Gold Priced in British Pounds (GBP or £’s) – March 2013 Update

As I’m writing this post the mainstream media is telling me that Gold, when priced in its globally quoted, currency is trading at $1589.50 an ounce.  In recent times when priced in US Dollars Gold has been tarnishing somewhat (and I used to think that it was only Silver that tarnished).  Compared with the February 2013 average it has fallen in price by 2.3% and compared with the March 2012 average it has fallen by 5.0%.  If you’re an Investor paid or spending in US Dollars then these are probably relevant numbers however as a UK Investor the numbers are bordering on being meaningless.  Let’s therefore have a look at what is happening to Gold when priced in Pound Sterling.  If you’re interested in history the last update of this metric was in January 2013.

The chart below shows the Nominal Monthly Gold Price in £’s since 1979.  The key Nominal Gold metrics are:

• The Nominal Gold Price is currently £1,054.16 which is 0.3% above the January 2013 Price of £1,051.35.
• Year on Year Nominal Gold Prices are only 0.4% below the March 2012 Price of £1,057.94. 

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In contrast with US Dollar Investors we can see that UK Investors are just not seeing price falls.  This is caused by Sterling devaluing against the Dollar at a rate pretty close to the fall in Gold Prices when measured in its globally quoted currency.

The FTSE 100 Cyclically Adjusted PE Ratio (FTSE 100 CAPE or PE10) – March 2013 Update

 This is the Retirement Investing Today monthly update for the FTSE 100 Cyclically Adjusted PE (FTSE 100 CAPE).  Last month’s update can be found here.

As always before we look at the CAPE let us first look at other key FTSE 100 metrics:

• The FTSE 100 Price is currently 6,484 which is a gain of 2.1% on the 01 February 2013 Price of 6,347 and 9.3% above the 01 March 2012 Price of 5,931.
• The FTSE 100 Dividend Yield is currently 3.42% which is down against the 01 February 2013 yield of 3.47%.
• The FTSE 100 Price to Earnings (P/E) Ratio is currently 14.44.  
• The Price and the P/E Ratio allows us to calculate the FTSE 100 As Reported Earnings (which are the last reported year’s earnings and are made up of the sum of the latest two half years earnings) as 449.  They are down 13.0% month on month and down a large 23.9% year on year.  The Earnings Yield is therefore 6.9%.

So we find ourselves in a continuation of the interesting situation that I highlighted last month.  Nominal Earnings are falling off a cliff and have been consistently falling since October 2011’s Earnings of 628.  They are now down 28.5% since then yet in comparison Prices are increasing.  Nominal Prices are up 27.7% over the same period.

The first chart below provides a historic view of the Real (CPI adjusted) FTSE 100 Price and the Real FTSE 100 P/E.  Look at the trend line of the Real Price.  After you strip out the effects of inflation the perceived market value is doing not much more than oscillating above and below a flat line which we are now sitting on.  The second chart provides a historic view of the Real Earnings along with a rolling Real 10 Year Earnings Average for the FTSE 100.

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The S&P 500 Cyclically Adjusted PE (aka S&P 500 or Shiller PE10 or CAPE) – March 2013 Update

With the mainstream media this week reporting new nominal highs for the Dow Jones Industrial Average lets also run our own regular analysis of the US market to get some detail on what is really going on in this market.   As always instead of the Dow, which only looks at 30 large companies, we’ll turn our attention to the S&P500 which looks at 500 leading public companies.  Last month’s update can be found here.

Before we crunch the numbers it’s worth pointing out that while titles like Asian markets climb after Dow Jones hits record high make for great headlines, I can’t help but feel that this is misleading the general public as they might actually think that the market is at new highs.  Of course regular readers will know that Dow isn’t at a new Real (inflation adjusted) high, but only at Nominal highs, as the unit of measure that the Dow and S&P500 is measured in, the US Dollar, is constantly being devalued through inflation.  When it comes to the S&P500, the Real high was way back in 2000 and we are still some 22.5% below that level.  

Let’s now look at the key S&P 500 metrics:

• The S&P 500 Price is currently 1,543 which is a rise of 2.0% on last month’s Price of 1,512 and 11.1% above this time last year’s monthly Price of 1,389.
• The S&P 500 Dividend Yield is currently 2.0%.
• The S&P As Reported Earnings (using a combination of actual and estimated earnings) are currently $89.63 for an Earnings Yield of 5.8%.
• The S&P 500 P/E Ratio is currently 17.2 which is up from last month’s 17.0.

The first chart below provides a historic view of the Real (inflation adjusted) S&P 500 Price and the S&P 500 P/E.  The second chart below provides a historic view of the Real (after inflation) Earnings and Real (after inflation) Dividends for the S&P 500.

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UK Mortgage Interest Rates – March 2013 Update

This is the regular UK mortgage interest update for March 2013.  The headline for this month is that the UK Government / Bank of England market manipulation scheme known as the Funding for Lending Scheme (FLS) is working.  Last month’s update can be found here.

Let’s firstly look at the raw data.  The Bank of England publishes a number of datasets on this topic and I have picked 5 which cover the more common mortgage types available today.  They are the sterling monthly mortgage interest rate of UK monetary financial institutions (excluding Central Bank) covering:

• Standard Variable Rate (SVR) mortgages.  These continue to rise.  Today they sit at 4.4%, up 0.03% month on month and 0.22% year on year.
• Lifetime Tracker mortgages.  These also continue to rise.  Currently they are 3.68% which is a monthly increase of 0.04% and a yearly increase of 0.11%.
• 2, 3 and 5 Year Fixed Rate Mortgages with a 75% loan to value ratio (LTV) on the other hand are falling significantly.  These are the mortgages you would expect to be affected by the Funding for Lending Scheme.  This is because the Scheme is “theoretically” only available for a limited period.  (As a reminder the scheme started on the 01 August.  From this date Banks and Building Societies have access to the scheme for 18 months with the scheme allowing borrowing for a period of up to 4 years.)  Today we see these mortgages at 3.06% (down 0.29% on the month, 0.21% on the year), 3.41% (down 0.26% on the month, 0.36% on the year) and 3.65% (down 0.24% on the month, 0.53% on the year) respectively.  Since the scheme started the falls are 0.63%, 0.60% and 0.46% respectively.

A history of these mortgage rates can be seen in the chart below which also shows the announcement dates of some of the well known schemes that have had a large effect on the market, namely a Bank of England Bank Rate of 0.5%, 4 tranches of Quantitative Easing and Funding for Lending.

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What this all means is that today an average 2 year fixed mortgage can be had for a real (inflation adjusted) rate of -0.22%.  Yes you read that right.  Mortgage rates in real terms are negative.  3 and 5 year real rates are also negligible at 0.13% and 0.37% respectively.  The question is how much lower can they drive rates in nominal terms?  I can’t see it being much further given that the Bank of England want and will do everything they can to engineer inflation.  Tracking these rates for the next few months will give us a good steer.

Debt – Instant Gratification vs Long Term Wealth Creation

The Free Dictionary defines debt as an “obligation or liability to pay or render something to someone else”.  In the context of Personal Finance I have a different definition of debt which is that it is a “decision to consume now without the necessary wealth to pay for that consumption.  Should interest be charged on that consumption and opportunity cost considered then the consumption now will likely be smaller than would have been possible should the wealth have first been created.”

If this was the official definition of debt it would then be obvious to people that by using debt you are likely getting less now than you could have had later in exchange for taking instant gratification today.  This therefore affects your opportunity to create wealth.  I do not believe that the majority of people appreciate this when they go into debt to buy something.  My definition also tells you this is for 2 reasons:

1.    Interest charges.  Buy it now without the means to pay for it up front and the end result is that each loan repayment being made to repay the debt is going to include a principle portion, which will eventually cover the original purchase price, plus an interest charge.  If you instead chose to save what would have been the regular repayment amount until you have saved up enough to pay cash then two phenomenon occur:

• You will save the amount needed for the purchase faster than the equivalent loan will be repaid because what would have been the interest portion is adding to your savings. 
• If you saved until what would have been the last loan repayment day then you will end up with more cash than the original purchase price, again because of the interest portion.

2.    Opportunity Cost.  This is rarely if ever discussed when people discuss debt but it should be considered as its effect can be considerable.  If you don’t make the purchase or defer the purchase then the money you would have used to fund the debt repayment can be invested to generate a return for you elsewhere.

It’s important to note that these statements are based on the assumption that the purchase does not rise in price at a rate higher than the interest charge.  If this was the case then you would also have to include the opportunity cost (including considering the risk of that other opportunity) of deploying the debt repayment s elsewhere.  If after this calculation the price was still rising at a faster rate then the debt may actually help with wealth creation while also giving instant gratification.