By the time you read this, the global financial markets will be in mayhem, thanks to Congress’s rejection of Henry Paulson’s bailout plan. Last night, the Dow fell 777 points, the greatest one-day drop since the crash of 1987. Central banks are busy pumping hundreds of billions of dollars worth of credit into the financial system as the credit market freezes up. Stock markets around the world are plunging.
Some people reckon that this is a good opportunity to buy Australian stocks, especially financial and bank stocks, which are hardest hit. After all, the mainstream belief is that the Australian banking system is rock solid and prudently regulated. That implies that the sell-off of financial and bank stocks will be overdone and lead to opportunities for value-oriented investors.
What do we think of this idea?
The problem with this idea is that it is only half-right. This half-right idea is dangerous. Sure, it may be true that the Australian banking system is strong. But this is based on the premise that the current situation will extend into the indefinite future. This leads to the very crucial concept of Black Swans. Due to a quirk in the human mind, it is very easy for one to understand Black Swans nominally, but when it comes to decision-making, act as if one has totally lost that understanding. To understand the concept of Black Swan, we highly recommend our earlier article, Failure to understand Black Swan leads to fallacious thinking. We must stress that it is crucial that you understand the content of that article before reading the rest of this article.
Now, what’s wrong with Australian banking and financial stocks?
Well, the issue is not with their future earnings. Based on statistical probability of the past, there is no reason to doubt the forecasts of their future earnings. The more cautious analysts may even adjust their forecasts downwards to account for the expected reduction in earnings due to the credit crisis. Thus, a sell-off in banking and financial stocks may lead to their prices looking very undervalued.
This is where the fallacy such thinking begins. As we said before in Two uncertainties of valuing a business- risk & earnings,
Between earnings and risk, the latter is the most subjective of all in the business?s valuation. In a world of Black Swans, risk is not something that can be easily quantified into a precise number (discount rate). It is also a number that cannot be verified for correctness.
In other words, earnings are very much ‘visible’ and taken into account. But risks are ‘invisible’ and therefore, get ignored and overlooked. That is where the grave error lies. Risk is the playground of the unknown unknowns. The problem with such stocks is that at this stage of the credit crisis, they are particularly vulnerable to the unknown unknowns. In other words, these unknown unknowns will have a massive and colossal impact on their earnings. As we explained before in Common mistakes in failing to see economic turning points,
The importance of a particular event is the likelihood of it multiplied by its consequences. Black Swan events are events that are (1) highly unlikely and (2) colossal impact/consequences. One common mistake investors (and many professionals) make is to look at the former and forget about the latter i.e. ignore highly unlikely but impactful events.
Why do we say that?
A simple word answers this question: leverage.
Due to the amount of leverage (in the Australian economy, banks balance sheets and the global financial system), when the unknown unknowns pops up, earnings can go terribly, utterly, totally and massively wrong (we are running out of adjectives here). For example, as we quoted Brian Johnson in How safe are Australian banks?,
?We?re talking banks geared 25-30 times, whereas the global peers may be geared 15-20 times… even a moderate loan-loss cycle creates negative earnings,? he said.
The Australian economy itself is highly leveraged. As we explained before in Outlook 2008,
Currently, Australia?s total private debt is around 160% of GDP, which is at a unprecedented level even exceeding the Great Depression (when it was just 80% of GDP). Australia?s economic prosperity is financed by debt. However, it is such high levels of debt that can accentuated the inevitable bust.
As we refuted Shane Oliver in Aussie household debt not as bad as it seems?,
A severe downturn to the Australian economy may or may not be statistically likely, but given the level of unprecedented leverage, you can be sure the impact will not be small.
The global financial system is still highly leveraged, particularly with derivatives (see How the CDS global financial time-bomb may explode?). As we said before in Potential global economic black hole: credit default swaps (CDS),
Currently [January 2008], the CDS market is valued at around $45 trillion, which is three times the GDP of the US.
The notional value of derivatives world-wide is said to be at the range of hundred of trillions of dollars.
Australian banks are highly leveraged to a highly leveraged economy in a highly leveraged global financial system. To put it simply, there is only a razor thin margin for ‘error.’ When there’s no ‘error,’ all will be fine. But if there’s an ‘error,’ there can be a colossal bust. Please note that we are not predicting financial Armageddon. For all we know, maybe there will be no ‘error.’ But should it slips in, the last thing you would want to hold are the banking and financial stocks.
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of economic thought).
