In This Issue... If Markets Turn Sour Over the Next Year Or So, You May Get A
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WEEKLY REVIEW | ISSUE 322a | 11–17 june 2011 CONTENTS IN THIS ISSUE... STOCK REVIEWS STOCK ASX CODE REcoMMENdaTioN PAGE Computershare CPU Long Term Buy 5 John Addis stock UPDates If markets turn sour over the next year or so, you may get a chance QBE Insurance Group QBE Buy 9 to buy some of the country’s best businesses at very attractive prices. Westfield Group WDC/WRT Long Term Buy 10 This is where you should look... (see page 2) Features A wonderful watch list 2 Investor’s College | Appreciating depreciation 8 Gareth Brown Doddsville blog | Australia’s manufacturing fetish 10 Computershare is a wonderful company trading at a fair price. In EXtras the first of a two-part series, Gareth Brown examines what makes it tick... (see page 5) Blog article links 11 Podcasts links 11 Twitter links 11 Ask The Experts Q&As 12 Nathan Bell RecoMMenDation CHanges Depreciation is meant to help paint a picture of economic reality, Computershare upgraded from Hold to Long Term Buy although sometimes it’s used for the opposite purpose. Here’s how PORTFOLIO CHANGES to tell the difference... (see page 8) There are no recent portfolio transactions Gaurav Sodhi The obsession of the media and politicians with manufacturing in Australia has always baffled me. Kim ‘Il’ Carr, the responsible minister, is always quick to demonstrate he is ‘doing something’ to arrest the decline of the holy manufacturing sector... (see page 10) The Intelligent Investor If markets turn sour over the next year or so, you may get a chance to buy some KEY PoiNTS of the country’s best businesses at very attractive prices. This is where you Economic danger signs are growing should look. It’s time to prepare for some bargain shopping Call it the socialist hedge. China doesn’t have a free floating currency that the screen Here are 12 stocks, and buy prices, for your watch list jockeys can play with so they make proxies for it instead. Those that believe the Chinese growth story won’t take a nasty turn have made the Australian dollar one of their toys. As James Mackintosh of The Financial Times says, ’The Aussie is the world’s third most overvalued currency in purchasing power parity terms. It is pricing in rising Chinese growth as Beijing tightens. And it has fallen much less than commodities or equities after tracking them all the way up. There is no way around it: the Aussie looks expensive.’ Steven Johnson, chief investment officer of Intelligent Investor Funds wrote recently that, whilst he doesn’t know if the latest data foretells a foot on the brake of the Chinese economy or the first wobbles of a derailment, this is not ’a train I want to be on’. Across the Pacific, the famously prescient Nouriel Roubini (he predicted the US housing market crash in 2005) is warning of a double-dip recession. Bloomberg reports how Roubini ’sees a “perfect storm” of fiscal woe in the U.S., a slowdown in China, European debt restructuring and stagnation in Japan may converge on the global economy’. Roubini predicts a one-in-three chance that those factors will combine to stunt growth from 2013, the other two possibilities being ’anemic but OK’ global growth or an ’optimistic’ scenario. In Europe, where Greek debt is now rated a higher risk than that of Ecuador, the eurozone looks destined for some sort of restructure. One can only kick a can down the road for so long before it starts to fracture. In the world’s financial capitals an aroma of fear drifts across trading floors. Even here in Bondi Junction, where the closest one gets to a financial capital is the street signage of the local Travelex, one can sniff the breeze. TV news bulletins regularly feature the classically cliched image of the broker, head in hands. And the print media now talk of the worries that have preoccupied Krugman and Roubini for years. TaBLE 1: THE WATCH LIST COMpaNY (POSITioN LaST REVIEW CUrrENT cUrrENT LONG TERM BUY BUY pricE IN Top 10 REporT) (REco–pricE) PER YiELD PricE TargET ($) TargET ($) 1. MoNadELPHOUS Sell—$21.31 19.8 4.3% Up to $12.00 Below $10.00 2. CocHLEar Hold—$76.18 26.5 2.7% Up to $65.00 Below $55.00 3. FLEETWood Coverage Ceased—$12.80 13.8 6.8% N/A N/A 4. CSL Long Term Buy—$33.97 19.7 4.1% Up to $35.00 Below $28.00 5. WooLWorTHS Long Term Buy—$27.00 16.4 4.3% Up to $29.00 Below $24.00 6. COMPUTERSHARE Long Term Buy—$9.32 16.2 3.0% Up to $9.50 Below $7.00 7. METcaSH Long Term Buy—$3.90 13.8 6.3% Up to $4.50 Below $3.60 8. BHP BiLLITON Hold—$44.71 19.4 2.0% Up to $35.00 Below $30.00 9. DAVid JONES Coverage Ceased—$4.52 11.8 7.5% N/A N/A 10. LEigHTON HLDGS Avoid—$24.78 10.3 7.1% Up to $18.00 Below $15.00 OTHER QUALITY STockS ARB CorporaTioN Hold—$7.80 17.6 2.5% Up to $7.00 Below $5.00 INVocarE Coverage Ceased—$7.48 27.2 3.9% Up to $6.00 Below $5.00 WoodSidE PETroLEUM Hold—$46.94 21.1 2.4% Up to $40.00 Below $34.00 PLATINUM ASSET MgMT Long Term Buy—$4.74 17.5 5.4% Up to $5.00 Below $3.50 2 Weekly Review | Issue 322a All up, the Chinese proverb about living in interesting times is taking on an ironic hue. Fear is going mainstream, pulling on its favourite garb and getting ready for an outing. It’s time to prepare to be greedy; there are bargains on the horizon. What follows could be considered as a parachute, a free option on a soft landing and perhaps, if we have prepared well, a strong rebound in the value of your portfolio if that 1-in-3 chance rides home. The report of September 2010 neatly captured what your analytical team determined were Australia’s 10 best businesses. The analysts on each of these featured stocks (except two, for reasons explained later) have assessed the price at which they’d first upgrade to long term buy (4 of these 10 stocks already sport this recommendation) and then (with caution) further upgrade to outright buy. In essence this is a watch list with target buy prices of Australia’s very best businesses. To add a little spice, each analyst has also nominated their preferred high quality stock not in the report, and the price at which they’d like to buy it. Research Director Nathan Bell gets the ball rolling. Nathan Bell: CSL, Leighton and ARB Blood products manufacturer CSL, number four on the top 10 list, is one of those stocks everyone should own if they can buy in at a reasonable price. It has a breathtaking 20-year record of high earnings growth, large market shares, an extensive distribution network and a bulletproof balance sheet. Best of all, it’s already priced attractively, partly due to the fact that the strong Aussie dollar is masking the company’s progress. But with a forecast price to earnings ratio (PER) of 18 and paltry 2.5% mostly unfranked dividend yield, it’s only currently suitable for risk-tolerant growth investors. The price would need to fall to below $28 for us to upgrade it to a Buy. And because this is a rapidly changing industry, new discoveries make it unpredictable, which is why the current 4% portfolio limit is unlikely to ever be increased beyond 7%. Wal King’s departure from construction giant Leighton exposed a variety of weaknesses in its business. Construction companies need shrewd management to minimise the risks of all the things that could go wrong. That’s something Leighton used to have, or at least it seemed so, but it’s not so clear now. We would only recommend this stock with a large margin of safety. If the share price fell below $18, putting the company on a 2012 forecast PER of 10 we’d look to upgrade it to Long Term Buy but this isn’t absolute. Leighton would have to be very cheap for us to pull the buy trigger. It’s a very different business from CSL. Back in 2009 four wheel drive accessory maker ARB Corporation traded below $3. It has more than tripled since, excluding dividends. This is a top class business with high returns on capital, ample cashflow and net cash on the balance sheet. The forecast PER of 15.8 doesn’t look expensive but a price below $5, which would require a major cyclical downturn or a significant piece of bad news, is worth waiting for. Gareth Brown: Computershare and Invocare In Computershare takes the lion’s share—part 1 (see page 5) we recently upgraded this world class company, placed six on the list of top 10 businesses. In the global share registry business it’s much bigger than any other competitor and has great growth potential, impressive margins and high returns on equity. Today’s price doesn’t look obviously cheap but for reasons explained in the recent review, it is reasonable. At a price below $7 we’d upgrade it to an outright Buy. Invocare owns White Lady and Simplicity funerals amongst others and has a dominant position in the ‘death care’ industry. That position is about to be strengthened after the ACCC recently decided not to oppose its acquisition of Bledisloe Group, owner of the Gregory and Carr brands, subject to a few small conditions.