Atheists in Foxholes, Libertarians in Lockdown
"There are no atheists in foxholes."
"You make most of your money in a bear market, you just don't realise it at the time."
"In bear markets, stocks return to their rightful owners."
- Japan 54%
- Vietnam 24%
- Malaysia 12%
- Australia 5%
- Hong Kong 2%
- Singapore 1%
- Cash 2%
- Average price/earnings ratio 7x
- Price/book 0.7x
- Historic return on equity 16%
- Average dividend yield 5.3%.
"Japanese companies, in response to two decades of grinding deflation, have been hoarding cash whilst Abenomics has helped many of them to become highly profitable. Japan Inc already has some experience of what the rest of the world is now experiencing."While many US companies came into the crisis with significant debts (in many cases taken on to pay for stock buybacks misaligned with the interests of shareholders), Japanese companies now have the healthiest balance sheets in the world."Japanese corporate dividends have roughly tripled over the last six years and Japanese companies are now buying back their stock, albeit in a more disciplined way than their US corporate cousins."
"I'm a somewhat (very mildly) well-known libertarian. I do indeed believe government should be mostly small and that individuals can and should be mostly trusted to make their own decisions. I think liberty should always get the benefit of the doubt."BUT I AM NOT A LIBERTARIAN ABOUT THE CORONA VIRUS and the enormous health and economic dangers it entails (economic dangers do become health dangers to the vulnerable)."Oh, and on a far less important (though excruciating for me) note, value is performing worse in the market panic this month than it did when the market went straight up, which was pretty damn bad (including "value" trades in the macro world now really suffering)."This will (imho – all standard legal disclaimers apply as I really know very very little and you should never listen to me) come back stronger than ever."Value will come back (same disclaimers apply). The people we lose in the pandemic won't. Thanks for listening."