) and the increases being seen in house prices.

So in summary house prices are increasing in nominal and to a lesser extent in Real inflation adjusted terms. However in my opinion I suggest that these increases will be short lived. Salaries are increasing at a rate which is less than both inflation and house prices. Bank mortgage rates are starting to increase from their lows which will reduce the level of principle that can be borrowed. The Bank of England and government are powerless to do anything about it without risking the country as a whole. The only fear I have now is that the Bank of England holds interest rates allowing inflation to rise quickly (I think they will) resulting in nominal house price increases but stagnation in Real inflation adjusted house prices. This will be dependent on whether salaries start to increase in line with inflation. The private sector doesn’t seem in a position to do this however while government borrowing is at record highs I fear the government will listen to the Unions requests for big increases as they have an election win to try and buy.

For now I’m staying out of the housing market.

As always DYOR

Assumptions:
LNMM data is extrapolated for December ’09 and January ’10.

How can banks be back to big profits and big bonuses so quickly?

One method the banks are clearly using is to widen the margin between what they borrow at compared to what they lend at as can be clearly seen in my chart today. This means that any interest earning cash that I am holding as part of my retirement investing strategy is losing out over the potential interest rate that I could have once expected with the extra hair cut being used for banks earnings and bonuses.

The blue line shows the monthly average of UK resident banks interest rates of new time deposits with a fixed original maturity from households. I have taken the average of three data sets which are the maturity <=1year, maturity >1year<=2years and the maturity >2years.

The red line shows the monthly average of UK resident banks interest rate of new loans secured on dwellings to households. I have taken the average of five data sets which are the floating rate, fixation <=1year, fixation >1year<=5years, fixation >5year<=10years and the fixation >10years.

The average interest rate paid to households between 2004 and 2007 was 4.81% with the average borrowing rate being 5.47%. That gave the banks a margin of 0.67%. In the last year the average rate paid has been 3.13% with the average borrowing rate being 4.53%. The banks have widened their margin to 1.41%. Finally, in the last month of the data set (November 2009) the banks have been able to further widen their margin to 1.69% with the average rate paid to households being a low 2.84%.

Bank of England datasets used:
Time deposits – CFMBI84, CFMBI85, CFMBI86
Loans – CFMBJ39, CFMBJ42, CFMBJ43, CFMBJ44, CFMBJ45

How to Make a Million UK Pounds

According to the Camelot Group around 70% of the adult population regularly play The National Lottery. Personally, I find that number worryingly high. So while I suspect 70% of the population think that this is one method to make a million I personally don’t like the odds with around a 1 in 14,000,000 chance of hitting the big one.

I’m going to propose an alternate method for UK residents. Unfortunately my method is not as instantaneous and involves a lot of dedication. However I think my method has much better odds.

So how does it work?

The first thing I need is a stocks and shares ISA. These are a great product as once your money is invested in one all returns are tax free. I have to be careful though and ensure my stocks and shares ISA does not charge me an annual fee. As of the 6th April 2010 every UK saver will be able to invest up to £10,200. For my method I’m going to suggest I stay very focused and invest the full £10,200.

The next thing to do is to decide what stocks and shares to buy within my ISA. Tim Hale in his book “Smarter Investing : Simpler Decisions for Better Results” suggests that the arithmetic average for UK real (after inflation) equity returns could be 7.0%. He also suggests UK real (after inflation) bond average returns could be 2.3%. So I’ll take these two building blocks and build a basic portfolio that consists of 60% UK equities and 40% UK bonds. I then decide to rebalance this asset allocation regularly. This could give me an average real return of around 5.1%.

Now I need to buy those equities and bonds. With a bit of shopping around I should be able to find exchange traded funds (ETF’s) for both UK equities and UK bonds to buy within my ISA with fees of less than 0.5% per annum. I’ll be conservative and assume I spend the whole 0.5% meaning my average expected return is now 5.1% - 0.5% = 4.9%.
Now of course the UK government always wants a bit of inflation. Since 1988 the average of the Retail Prices Index (RPI) has been around 3.5%. So I’ll add the inflation on 4.9% + 3.5% = 8.1% to give an average expected annual return.

Now I’m going to let the magic of compound interest go to work.

After 5 years I’ve invested £51,000 of my own money and assuming straight line average returns I might have around £65,000.

After 15 years I’ve invested £153,000 of my own money and compound interest has started working for me as I might have around £302,000.

After 25 years I’ve invested £255,000 of my own money and I might have around £821,000.
Finally, after 28 years I’ve invested £285,600 of my own money and I might have around $1,073,000. I’m a millionaire.

Of course in 28 years my one million pounds won’t have the buying power of today. Assuming the 3.5% inflation I mentioned above means my £1,000,000 would be worth around £587,000 today. That however is still a lot of money.

As always DYOR.

Stagflation and the UK Q4 GDP Numbers

Firstly, some quotes to think about:
1. "Now in Britain, we are saying, as you know, that inflation is low, interest rates are low and we expect there to be growth.” – Gordon Brown, 2008
2. "We have a strong economy, its momentum will carry us through." – Alistair Darling, 2007
3. "I think the choice is becoming pretty clear. Between a government that is determined at all times to maintain the stability and growth of the British economy. “ – Gordon Brown,2007
4. “...a weak currency arises from a weak economy which in turn is the result of a weak Government.” – Gordon Brown, 1992

So the UK today emerged from recession. What an excellent [sic] job the current government and the Bank of England has done managing the UK economy over the business cycle. Today we find that the UK economy (GDP) has grown by 0.1% in the final three months of 2009. To get these outstanding [sic] results they’ve only had to lower VAT to 15%, lower the Official Bank Rate to 0.5% (the lowest rate in the history of the Bank of England), quantitative ease to the tune of £200 billion and introduce a car scrappage scheme to name but four.

This has all resulted in:
- house prices that are within 13% of record peaks. Of course that’s great news if you’re a “hard working family”, sorry, hard working politician with multiple houses partly paid for by the tax payer.
- a heavily devalued (weak) pound.
- low returns from bank deposits / bonds for those people trying to live on savings or save for retirement.

To go with this we have the Consumer Price Index (CPI) increasing at a rate of 2.9% including the largest month on month in history and a Retail Prices Index (RPI) increasing at a rate of 2.4%.

Now I’m going to get my crystal ball out and predict how the Bank of England is going to respond. I’m betting that they will leave the Official Bank Rate on hold at 0.5%. This in turn will lead to the next big issue for UK PLC. Firstly inflation will take off, then salary inflation will start as the public sector unions negotiate first just before the election and then others join the band wagon. This will then lead to built in inflation which the Bank of England will struggle to get back in hand.

I have one word for where I think the UK economy is headed – stagflation.

To conclude I’m going to modify the four quotes above a little. “Inflation is not low”, “we do not have a strong economy”, “we do not have stability and growth” however we do have “a weak currency”.

Gold Within My Retirement Investing Strategy – January 2009 Update

Within my Retirement Investing Strategy I currently hold 3.1% (up from 2.6% at the last gold update due to a buy decision made this month) of my portfolio in gold with a targeted holding of 5%. Gold is the only portion of my portfolio that does not provide a yield (dividends, interest etc).

The first chart shows the real price of gold since 1968, with the wild ride that comes with gold obvious. This month the real (after inflation) price of gold has fallen by about 3.2% to $1,096.00 per ounce. The trend line however suggests a price today of $631.00 up from $630.00 at the last update. The historical average real gold price from 1968 to today is $600.52. So by both of these measures gold appears overpriced.

The correlation between the real S&P 500 (also displayed on the first chart) and real gold lowers slightly from the last update which was -0.34 to -0.33. The second chart provides the ratio of the S&P 500 to gold demonstrating just how far apart the two can vary. Today this ratio is 1.00. The trend line however suggests a ratio today of 2.6 and the historical average ratio from 1968 to today is 1.63. So this measure would suggest that if you were looking to choose to buy the S&P 500 or gold then the S&P 500 might be the better option.

The final point to make however is that while both the first and second charts suggest gold is overpriced on historic measures I cannot forget that in 1980 gold reached an average real monthly price of $1,728 which is a long way above where we are today.

I made the decision to buy gold. Largely this is because I have set myself mechanical requirements that bring little to no thought process or emotion into the decision. Only time will tell if the decision was correct.

As always DYOR.

Assumptions include:
- Gold and S&P 500 January prices are that at time of writing 25 January 2010.
- All other prices are month averages.
- Inflation data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. December ‘09 & January ‘10 inflation is extrapolated.

Buying Gold

I made the decision to buy gold last week. At the close on Friday gold had come off its highs to be at $1091.50. In British pounds gold was off its November peak by about 5%. The buy was not big. I nibbled by transferring about 0.6% of my total retirement investing assets from cash held in British pounds.

So when weighing up the buy what were the pro’s that I could come up with:

1. My desired low charge portfolio has an asset allocation dedicated to commodities and more specifically to gold of 5%. As I highlighted on Monday my current low charge portfolio mainly through contributing around 60% of my gross earnings towards my retirement investing strategy had seen my actual gold holdings reduce to 2.6% portfolio. This was too low.

2. Gold in 1980 reached a real monthly average price of $1,728.

3. It looks as though inflation may be among us with the RPI leaping to 2.4%. My personal feeling is that the Bank of England will not raise interest rates to counter this so I am thinking I may need more inflation protection than I already have.

The con’s that I could come up with were:

1. I hadn’t bought gold for some time as my analysis showed that if gold was following the trend line it would have a real price of $630.

2. The average real (after inflation) price for gold since 1968 has been $599. This suggested that gold had a good chance of returning to trend in the long term.

As always DYOR.

Why I Hold National Savings and Investments (NS&I) Index Linked Savings Certificates

My retirement investing strategy asset allocation currently consists of 18% worth of National Savings and Investments (NS&I) Index Linked Savings Certificates. I have been buying these for quite a few years now and on average they are now providing me with an average headline return of 1.01% plus the Retail Prices Index. The big advantage they bring to me though as a 40% tax payer is that they are tax free.

I would like to buy more Certificates however you can only invest a maximum of £15,000 into each Issue which is currently Issue 19 for a 3 year and Issue 46 for a 5 year. These current issues are currently offering Index Linking plus 1% tax free which is pretty close to my average.

I think these are now really starting to provide me with some advantages and I would like to buy some more 3 years if they became available. Let me demonstrate with an example.

Let’s say that on the 22 January 2009 I purchased £15,000 worth of 3 year Index Linked Savings Certificates. Using the calculator on the National Savings and Investments (NS&I) website reveals that if I sold those certificates today they would be worth £15,279 which is a 1 year return of 1.9% tax free. However as a 40% higher rate tax payer the fact that they are tax free means that I would have had to earn a 1 year return of 3.1% in a taxed bank account for it to be equivalent.

If however I had bought on the 22 January 2008 then today they would be worth £15,985.50. Again, selling today would be a total tax free return for the 2 years of 6.6% or after factoring the tax free status a taxed bank account would have had to have provided a 2 year total return of 11%.

Finally, if I had bought on the 22 January 2007 then today they would be worth £16,830. Again, selling today would be a total return for the 3 years of 12.2% or after factoring the tax free status in a taxed bank account would have had to have provided a 3 year total return of 20.3%. That’s a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 3.9%. A taxed bank account for a 40% tax payer like me would have had to provide a CAGR of 6.4%.

I’m happy with that for “100% security for your money” as detailed on the NS&I home page.

Please note that this is a very simplistic example and there are a number of terms and conditions for these investments that I made myself aware of before I invested.

As always DYOR.

Australian Stock Market – January 2010 Update

To try and squeeze some more performance out of a retirement investing strategy that is heavily focused on asset allocation I am using a cyclically adjusted PE ratio for the ASX 200 to attempt to value the Australian Stock Market. The method used is based on that developed by Yale Professor Robert Shiller. I will call it the ASX 200 PE10 and it is the ratio of Real (ie after inflation) Monthly Prices and the 10 Year Real (ie after inflation) Average Earnings. For my Australian Equities I will use a nominal ASX 200 PE10 value of 16 to equate to when I hold 21% Australian Equities. On a linear scale I will target 30% less stocks when the ASX 200 PE10 average is ASX 200 PE10 average + 10 = 26 and will own 30% more stocks when the ASX 200 PE10 average is PE10 average -10 = 6.

Chart 1 plots the ASX 200 PE10. Key points this month are:
ASX 200 PE10 = 18.8 which is up from 18.7 last month. My target Australian Equities target is now 19.2% which is down from 19.3% last month.
ASX 200 PE10 Average = 22.9
ASX 200 PE10 20 Percentile = 17.3
ASX 200 PE10 80 Percentile = 27.7
ASX 200 PE10 Correlation with Real ASX 200 Price = 0.82

Chart 2 plots further reinforces why I am using this method. While the R^2 is low at 0.1358 there appears to be a trend suggesting that the return in the following year is dependent on the ASX 200 PE10 value. Using the trend line with a PE10 of 18.8 results in a 1 year expected real (after inflation) earnings projection of 12.5%. The correlation of the data in chart 2 is -0.37.

Chart 3 plots Real (after inflation) Earnings and Real Dividends. Dividends and Earnings are below the trend line. In fact Earnings are now very close to that of Dividends. What this means is that currently Australian companies are using nearly all their Earnings just to fund the Dividends. Yet the trend line suggests typically clear distance between the two with the trend lines running almost parallel. Where is the money for investments going to come from?

As always DYOR.

Assumptions include:
- All figures are taken from official data from the Reserve Bank of Australia.
- January price is the 21 January ’10 market close.
- January Earnings and Dividends are assumed to be the same as the December numbers
- Inflation data from October ’09 to January ’10 is estimated.

UK Inflation – January 2010 Update

During my previous UK inflation entry I showed concern at what I saw in the data and predicted that inflation could very quickly get out of hand. That concern was justified today. Firstly let’s look at the data. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) reports the December 2009 UK Consumer Price Index (CPI) as 2.9% up from 1.9% and the UK Retail Price Index (RPI) as 2.4% up from 0.3%.

The first chart is tracking the CHAW Index which is the RPI including All Items. I focus on the RPI as my National Savings and Investments Index Linked Savings Certificates use the RPI to index from. This shows a big dip when the Bank of England dropped interest rates to historic lows however the chart shows that all the dip did was compensate for the big kick upwards that was seen from 2007. The current level of the Index has now risen above the trend line and is disturbingly starting to point more and more upwards.

The second chart is again based on the CHAW Index. This chart shows annual figures based on the previous 3, 6 and 12 month’s worth of data. As of December the 12 month figure is 2.4% (as published by the ONS) however disturbingly the 6 month figure is 4.3% and the 3 month figure is 5.0% annualised.

The Office for National Statistics reports:
“The increase in the CPI annual rate of 1.0 per cent between November and December 2009 is the largest ever increase in the annual rate between two months. This record increase is due to a number of exceptional events that took place in December 2008:
- the reduction in the standard rate of Value Added Tax (VAT) to 15 per cent from 17.5 per cent
- sharp falls in the price of oil
- pre-Christmas sales as a result of the economic downturn”

That explanation is all fine and well except the Bank of England knew all this months ago. Why then did they keep the Official Bank Rate at record lows and continue with plenty of Quantitative Easing which continued to devalue the GBP further forcing inflation into the system through increased import prices. Additionally, next month (January data) we get another big kick in inflation as the VAT increase back to 17.5% hits the data set.

The Bank of England meets on the 04 February. I think this meeting will be crucial and will really show their hand. Will they sell some debt that was bought through Quantitative Easing to support the GBP? Unlikely as who’s going to buy all that in addition to the regular record monthly amounts that the Debt Management Office is trying to get rid of. Will they raise the Official Bank Rate? I’ll be watching this carefully as if they don’t then I believe they will have chosen the inflation route to ease the pain. This would obviously only ease the pain on those who are in debt. That is the government and the public who on average have over extended themselves. Those prudent savers will of course be punished as the value of their assets is reduced.

All I can say is that I’m glad I own Index Linked Savings Certificates and Index Linked Gilts.

As always DYOR.

My Current Low Charge Portfolio – January 2010

Another month passes.

Buying: As always I contributed about 60% of my gross salary towards my retirement investing strategy. Of this 60% the allocations I made are 64.7% Cash, 5.3% UK Equities, 7.4% International Equities, 1.4% Index Linked Gilts and 21.2% Property.

Selling: Nothing this month.

Dividends: My Australian Equities paid dividends of about 1.5% of the total value of the Australian Equities. I have taken these dividends off the table and put them to Cash as I was overweight Australian Equities.

Current UK Retail Prices Index: 0.28%

Current Annual Charges: 0.60%

Current Expected Annual Return after Inflation: 4.2%

Current Return Year To Date (from 01 January 2010): 0.1%

How close am I to retirement: 41.3%

The following are the highlights for the month:

- Desired Cash portion moves from 11.6% to 12.4%. This month I have moved further from the desired by going from 12.7% to 13.5%.

- Desired Bonds portion moves from 17.2% to 17.4%. This month I have moved closer to the desired by going from 20.7% to 20.1%.

- Desired Property stays constant at 10.0%. This month I have moved closer to the desired by going from 7.7% to 7.9%. With the poor exchange rates to the GBP I have been reluctant to buy outside the UK and so these purchases have been all UK Commercial Property.

- Desired Commodities stays constant at 5.0%. This month I have moved further from the desired by going from 2.8% to 2.6%. With the poor exchange rates to the GBP I have been reluctant to buy gold. However this asset class is now the furthest from the desired percentage of any asset class. I may buy here soon.

- Desired International Equity portion moves from 13.3% to 12.9%. This month I have moved further from the desired by going from 13.1% to 13.3%.

- Desired Emerging Market Equities stays constant at 5.0%. This month I have stayed constant at 2.9%. In GBP terms Emerging Market Equities are at a near high since May ’08. I have tried to compensate by holding extra UK Equities which earn a reasonable portion of their revenues in International and Emerging Markets.

- Desired Australian Equity portion stays constant at 19.3%. This is because the Reserve Bank of Australia is yet to publish its data yet meaning I am unable to calculate the ASX 200 PE10. This month I have moved closer to the desired by going from 20.9% to 20.5%. It is almost impossible for me to get out of this class tax effectively other than by dividends and by eroding the percentage by not investing in the asset class. Not an ideal situation to be in.

- Desired UK Equity portion moves from 18.6% to 18.0%. This month I have moved further from the desired (partially to compensate for Emerging Markets) by going from 19.2% to 19.3%.

A History of Severe Real S&P 500 Stock Bear Markets

Looking at the first chart which shows the real (inflation adjusted) S&P 500 (or its predecessor) stock market I have identified three historic severe stock bear markets. These I am defining as stock markets where from the stock market reaching a new high, they then proceeded to lose in excess of 60% of their real (inflation adjusted) value. These are best demonstrated by the second chart which shows each of these stock bear markets and the fall in percentage terms from the peak. So what were these bear markets.

The first severe stock bear (marked in purple on the chart) market started with a new real high being reached in September 1906. This period incorporated the 1907 Bankers Panic which was caused by banks retracting market liquidity and depositors losing confidence in the banks. This occurred during an economic recession and there were a number of runs on banks and trust companies. Additionally many state and local banks were bankrupted. All sounds a bit familiar doesn’t it? So from the high it took until January 1920 for the stock market to reach a real loss of 60.9% and then until December 1920 to reach its real low of -70.0%. That’s a period of 14 years and 3 months.

The second severe stock bear (marked in blue on the chart) market started with a new real high being reached in September 1929. This is obviously the well known period of the Great Depression. I won’t go into the history here as I’m sure it’s well known by all readers. What is interesting however is that the markets passed through -60% on a number of occasions. So from the high it took until January 1931 for the stock market to reach a real loss of 62.0% and then until June 1932 to reach its real low of -80.6%. That’s only a relatively short period of time however it really wasn’t over then as the market never really recovered and kept dipping back below -60% in real terms. This occurred in January 1933, July 1934, April 1938, June 1940, February 1941 and was back at -73.1% in May 1942. That’s a period of 12 years and 8 months. Even 20 years later the market was still below the real -60% mark.

The third severe stock bear (marked in olive on the chart) market started with a new real high being reached in December 1968. This period incorporated the stock market crash of 1973 to 1974 which came after the collapse of the Bretton Woods system and also incorporated the 1973 Oil Crisis. So from the high it took until March 1982 for the stock market to reach a real loss of -60.9% and then until July 1982 to reach its real low of -62.6%. That’s a period of 13 years and 7 months.

So that brings me to the last line on the chart marked in red which shows the real bear market that we are currently in. This period began in August 2000 with the Dot Com Crash however we were unable to reach a new real high before the Global Financial Crisis took hold. In this real bear stock market we were unable to break through -60% ‘only’ reaching -58.6% in March 2009. That is a period of only 8 years and 7 months. Even today we are still -38.1% which is a period of 9 years and 5 months which is a relatively short period of time compared with the bears shown above.

My question is once the governments of the world are forced to stop stimulating the economies through borrowing (for example a bond market strike) or quantitative easing (for example excessive inflation) could we yet see that real -60% bear? History suggests there is still plenty of time for it to occur.

Assumptions include:
- Inflation data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. December ‘09 & January ‘10 inflation is extrapolated.
- Prices are month averages except January ‘10 which is the 11 January ’10 S&P 500 stock market close.
- Historic data provided from Professor Shiller website.

US Inflation – January 2009 Update

The above chart shows the Consumer Price Index (CPI-U) up to December 2010 courtesy of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Year on year inflation has risen from 1.8% in November ’10 to 2.7% in December ‘10. This index is going to be interesting to watch because month on month the index has actually fallen -0.2%.

I have taken the liberty of dividing the chart into two sections. The first red section runs from 1871 to 1932 and the second blue section runs from 1933 to present day. I chose this break point as during 1933 the US officially ended their link to the gold standard. I think this chart demonstrates a point that government will always choose to inflate debt away at the expense of savers if given the chance. They could not do this under the gold standard.

To demonstrate this arithmetic mean inflation rates have been:
1871 to 1932 CPI = 0.5% with deflation being a regular occurrence.
1933 to Present CPI = 3.7%

The CAGR CPI from 1871 to 1932 has been 2.1%.

Further Reasons Why I Use the Shiller PE10

Regular readers will know that to try and squeeze some more performance out of a retirement investing strategy that is heavily focused on asset allocation I use a cyclically adjusted Price / Average 10 Year Earnings (PE10) ratio for the S&P 500 to value the US stock market. The method used is that developed by Yale Professor Robert Shiller. My latest update is that for January ’10.

The first chart today shows the chart that I show each month which reinforces why I use this method. The R^2 value is low at 0.0566 and the correlation is also low at -0.15. That said however these values, along with a look at the trend line, suggests that some advantage may be able to be taken of the relationship. I must point out here how the x and y axes are calculated for this chart.

The x axis should not be an issue for any regular reader. It is simply the monthly PE10 ratio which is the real (ie inflation adjusted back to 1871) price of the S&P 500 divided by the real monthly average of the previous 10 years earnings. The y axis is the real price in 13 months time minus the real price in 1 months time plus the real dividend all divided by the real price in 1 months time. Hope that makes sense... It is also important to note that I then calculate these values every month to form the scatter chart that I show.

I have been thinking about the fact that I am only analysing the historical return on investment from the S&P 500 that can be expected for a period of 1 year. I am certainly not a 1 year investor and so I wondered what these charts would look like for 5 or even 10 year periods.
To do this easily I am going to switch from monthly data points to one data point for each year which I have chosen to be January for no other reason than it is the first month of the year. This is because before I can run the real return calculations I first have to calculate a total return for the S&P 500 going back to 1871 and this is easiest done with yearly data.

Now to the interesting bit. Firstly, as a comparison to the monthly chart above my second chart shows the 1 year real total return versus the PE10. Charts three and four then show the 5 and 10 year real total return versus the PE10. Examining the R^2 and correlations shows:
1 year, R^2 0.0462, correlation -0.21
5 year, R^2 0.1554, correlation -0.39
10 year, R^2 0.2725, correlation -0.52

This for me is really interesting. It suggests that the longer the period of time you hold the stocks or equities the more the Shiller PE10 becomes a useful measure for predicting future expected real returns. This reinforces why I am using the PE10 ratio as part of my retirement investing strategy.

As always some assumptions:
- Q1 ’09 & Q2 ’10 earnings are estimates from Standard & Poors.
- Inflation data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. December ‘09 & January ‘10 inflation is extrapolated.
- January ‘10 dividend is estimated as December ‘09 dividend.
- Prices are month averages except January ‘10 which is the 11 January ’10 S&P 500 stock market close.
- Historic data provided from Professor Shiller website.

The Recession and Global Financial Crisis is Over. Back to the Boom in House Prices.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that it’s all over if you caught page 19 of the London Evening Standard which has the headline ‘London house prices surge past the pre-recession peak of 2007’. Apparently the suburbs of Mayfair, Knightsbridge, Belgravia, Pimlico, Chelsea, Kensington, Holland Park, Notting Hill and Regent’s Park have risen in price by 51% from their lowest point in March of 2009. As an added bonus they are now 3% above the previous high.

Can you spot a theme with the suburbs? It’s amazing what bailing out the banks, the Bank of England dropping the Official Bank Rate to 0.5% and around £200 billion of Quantitative Easing can achieve. It’s certainly helped some however I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet. Let me provide some further evidence.

I don’t have to look far. Firstly, page 31 leads with ‘More bank losses feared after SocGen writedown’. Society Generale have issued a surprise profit warning stating they have to write down a further EUR1.5 billion on is Collateralised Debt Obligations on residential Mortgage Backed Securities after deciding to take a “stricter assessment” on their value. Now where have I heard those words before?

Until banks face up to their losses and clear their balance how can we move onto the next business cycle. At this rate we’re going to end up just like Japan. A further sobering thought is that this is all still going on and the peak of the Alt-A resets in the US are just starting now.

Secondly, page 33 tells us that ‘Flat manufacturing triggers talk of recession’s return’. Manufacturing output has failed to grow for a second month in a row leaving manufacturing output 5.4% lower than a year earlier.

That doesn’t sound like a boom to me. To me it sounds like it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

Australian Property Market (Alternate Data) – January 2009 Update

The Brisbane and Australian Eight Cities (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Hobart, Darwin & Canberra) House Price Index published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics catalogue 6416.0 suits my requirement to track Australian house prices as part of my retirement investing strategy. It however seems to have two flaws. Firstly the housing data is only published quarterly and secondly this housing data is then published over a month after the quarter ends.

I’m therefore looking for something that helps me keep my finger on the pulse a little more. Certainly monthly figures are desirable. I am going to therefore use housing data published by RPData and in particular I will monitor the Brisbane and Logan City numbers.

The above chart shows the figures to November 2009. With the Reserve Bank of Australia now over their global financial crisis panic and apparently in an interest rate raising cycle plus the government removing housing stimulus by reducing first home buyers grants I ask is the Australian housing market slowing. Brisbane median prices this month have only increased by $100 ($510,000 to $510,100) which is only 0.2% annualised and Logan City median prices by $1,000 ($370,000 to $371,000) which is still 3.2% annualised.

Is the property boom running out of legs?

US (S&P 500) Stock Market – January 2010 Update

To try and squeeze some more performance out of a retirement investing strategy that is heavily focused on asset allocation I am using a cyclically adjusted Price / Average 10 Year Earnings (PE10) ratio for the S&P 500 to value the US (specifically the S&P 500) stock market. The method used is that developed by Yale Professor Robert Shiller. Background information here.

Chart 1 plots the Shiller PE10. Key points this month are:
- Shiller PE10 = 21.0 which is up from 20.6 last month. My UK Equities target asset allocation therefore drops from 18.3% to 18.1%. Additionally my International Equities target asset allocation drops from 13.1% to 12.9%.
- Shiller PE10 Average (1881 to Present) = 16.4
- Shiller PE10 20 Percentile (1881 to Present) = 11.0
- Shiller PE10 80 Percentile (1881 to Present) = 20.6. The Shiller PE10 has now passed through the 80 Percentile.
- Shiller PE10 Correlation with Real (ie after inflation) S&P 500 Price = 0.78

Chart 2 further reinforces why I am using this method. While the R^2 is low there appears to be a trend suggesting that the return in the following year is dependent on the Shiller PE10 value. Using the trend line with a PE10 of 21.0 results in a 1 year expected real (after inflation) earnings projection of 4.4%.

Chart 3 plots Real (after inflation) Earnings and Real Dividends for the S&P 500. Real Dividends are still falling however they are still above their long term trend. Real Earnings have a roller coaster ride continually, particularly since about 1990. If the Standard and Poors forecast earnings are to be believed however we continue to be above the long term earnings trend. These forecasts maybe aren’t so good though with the year getting off to a bad start – profits at Alcoa (the first to report for 2010) down and Chevron also announcing lower fourth quarter profits than forecast.

Assumptions include:
- Q1 ’09 & Q2 ’10 earnings are estimates from Standard & Poors.
- Inflation data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. December ‘09 & January ‘10 inflation is extrapolated.
- January ‘10 dividend is estimated as December ‘09 dividend.
- Prices are month averages except January ‘10 which is the 11 January ’10 S&P 500 stock market close.
- Historic data provided from Professor Shiller website.

Methods to Calculate Historical Market Returns – Arithmetic Means versus Compound Annual Growth Rates

When I described previously how I was building my low charge investment portfolio and forecasting potential future retirement dates it turns out that in mathematics terms I have generally been using arithmetic means to calculate percentage returns from various data sets. That means I've taken the yearly percentage change for each entry of the dataset, summed these values and then divided by the number of items in the dataset.

It looks like this might be too bullish a method and instead I potentially should be using the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) which is the smoothed annualised gain. The formula is CAGR = (End Value/Start Value)^(1/number of years)-1.

Let me demonstrate with an example. At the end of year 0 your index is worth 100, by the end of year 1 your index has increased to 200 and then by the end of year 2 your index has decreased to 150. Using the arithmetic mean the mean annual return is (100% [year 1 gain] + -25% [year 2 loss])/2 = 37.5%. This can’t be correct as you don’t have 100 x 137.5% x 137.5% = 189 at the end of year 2. Now using the CAGR the return is (150/100)^(1/2)-1 = 22.5%. Checking this 100 x 122.5% x 122.5% = 150.

Let me now calculate a stock market example, the real (ie inflation adjusted) S&P 500 for the period January 1871 to January 2009. Using the arithmetic mean we get an average annual real price increase of 3.7% and an average annual real dividend of 4.5% for an average annual real return of 8.2%. Now using the CAGR (more complicated to calculate as I had to first calculate a real total return for the S&P 500) for an average real return of 6.7% which is significantly less than the 8.2% arithmetic mean calculation.

I'm now considering calculating real CAGR returns for my (S&P 500, ASX 200 and Gold) datasets and using these when projecting my retirement dates and amounts.

As always I would be very interested to hear others experience here.

You might also be interested in calculating portfolio year to date returns, annualised returns or multiple year returns.

How Much Am I Saving For My Retirement

My retirement investing strategy is focused on getting to a point where work can become optional as quickly as possible. Some would call this retirement. My thinking is that you never know what life is going to throw at you and by being financially independent at least it gives you choices.

To enable this to occur I do two things. Firstly, I live extremely frugally except occasionally I will also enjoying myself on a specific I consciously choose. Secondly, I always pay myself first. What this means is that as soon as my salary enters my account my retirement investing allocation is immediately moved to the appropriate location and I force myself to live on the remainder. If this means beans on toast at the end of the month then so be it. It would be so easy to spend first and then save later. However my thought is that there would be unlikely to be anything left to save at the end of the month as companies today have made it so easy to spend. I can really see how people get into this trap.

Additionally as pay rises are given (unfortunately usually only inflation matching) I always try and allocate this extra to my retirement strategy rather than increasing my standard of living. This means where I live is not as ‘nice’ as where my peers live, my television is not as large and I eat at home more but that’s the choice I have made in exchange for financial independence in the future.

Even where I am today, while not having yet reached retirement, I am happy knowing that if I lost my job tomorrow I would be ok. It’s amazing how liberating this is.

So what does this mean in terms of retirement savings per month? You hear about people saving 10 to 15%. If you save only this amount it’s going to be a long time before you get the retirement option. In my instance the UK government will take 23% (income tax and national insurance) and I will spend 17% on day to day living. This means I am left with about 60% of my earnings going to my retirement investing strategy. I am serious about financial independence and I intend to keep this up until I reach my goals. With a fair wind this is about 7 years away.

7 years is a short period of time meaning most of my final retirement pot will come from direct savings rather than the compound interest effect. If you are prepared to wait a lot longer for financial independence then compound interest may have time to work its magic meaning potentially less direct contribution from you.

Government Bond Yields are Rising

I monitor the government bond yields of three countries (Australia, United Kingdom and the United States) and they are all rising. My chart today shows the month end (except the last point which is the 08 January 2010) 10 year bond yields since 2007.

Why are they rising? Comparing Australia and the UK I think for different reasons.

As an outsider I think Australian bond yields are rising because the country is being run relatively prudently by the Reserve Bank of Australia and is raising interest rates as they are serious about keeping inflation at 2-3% over the cycle. The cash rate set by the RBA is now 3.75%. Savings account interest rates are also rising and without too much difficulty it is easy to find an instant access bank account paying 4.25%. So it makes sense for Bond yields to be rising to the 5.76% today.

I think United Kingdom bond (gilt) yields are rising for very different reasons:

Reason 1. I have shown previously that inflation is rising and it appears to me as though the Bank of England is going to hold interest rates at 0.5%, ignore their inflation target of 2% and start to let debts be inflated away which I discussed here. This seems to be reinforced by the Pension Fund of the Bank of England who have 88.2% of assets devoted to Index-linked gilts and other government guaranteed index-linked securities and 10.9% to fixed-interest gilts and other government guaranteed fixed-interest securities. This is up from 70.7% and 22.3% respectively in 2008. Buyers of government debt will however expect a real (after inflation) return on their investment and so if inflation rises then gilt yields must also rise.

Reason 2. The 2009 pre-budget report stated that UK government borrowing would be 12% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2010/2011 and still a crazy 9.1% in 2011/2012. The Office for National Statistics reported on the 22 December that Q3 2009 GDP was £315.5 billion. Extrapolating this indicates that borrowing in 2010/2011 will be £150 billion and in 2011/2012 will still be £110 billion. To find buyers for all this debt (particularly if the Bank of England stops quantitative easing) you are going to have to attract them with increased yields.

Reason 3. The UK government are yet (and for that matter the Conservatives also) to explain how they are going to reduce the levels of borrowing. So far they have done nothing more than rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. If this continues the credit worthiness of the UK is going to be downgraded meaning yields will have to rise.

Reason 4. Those who already own government bonds and can see what’s happening will start to sell their holdings putting yet more gilts onto the market. This issue is real with the world’s biggest bond investor , Pimco, has started to sell off its holdings of gilts. More gilts coming to the market will mean gilt prices falling which will then mean rising gilt yields.
So what does this mean for my retirement investing strategy?

Firstly, if I owned gilts I’d be considering selling. As I’ve described previously I don’t own fixed interest gilts so I’m ok here. I do own index linked gilts but with inflation kicking off I’m comfortable with this.

Secondly, I’ll be watching house prices carefully. The interest rates on mortgages will have to rise as those wanting to borrow for a house will effectively be competing with the UK government for funds. I can’t see how house prices can continue to rise with increased borrowing costs and this could turn out to be the catalyst that brings on a reduction in house prices.

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The Bank of England Decides – Punish the Prudent

For the eleventh month in a row the Bank of England decided to keep the Official Bank Rate at 0.5%. This is the lowest rates have been even if I look back to the year 1694. Even during the Great Depression the Bank Rate only went as low as 2%. My first chart today shows the rates going back to 1948 showing just how low the Bank have set rates compared with recent history. Additionally, the Bank also decided to continue with its £200 billion quantitative easing program with £7 billion left to spend.

To me it looks as though the Bank of England decided today to punish the prudent and to reward the reckless. Who are the reckless? Well they are those who maxed out on as much credit as they could, whether to buy houses or plasma televisions. Who are prudent? Well they are those who didn’t extend themselves and decided to save for their future. I put myself into this category as I’ve decided to save for my retirement by investing with money I have earned.

What makes me think the bank has made this decision? As I’ve already identified previously inflation is starting to take off. Annualised UK Consumer Price Index (CPI) is currently 1.9% and the UK Retail Price Index (RPI) is currently 0.3%. The second chart however shows the true inflation story. As of November while the 12 month figure is 0.3% (as published by the ONS) disturbingly the 6 month figure is 3.6% and the 3 month figure is 4.1%.

By keeping the Bank Rate at record lows, quantitative easing and other factors like the return of VAT to 17.5% can only push inflation higher. I think the Bank has decided to take the inflation route. Allow those with debts to have them magically inflated away while those with assets see them devalued.

Why did I decide to take responsibility for my own future?

Australian Property Market – January 2009 Update

I intend to keep a close eye on Australian house prices as I build my retirement portfolio. This is because Australia is a very likely retirement possibility (if not sooner) for me.

The first chart shows the quarterly Real (adjusted for the Consumer Price Index) Brisbane and Real (again adjusted for CPI) Australian Eight Cities (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Hobart, Darwin & Canberra) House Price Index with data taken from the Australian Bureau of Statistics catalogue 6416.0 since 1991. This Index was reset in 2003/2004 and so I have “corrected” pre March 2002 data by taking the ratio’s of the pre and post September 2003 to June 2004 data as a multiplier. This chart carries data only until September 2009 and clearly shows a nice dip at the start of 2009. Could this be the Bull Trap phase of my second chart with us now nearing the Return to “Normal” phase?

My third chart shows Real Annual Changes in price from 1995 to present. In Real terms over this period Brisbane has seen average increases of 5.2% and the Australian Eight Cities has seen average increases of 4.8%. Unfortunately for me though the trend lines (particularly for Brisbane) continue to head upwards.

In non-inflation adjusted terms over the period Brisbane prices have seen average increases of 8.1% and the Australian Eight Cities prices have seen average increases of 7.6%. Unfortunately if you don’t already own a property (or three) you continue to be priced out when compared with average earnings. Using the Australian Bureau of Statistics catalogue 6302.0 which looks at average weekly earnings shows that Total Weekly Earnings has only increased by a yearly 3.8% and Total Full Time Adult Earnings by 4.3%.

My fourth chart shows what happens when house prices continue to rise at a rate greater than salaries. Over this period affordability of Brisbane houses when compared to Adult Full Time Weekly Earnings has gone from a low of 0.063 to 0.125 meaning affordability has halved and the Median Eight Cities houses have gone from a low of 0.064 to 0.113 which is a huge reduction. This type of shift is just not sustainable but when will the market turn? Will Australia raising interest rates and reducing first home buyer grants be the catalyst. Only time will tell...

The Burj Dubai and Real Estate Cycles

The Burj Dubai has been all over the press in the past couple of days as it had its grand opening. What an engineering spectacle! The tallest building in the world at over 800 metres tall with more than 160 stories and a luxury hotel designed by Giorgio Armani. So what do I think? I think of a great book entitled “The Secret Life of Real Estate : How it moves and why” by Phillip Anderson which states that “the world’s tallest buildings have a consistent habit of being completed right at the top of the real estate cycle ... producing for us – at least so far – the most reliable indicator of an approaching peak”.

Anderson also suggests a 24 Hour Real Estate Clock where hours 1 to 16 take approximately 14 years during which time property values rise reaching a peak and then hours 17 to 24 takes approximately 4 years during which time property values fall. I'll work through an example using a dataset that I’m closely following – raw (not adjusted for inflation) Nationwide UK Historical House Price shown in the chart above.

Anderson suggests that from the previous cycles low, the first 7 years will see property increase in price before a mid cycle recession. Using the Nationwide figures I'll call the low November 1992 and I'll call the recession start April 2000 which is 7 years and 6 months. During this period property increased in value by an average 6.5% per annum. So that fits.

I'll suggest using the Nationwide figures that there was a 6 month mid cycle recession during which time property increases slowed considerably and rose by 1.62% over that 6 months. Still positive as inflation for that 6 months was 0.9%. So that fits.

There is then a second 7 year cycle (completing the first 16 hours of the 24 hour clock) which starts from the onset of the mid cycle recession. During this second cycle property increases at a greater rate than during the first cycle. I'll call this peak October 2007 which is 7 years and 6 months. During this period property increased in value by an average 11.9% as predicted by the Anderson model. So that fits.

Now the fun begins with the 'Keynes crash phase' which runs for 4 years. Using this model we should come back and look at property in October 2011. What are highlights of this cycle - foreclosures and bankruptcies increase (yes!), stocks enter a bear market from past highs (yes!), credit creation institutions reverse policies (yes!), economic activity stalls (started but then QE began, I think we may still be here), wipe out of debts/stagnation (still needs to occur), wreckage is cleared away (still needs to occur) and finally stocks start climbing (they have but was it caused by QE and we are in for another big drop?) then the 18 year cycle can begin again.

As I’ve detailed previously I am yet to buy myself a flat or house. The above indicates that maybe I won’t get the opportunity until late 2011 or so...

2009 Yearly Retirement Investing Portfolio Review

Edited 06 June 2010: I have found more exact data allowing me to determine benchmark returns to the day.  I have therefore updated the data in this post to reflect this.  As the blog has developed I have also changed the method used to calculate the returns as I have learnt more accurate methods.  I started with:
- [assets at end of period – assets at start of period – new money entering portfolio] divided by [assets at start of period],
- then used the mid-point Dietz which was a more accurate method,
- and now use Excel's XIRR function for anual returns.  If it is not a full year I then adjust XIRR by the PRR (Personal Rate of Return) = [(1+XIRR Annualised Return)^(# of days/365)]–1.
In those post I also used incorrect weightings for the benchmark portfolio.  It should have been 72% stocks/28% bonds as per here.
Apologies for the confusion but I'm learning here too.
----

2008 was a bad year for my investment portfolio and by year end the 02 January 2009 I was -19.7% -15.7% using [assets at end of period – assets at start of period – new money entering portfolio] divided by [assets at start of period] as my return calculation method. 2009 also started badly and at one point in March my portfolio was -12.4% and we weren’t even a quarter of the way through the year. As everyone knows the markets then started recovering and I rode the wave to end the year at period 02 January 2009 to 31 December 2009 at +21.5% +24.9% including fees.

Gold Within My Retirement Investing Strategy – January 2009 Update

Within my Retirement Investing Strategy I currently hold 2.6% of my portfolio in gold with a targeted holding of 5%. Gold is the only portion of my portfolio that does not provide some sort of yield (dividends, interest etc). So why do I hold it?

The first chart shows the Real price of gold since 1968 with it becoming quickly obvious that it can be a wild ride. The first reason I hold gold is demonstrated by drawing a trend line through the dataset which provides the formula Real Price = 1.37 x Year -2120. This suggests a trend Real price in 1968 of $573 and a trend real price in 2010 of $630. So provided you don’t buy during one of the scary boom periods this suggests that gold has the potential as a good long term place for me to protect myself from inflation.

The second and very important reason I hold gold is that the correlation between the Real S&P 500 (also displayed on the first chart) and Real gold is negative at -0.34. The second chart provides the ratio of the S&P 500 to gold demonstrating just how far apart the two can vary. So my thought here is that there will be some opportunities where stocks will be overvalued but gold will be cheap (and I can buy) and vice versa. Over the long term maybe I can then squeeze some more performance out of my portfolio.

For the moment I don’t know what to do with gold. I’m certainly not selling what I already own as it’s a long way from its historic Real highs however I’m not sure whether to buy any more as it’s also a long way above its historic trend line...

Stock Market History – The Great Depression Compared with Today

So a second great depression has been avoided... Most countries are out of recession... The stock markets are headed upwards again...

All wonderful stuff except I just don’t feel comfortable with the above chart showing progress from the Real (prices adjusted for inflation to present day) peak in 1929 taken from the Shiller dataset and comparing that with the Real (again inflation adjusted) peak in 2000 for the S&P 500. The correlation between these two periods is currently sitting at 0.65.

Is the stock market out of the woods yet?

UK Property Market – December 2009 Update

I am yet to buy myself a flat or house even though the ownership of one is important to my retirement investing strategy in the longer term. The reason for this is in my opinion UK property is overvalued by a huge margin. Although given the press reports I sometimes feel as though I am the only one in the UK who thinks property can go up as well as down. Chart 1 shows compared to average earnings that property is very expensive when a ratio is created of the Real Nationwide Historical House Prices to the Average Earnings Index (LNMM) and it is for this reason I have yet to buy. In 1996 this ratio was as low as 607 and today the ration stands at 1,188. If we were to return to that number the average house using the Nationwide Index would be £82,929. Will we ever get that low again?

Yesterdays BBC headline states ‘House prices rise by 5.9% in 2009, says Nationwide’. I guess it depends on how you look at the data. According to my interpretation of the Nationwide data set house prices fell by £661 over the past month.

Chart 1 also shows Nationwide Historical House Prices in Real (ie inflation adjusted) terms. I’d like to compare it to Chart 2 above. Is this small decrease a one off or is it the ‘Return to “normal”’ phase of Chart 2 kicking in? Only time will tell but I’m still out for now.
Chart 3 shows the annual change in Nationwide property prices and compares this with the change in the average earnings index extrapolated a couple of months to match the Nationwide time period as LNMM is still only released to October 2009. It shows that on an annualised basis average earnings have turned negative at -1.7% while house prices continue upwards at that BBC quoted 5.9%.

That said, I think Chart 3 also shows clearly the problem we have. Since 1991 the UK Retail Prices Index (RPI) has averaged 2.8% annually. The Average Earning Index has averaged 4.1% for a real increase over inflation of 1.3%. What justifies this 1.3% - have we become more efficient? Now here’s the problem. The Nationwide dataset has increased by 5.8% annually for a real increase of 3% over inflation. How can this be? Has it become so expensive to build a new house? I believe the answer is no. It is pure asset price inflation. Of note also is that as time has progressed the trend line for house prices is heading in an upwards direction.

What’s causing this? I believe that when an economy is run with too loose a monetary policy you will see increases in one of two places – either inflation for goods / services will kick in or you will get asset price inflation. Our supposed experts who control the economy only look for the first one and control interest rates based on this. What we saw this economic cycle was inflation controlled with no care for the huge asset price inflation that was occurring. This has meant extraordinary bubbles in property, share markets and even commodities (what was oil $147 barrel?). These markets then started correcting themselves and we started to see asset price deflation. How have our experts responded? With even looser monetary policy which is resulting in new bubbles inflating in share markets (I showed yesterday that the S&P 500 is already at its 80th percentile based on historic data) and property. Why do they not try and control inflation with interest rates but value asset prices (for example, the Shiller PE10 has a good correlation with prices and could be used for share markets, ratio of prices to earnings could be used for property) and control this by, say, changing banks minimum capital ratios as suggested by Smithers? Maybe this would stop the large boom and busts we have seen in recent years.

With inflation now kicking off will the Bank of England increase interest rates and stop this property boom or will they allow inflation to occur at the expense of savers? Right now I’m backing the second and so I will protect myself with inflation linked products wherever possible.