September 28th, 2024 | Housing Problem, iPhone 16, ETF’s, Tax Code, Third Type of Retirement Account, Uber Technologies (UBER), Lennar Corporation (LEN) & Alibaba Group Holding Limited (BABA)

We do have a housing problem in this country, but it may not be the one you’re thinking.

The price of homes has continued to rise and it has left some people out of the housing market, but that may not be a bad thing. I say that because people are doing anything they can to buy a home at these high prices. This includes risky endeavors like cashing in their retirement savings or borrowing from friends and family. The Atlanta Fed’s affordability index was recently at 68.5, which would mark its lowest levels since 2006. I worry people are getting in over their heads as ownership costs, which include mortgage, taxes, and insurance are now occupying nearly 44% of median household income. Generally the 30% level is considered a threshold for affordability and that was last seen in 2021. I worry when the economy slows down, you could see people selling their houses because they can’t afford them. I think it’s rather silly that some campaign promises have talked about giving $25,000 for down payments or expanded tax credits for developers to build affordable rental housing. These sound good as soundbites, but I think they’re terrible ideas because all they will do is pushup demand and that will continue to put more pressure on prices. People don’t realize that builders say roughly 25% of the cost of new homes is from regulatory costs like building codes and zoning issues. If we could get the local government to back off, you could see a nice reduction in prices. The problem is we have the federal government trying to give you money to buy a higher priced home and local governments are raking in the dough collecting fees on those higher priced homes. Throughout history, it has never been great to invest or buy into any type of asset when there is a buying frenzy going on. Look at the history books if you don’t believe me and then think ahead what will happen in the next 5 to 10 years. I know my opinion goes against many experts, but in our over 40 years in asset management, we have seen how things can change unexpectedly.

 

Is the new iPhone 16 going to move the stock price up?

Last weekend an article in Barron’s written by Alex Eule tried to convince people that Apple stock will increase based on looking back to the original iPhone and every iPhone release after that. Based on the research, Apple stock has returned an average of 11.7% six months after iPhone releases. But before you run out and buy the stock, one thing I noticed was there was no discussion around price/earnings ratios during those launces. I believe it is very important to not over pay for any company and I am curious what the PE ratios were during those last 24 iPhone launches. Holding Apple several years ago I know the multiple was not where it is now in many of those cases. Don’t get me wrong, I think Apple is a great company and has great products, but I worry with the stock trading at 31 times next year ‘s earnings it is more than fully valued. I also believe some of that data was skewed considering the first iPhone launch led to 63.7% return six months after the release and there are several instances where the stock did nothing or actually fell like the iPhone 12 (-3.4%), the iPhone 13 (-1.3%), or the iPhone 15 (-1.0%). I was surprised to see that analysts are more negative than I expected on the stock as currently nearly 1/3 of them have either a hold or a sell rating. Mr. Eule does correctly point out that if Apple beats expectations, the price earnings ratio will come down. However, that assumption would also mean that the stock price did not climb to offset the earnings beat. We have avoided investing in Apple for quite some time now, but I will still not break my discipline and I will not overpay for any company because history has proven eventually everything comes back to the norm. 

 

ETFs have proven not to be as effective as mutual funds

When Jack Bogle, the founder of Vanguard, was CEO back in the 90s, he refused to add indexed ETFs (exchange traded funds) to their lineup. His concern was it was too easy for people to jump in out of the products and not be long-term investors. There are now long-term studies proving that he was right. A report from Morningstar shows there is a 0.9% per year gap over the study’s 10-year period favoring investors who used indexed mutual funds over investors who used indexed ETFs. While it might not sound like a lot, the compounding takes hold in the long-term and I believe it further illustrates why people should not trade. Unfortunately, even financial advisors who control about 2/3 of the ETF assets appear to be just as jumpy and emotional as their clients. Maybe they’re just trying to prove their worth due to the management fees that they charge on top of the ETF fees.

 

Is our tax code too complicated?

I know many people hate paying taxes, but have you ever thought about how much time you spend compiling all those documents? According to the Tax Foundation, it is estimated that the time and money individuals and businesses are spending on complying with the federal tax code this year could reach 7.9 billion hours and $133 billion in out-of-pocket expenses—or $546 billion when also accounting for lost productivity. I believe a major problem is that we keep adding more and more complications to the tax code and between 1994 and 2021 it grew in length by 40% to about four million words and has expanded steadily since. Regulations keep climbing and according to the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, from 2000 to 2022 the Department of Treasury’s annual volume of regulations grew 35% to 17,631 pages from 13,070. With all the complications, it’s no wonder most people don’t understand how taxes work and what they actually pay in taxes!

 

The Third Type of Retirement Account

When it comes to retirement accounts, most people are familiar with 401(k)s, Rollover IRAs, and Roth IRAs.  These accounts have tax benefits when contributing and withdrawing money and allow either tax-deferred or tax-free growth.  However, there are also restrictions such as annual contribution limits and age requirements to make qualified withdrawals.  In addition to these pre-tax or Roth accounts, it can also be helpful to supplement retirement income with a third type of retirement account, which isn’t a retirement account at all – the taxable brokerage account. There are no limits when making contributions or withdrawals and technically withdrawals from this account are not taxable.  This account produces income in the form of capital gains, dividends, and interest which must be reported every year whether withdrawals are taken or not, which is why the withdrawals are not a taxable event.  However capital gains and dividends are taxed at a lower rate than other types of income and in retirement it is more common to be in lower tax brackets which means the tax rate on those gains and dividends can be as low as 0%.   Retirees may have gross income of $125k or higher in some cases while still falling in that 0% tax rate.  It is great and typically preferred to fund retirement accounts but if those are being maxed out, it can make sense to put addition savings into a taxable account.  These types of accounts aren’t utilized as often as they should and they are more commonly used when receiving a large sum of money such as an inheritance or proceeds from selling a property; but combining them with other “retirement” accounts adds flexibility and tax diversification when structuring withdrawals in retirement.

 

Companies Discussed: Uber Technologies (UBER), Lennar Corporation (LEN) & Alibaba Group Holding Limited (BABA)