Tag Archives: euro

Revisiting Eurozone ETFs As Economic Growth Falters

After a solid start to 2015, growth in the 19-member Euro zone economy lost momentum due to the Greek debt crisis and deterioration in many emerging market economies as commodities saw a slump and China witnessed a turmoil. The economy grew just 0.3% in the second quarter, down from a two-year record growth of 0.4% in the first quarter and well below the market expectation. This suggests that the Euro zone continues to lag recovery in the U.S., which recorded 2.3% growth in the same period. France and Italy – representing 40% of the currency bloc’s growth – were the major setbacks to the region’s growth in the last quarter. This is especially true, as France recorded zero growth in the second quarter after 0.7% in the first and Italy’s growth slowed to 0.2% from 0.3%. On the positive side, Spain once again turned out to be the outperformer with its quarterly growth increasing from 0.9% in the first quarter to 1% in the second. This was the highest growth rate among the Euro zone nations. Growth in Germany accelerated to 0.4% from 0.3%, while Greece unexpectedly grew 3.1% in the last quarter from 0.1% in the first quarter. Outlook Remains Bright It can be said that the Euro zone has shown strong resilience in a tough environment, which was disturbed by Greece, China and the commodity turmoil. The outlook for the region remains solid heading into the second half of the year given the numerous economic tailwinds that the Euro zone is enjoying. These include ultra-cheap money flows, a boost to liquidity from the European Central Bank’s (ECB) quantitative easing program, a weaker euro and lower oil prices. Improving economic and business activity as well as growing consumer confidence is fueling growth in the 19-member economy. The Euro zone successfully emerged out of the four straight months of deflationary spiral in April and inflation is above the zero level. Notably, annual inflation was 0.2% in July. Further, unemployment across the Euro zone has been falling and remained steady at a three-year low of 11.1% as of June. Given several monetary tools in place, the Euro zone is expected to show strength in the coming months providing a boost to the stocks and ETFs in the region. As a result, we have taken a closer look at some of the ETFs that have the largest exposure to the Euro zone economies. These funds have generated decent returns so far in the year and could continue to do so. iShares MSCI EMU Index Fund (NYSEARCA: EZU ) This product provides exposure to the EMU member countries (those European Union members that use the Euro as currency) by tracking the MSCI EMU index. EZU is one of the most popular ETFs in the broader European space with AUM of nearly $10.9 billion and average daily volume of roughly 6.5 million shares. It charges investors 0.48% in annual fees. The fund holds about 243 securities in its basket with none holding more than 3.15% share. The ETF is a large cap centric fund as about 82% of the portfolio is concentrated on this market cap level. The product has a definite tilt toward financials at 24%, followed by consumer discretionary (14.4%), industrials (13.1%) and consumer staples (10.5%). From a country look, France and Germany take the largest share in the basket with 32.4% and 29.2%, respectively, while Spain, the Netherlands and Italy round off the top five. The fund has returned about 7.1% so far this year and has a Zacks ETF Rank of 3 or ‘Hold’ rating with a Medium risk outlook. SPDR EURO STOXX 50 ETF (NYSEARCA: FEZ ) This fund follows EURO STOXX 50 Index, which measures the performance of some of the largest companies across the components of the 20 EURO STOXX Supersector Indexes. The fund appears rich with AUM of nearly $4.7 billion, and average daily volume of more than 2.5 million shares. Expense ratio came in at 0.29%. Holding 53 securities in its basket, the product is pretty well spread out across components with no firm making up for more than 5.09% of assets. The ETF is skewed toward financials, as it takes about more than one-fourth of the total assets, while the other sectors receive modest exposure. In terms of country allocation, France and Germany are leading with 36.2% and 30.6% share, respectively, followed by Spain (12.7%), Italy (8.0%), the Netherlands (7.6%), Belgium (3.7%) and Finland (1%). The fund is up nearly 5.6% in the year-to-date time frame and has a Zacks ETF Rank of 3 with a Medium risk outlook. SPDR STOXX Europe 50 ETF (NYSEARCA: FEU ) This ETF is quite similar to FEZ having amassed $280 million in its asset base and trading in volume of less than 74,000 shares per day. It charges 29 bps in annual fees and holds 56 stocks in its basket. While the fund tracks the same index, it is slightly different from FEZ in terms of sector and country holdings. Here, financials and health care take the top two spots in terms of sectors with over 24% share each while consumer staples and energy round off the top four with double-digit exposure each. Country weights for the top three are United Kingdom (35.4%), Switzerland (23.1%) and Germany (14.7%). The product is up 6.1% so far this year and has a Zacks ETF Rank of 3 with a Medium risk outlook. iShares Currency Hedged MSCI EMU ETF (NYSEARCA: HEZU ) For investors looking to manage currency risk while remaining invested in the Euro zone stocks, HEZU might be a good option. The fund follows the MSCI EMU 100% USD Hedged Index and is a play on the popular unhedged fund ( EZU ) with a hedge to strip out the euro currency exposure. The fund holds 263 well-diversified securities in its basket dominated by financials (24.4%) and followed by consumer discretionary (14.7%), industrials (13.3%) and consumer staples (10.7%). The ETF has amassed $1.8 billion in its asset base since its debut a year ago and trades in good volumes of more than 941,000 shares a day. The fund charges 50 bps in annual fees from investors and has delivered impressive returns of over 15% so far this year. It has a Zacks ETF Rank of 1 or ‘Strong Buy’ rating. Bottom Line Given the encouraging trend, Euro zone will likely get a boost in the coming months. So investors could jump into this space and could ride out the strength with any of the above-mentioned ETFs. Original Post

20% Dividend Raise And Recent Pullback Make My Favorite Utility Northwestern Corp. Attractive

NWE raised its dividend 20% for Q1 2015 to $0.48 per common share (3.67% annually). Q4 2014 adjusted earnings were $2.68 per share (at the midpoint of guidance of $2.60-$2.75) a +7.2% improvement over Q4 2013. Total revenues were about $312.95 million. This was a miss of -$37.14 million. Revenues were down year over year about -1.9%. Northwestern Corp. (NYSE: NWE ) does business under the name Northwestern Energy. On February 15, 2002 Northwestern Corp. acquired the energy distribution and transmission business of Montana Power to form Northwestern Energy (still Northwestern Corp. though). It is a leading energy delivery company with business in Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Wyoming, especially the first two states. It recently raised its dividend by 20% to $0.48 per common share per quarter for a 3.67% annual yield. The long term chart of NWE below shows it to be in a strong upward trend long term. (click to enlarge) Essentially NWE has gone straight upward since the low of the Great Recession. Perhaps as significantly, it had recovered fully from the Great Recession by April 1, 2010. Such stalwarts as Chevron and Johnson & Johnson took much longer — until early 2011 and late 2012 respectively. Even stalwart utility companies such as Southern Company (NYSE: SO ) and Consolidated Edison (NYSE: ED ) took until early 2011 to recover to their 2007 highs. NWE has a past as an outperformer; and its future will likely be equally as bright. To understand the latest stock price movements, it may be best to look at the charts of the 10 year US Treasury Note yield and the one year chart of NWE . (click to enlarge) The yellow line in the NWE chart above demarks January 30, 2015, which was the recent yield nadir for the 10 year US Treasury Note. As the yield for the 10 year US Treasury Note rose from 1.64% on January 30, 2015 to 2.24% on March 6, 2015, the price of NWE stock fell. This is the normal scenario for utilities when interest rates rise because the utilities’ dividend rates are normally remaining unchanged. This high correlation also likely tells investors that this is a good time to buy NWE (and utilities in general), if you believe the yield on the 10 year US Treasury Note is resuming its downtrend. There are many reasons to believe this: Most EU bonds have been trending downward due to the €1.1 trillion ECB QE program in 2015. Many bonds that are generally viewed as riskier and less stable than US Treasuries currently have much lower yields (and are much more expensive) than US Treasuries. For example, the Spanish 10 year bond yield is 1.15% and the Italian 10 year bond yield is 1.13% . These low yields on “riskier” bonds should push the yields of the “less risky” 10 year US Treasury bonds downward. The 10 year US Treasury Note yield is 2.12% as of this writing March 13, 2015. The USD has risen dramatically against the Euro and other currencies in the last year. For instance, the Euro has fallen from 1.39 USD per Euro on May 6, 2014 to 1.06 USD per Euro as of the close on March 12, 2015 (almost a -24% drop). If the USD is appreciating against other currencies, that makes US Treasuries that much more attractive to foreign investors. After all a European could have made fantastic money just on the appreciation of the USD since May 6, 2014, if the European had owned US Treasuries. He/she would also have gotten the yield on the Treasuries. Plus since US Treasury yields have been going down, the European investor would have gotten appreciation on the price of the US Treasuries. Since many people think the devaluation of the Euro versus the USD is likely to continue as the ECB dispenses more QE in 2015, many Europeans seem likely to invest in US Treasuries. This should act to increase the prices (decrease the yields) of US Treasuries. That in turn is also motivation for investors (including Europeans and Japanese) to buy US utility stocks, which will likely have stable to increasing yields. All of the major economies other than the US have been increasing easing actions. The BOJ has a huge QE program . The PBOC has recently been announcing new easing programs . If there is a lot of extra liquidity around, people will not want to pay very much in interest rates to borrow money. Foreign investors will also be happy to keep their money in Treasuries of the one country with an appreciating currency (the one that is not doing more easing currently). The US Fed has talked about raising its rates, especially the Fed Funds rate. If it did this, that would likely lead to higher US Treasuries yields. However, this is increasingly unlikely. The US inflation rate was -0.1% in January 2015; and the overall trend has been strongly downward in recent months. If the US Fed tries to raise rates in that environment, it will only cause STAGFLATION. Further a raise in rates would cause the USD to appreciate that much faster; and the appreciation we have seen just since May 6, 2015 is already hurting US exports. It is also spurring foreign imports. Both of these items will tend to act to destroy US jobs, although there may be a lag in the effect. This would act directly against the Fed’s mandate on full employment. Plus it clearly doesn’t need to control inflation through a rate increase at this time, which is the Fed’s main mandate. On top of all of the above, NWE is a well run company that has seen steady growth. Adjusted EPS for Q4 2014 were $2.68 per common share (a +7.2% improvement over Q4 2013). For FY2014 GAAP Net Income was $120.7 million (or $2.99 per diluted share) compared to $94.0 million of $2.46 per diluted share for FY2013 — a 22% improvement. GAAP Net Income guidance for FY2015 is for $3.10-$3.30 per diluted share — a midpoint 7% improvement. This is good growth for a utility. A key factor in NWE’s growth will be the new Hydro facilities purchased from PPL Montana in late 2014. These are eleven hydroelectric generating facilities ( 633 Megawatts ). They were obtained for $900 million. $870 million of that purchase price was added to the rate base with a 50-year life. Return on equity is expected to be 9.8%. The capital structure is 52% debt and 48% equity. This resulted in $400 million in issued equity (7.767 million shares issued at $51.50 per share) and $450 in new debt. The resulting first year annual retail revenue requirement is approximately $117 million. The debt is 30-year first mortgage bonds with a coupon of 4.176%. The all-in cost of the debt was 4.353%. Of this 4.25% is recoverable under the hydro approval granted by the Montana PSC. The transaction closed November 18, 2014. This should be a good new revenue source for FY2015. It should help NWE meet or exceed its guidance. The chart below shows NWE’s recent history of meeting or exceeding its guidance. (click to enlarge) As investors can see, there is a high likelihood that NWE will beat its initial FY2015 guidance. Any upward revisions during the year should help the stock rise. With a 3.67% dividend and an uptrend in the stock price that is almost unshakeable, NWE appears to be about as much of a sure thing as investors can find. When you add the quick recovery it showed from the Great Recession, it makes it even more attractive in a very uncertain market. We have already had six plus years of the current bull market. A bear market may be on the near horizon. If so, NWE may be a relatively good place to be. It will pay you a nice dividend to wait for a recovery in any stock price fall. Another point in NWE’s favor is that Fitch upgraded NWE’s Issuer Default Rating to BBB+ on November 5, 2014. Fitch gave as reasons: The acquisition of the hydroelectric portfolio. The low risk, regulated utility business model. The improved financial and business profile. Its moderating CapEx budget. From a metrics standpoint, the PE of 17.49 and the FPE of 15.34 indicate a currently reasonable price of $52.30 per share as of the close March 12, 2015. The average analysts’ one year price target is only $57.46 per share, but this could easily rise significantly if the new hydro facilities provide a bit more income than has likely been conservatively estimated. The Beta of 0.52 is also a positive in an uncertain market. NWE is a buy with an average analysts’ next five years EPS growth per annum forecast of 7.60%. This is outperformance in the utility industry. The comparable numbers for a few other major utilities are: Consolidated Edison — 2.77% EPS growth, Southern Company — 3.30% EPS growth, and Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK ) — 4.52% EPS growth. There has been no insider selling on NWE. NOTE: Some of the fundamental fiscal data above is from Yahoo Finance. Good Luck Trading/Investing. Disclosure: The author has no positions in any stocks mentioned, but may initiate a long position in NWE over the next 72 hours. (More…) The author wrote this article themselves, and it expresses their own opinions. The author is not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). The author has no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.