Pan-Asia Catalysts/Events, Quiddity Advisors

Travis Lundy

Pan-Asia Catalysts/Events

Thematic (Sector/Industry)

On Friday March 20, Japan's "Other Three" public pensions (<a href="http://www.chikyoren.or.jp" target="_blank">Chikyoren</a>, <a href="http://www.kkr.or.jp" target="_blank">KKR</a>, and <a href="http://www.shigakukyosai.jp/index.html" target="_blank">Shigaku Kyosai</a>&nbsp;(nota bene: links are to the Japanese sites - each has an English site but they are far more limited in data, info, etc; &nbsp;a comprehensive list of web links is at the end of this piece)), which together manage ~33 trillion yen in assets, jointly&nbsp;<a href="http://www.chikyoren.or.jp/sikin/pdf/modelportfolio.pdf" target="_blank">confirmed</a>&nbsp;(Japanese only announcement so far) last month's vaguer announcement with the 130 trillion yen&nbsp;<a href="http://www.gpif.go.jp/en/index.html" target="_blank">GPIF</a>&nbsp;(Government Pension Investment Fund of Japan) that they had unified their portfolio allocation models to a single allocation model. This allocation model is the same as was <a href="http://www.gpif.go.jp/en/fund/pdf/adoption_of_new_policy_asset_mix.pdf" target="_blank">announced</a>&nbsp;by GPIF last October 31 (there are tiny technical differences in the mandates, but given the flexibility they all have, the details are meaningless).&nbsp;The move pushed the allocation policy across all four funds to the following ratios:<ul><li>Domestic Bonds &nbsp; &nbsp; 35%&nbsp;&plusmn;10%</li><li>Domestic Equities 25% &plusmn;9%</li><li>Foreign Bonds &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 15% &plusmn;4%</li><li>Foreign Equities &nbsp; &nbsp; 25% &plusmn;8%</li></ul>While these Other Three&nbsp;Public Pensions&nbsp;have assets totalling only a quarter of the assets of GPIF, they are most likely (given publicly available information) starting from a point well behind where GPIF is currently in moving to the new allocation level.&nbsp;These Other Three Public Pensions&nbsp;have been&nbsp;scheduled to merge with the GPIF in terms of fund management operations in October of 2015, meaning that the combined policy mix will truly be combined 6 months from now. Given the recent upheaval in the fund's management and independence, rumours of discord between GPIF head Mitani-san and the new CIO Mizuno-san, the delay in the reform bill, and the fact that Mitani has just signed on for another term starting April 1 (despite saying last November he would likely not), this merger could get delayed, but one should assume that they are working behind the scenes to get something done to make it effectively so, if not so in form.&nbsp;WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?<ul><li>This situation&nbsp;presents us with an opportunity to review&nbsp;the structure of Japanese public pension funds and their assets, and to introduce a couple of other players making similar moves.&nbsp;It also gives us an opportunity to, as Jim Rogers recommended (as a strategy)&nbsp;most eloquently in his book,&nbsp;Investment Biker, to FOLLOW THE MONEY&nbsp;in order to figure out what might happen to Japanese stocks, and possibly also to&nbsp;the yen against foreign currencies.</li><li>As anyone following the money in the story thus far would have understood, they are all going to be BUYING JAPANESE EQUITIES&nbsp;and SELLING JAPANESE BONDS. They will also be&nbsp;BUYING FOREIGN STOCKS &amp; BONDS. As this is an ongoing story, progress and timing is discussed below.</li></ul>&nbsp;Despite public pension methodology being something of a bore for most people, there is something to know/learn here.&nbsp;Those investing in the Japanese market are forewarned that the time of significant flows&nbsp;is upon us - both in recent history, possibly the VERY near-term future, and over the next many months.&nbsp;<ul><li>From the publicly available data, it is nigh&nbsp;impossible to conclude that GPIF has completed its transition from the old levels to the middle of the new policy allocation levels. The start date for these new policy allocation levels (as&nbsp;GPIF's official benchmark) is April 1.&nbsp;</li><li>On the other hand, given that Trust Banks (which are the custodians of Japanese pension assets not held at life insurers) have net purchased Japanese equities 10 months in a row (a first since 2001), and are also purchasing foreign securities at the rate of 600+bn a month over those same 10 months, it is likely there has been buying at these funds. The news wires are full of stories saying the gains in Japanese stocks since the bottom last year&nbsp;are being driven by pension buying but from April to December, foreigners bought almost as much. Only in January did foreigners spit the dummy, but they have again matched Trust Banks dollar for dollar since Feb1.</li><li>At the same time, the GPIF is a bureaucracy. Bureaucracies everywhere, including Japan, operate off the principle of "First, do&nbsp;no self-harm" (i.e. don't do anything&nbsp;which would allow anyone to blame you for something)." <ul><li>The GPIF and the MHLW policy panel members have said in public they are&nbsp;sensitive to front-running risk and getting gamed. They don't&nbsp;want to be accused of broadcasting exactly what they were going to do, and have the market pushed up in front of them, so the punters can sell them everything at the new higher price.</li><li>That said, they also don't want to be caught significantly short on their performance because their actual allocations were way off their benchmark.</li></ul></li></ul>&nbsp;TACTICAL TRADING:<ul><li>I would not be short Japan next week until month-end, and I would watch for signs of significant flows on program desks. <ul><li>The last week of March 2014&nbsp;saw significant portfolio transition trades, and there were significant dislocations within sectors and amongst sectors, and among biases.</li><li>Data later showed that involved trust banks (which are the custodians for the public pension funds) being significant net buyers&nbsp;as well. GPIF data confirms they net purchased 250 billion yen in the March quarter. The internal data on active and passive portfolio changes also suggests a&nbsp;$23bn transition trade (sell one set of portfolios to buy another) having been done at the end of March. Anecodatal evidence from the time agreed.</li></ul></li><li>If there are significant flows, and they push the market up, I would be hesitant to short the pop. &nbsp;There is more buying to go, and it will last for months.<ul><li>GPIF is well aware of their impact their trading has on the market. They don't want to be gamed, and they are familiar with running a tail on allocation (i.e. not completing a transition trade into a benchmarking date, but leaving some to buy after that date when presumably prices fall back).&nbsp;</li><li>There is only a bureaucratic "requirement" that they be&nbsp;within the ranges as of April 1, and they were already there as of end-Dec 2014. It is easy for them to explain the need to move slowly to avoid impact. It is less easy to explain buying 5 trillion at the end of March to make sure you were exactly at the mid-point.</li><li>GPIF is aware of the long gamma nature of asset allocation portfolios. If stocks fall, the allocation goes down as a percentage of the overall portfolio, so they buy more. It's also a cheaper way to buy your allocation if you are under-allocated.&nbsp;Expect them to use that.</li><li>In addition, the "Other Three" public pensions will be moving their allocations to the new level over the next several months. They probably also have a fair&nbsp;ways to go.</li><li>And as most Japan observers know, there is&nbsp;more public money buying stocks.&nbsp;One strategist of an Undoubtedly large Bank&nbsp;based in&nbsp;Switzerland apparently&nbsp;wrote in a&nbsp;March 6th report that&nbsp;the potential flows into stocks&nbsp;from public institutions and pension funds could be as high as &yen;27.2 trillion. I didn't see the report and don't have his numbers&nbsp;and while perhaps that is the high end of the range, there is a lot of flow to come. <ul><li>The BOJ buys the dips. They have a 3 trillion yen program this year as of now (and could easily add more QQE later this year). They are not price-capped; if the market rises, they buy a higher low. So far this calendar year the BOJ has purchased 652 billion yen of index ETFs (after Friday's 35.2bn), buying 1 days in four for an average of 32 billion per order. At this rate they will not be able to complete this year's QQE program so will have to up the pace at some point. They have 2.35 trillion to go.</li><li>Japan Post&nbsp;has apparently been moving money in to stocks as well. JP Insurance had 600-odd billion of equities (&lt;1% of assets) at end-Mar-2014, and JP Bank had almost none. Media reports suggested they had 600+bn in stocks at end-December. If so, they almost certainly sold some in Q4. The ever-interesting IJAPICAP <a href="http://www.ijapicap.com/blog/" target="_blank">blog</a>&nbsp;late last year provided <a href="http://www.ijapicap.com/blog/2014/11/japan-post-insurance-positioned-to-provide-post-election-pep/" target="_blank">analysis</a>&nbsp;suggesting that if Japan Post Insurance wanted to move its portfolio allocation to just the level of the other major life insurers (~7% as of March 2014), it would have to purchase 6+ trillion yen of domestic stocks. I would note that Japan's insurers continue to lower equity holdings - they net sold domestic shares every month of the year last year according to TSE data. The Nikkei <a href="http://asia.nikkei.com/Markets/Tokyo-Market/Two-whales-making-big-splashes" target="_blank">suggested</a>&nbsp;last month, without providing any data and possibly jumping the gun, that two "whales"&nbsp;- the GPIF and Japan Post Insurance - were "making big splashes" by buying domestic stocks.&nbsp;A week later the Nikkei <a href="http://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/Japan-Post-seeking-big-payouts-via-risky-investments" target="_blank">suggested</a>&nbsp;Japan Post would set up a risk-taking division as early as summer 2015 in order to re-invest maturing domestic bond principal into equities and other 'risky investments' (i.e. the understanding being they did not have the capability to do so yet).&nbsp; <ul><li>It must be noted that the <a href="http://www.jp-life.japanpost.jp/en/aboutus/financial/pdf/2014/07_p053_p085.pdf" target="_blank">Annual Report</a>&nbsp;for the Japan Post Life Insurance specifies that JP holds zero in stocks as of end-March 2014. The numbers in "designated money trusts" suggest however they held 580-odd billion yen of stocks after newly investing 300 billion yen in the &nbsp;year to end-March 2014. It is possible that is in foreign bonds but the language in the footnotes, as well as the 'dynamism' of the mark-to-market vs mark-to book calculations suggests it would be stocks.</li></ul></li><li>The GPIF and Other Three Pension Plans have 4-7 trillion of stocks left to buy.</li><li>According to the <a href="http://www.cas.go.jp/jp/seisaku/koutekisikin_unyourisk/pdf/e_final_report.pdf" target="_blank">Final Report</a>&nbsp;of the&nbsp;Panel for Sophisticating the Management of Public/Quasi-public Funds,&nbsp;here is another 50 trillion yen of quasi-public and public financial assets across 100 independent administrative agencies ex-GPIF which as of March 2013 apparently had 50+trillion of financial assets of which zero was invested in domestic stocks, and some 139 billion yen (just under 0.3%) was invested in foreign bonds. some 13+ trillion was in domestic bonds (reading between the lines, the rest was in bank deposits or short-term funding to FILP or similar). If they started buying foreign stocks, there could be another 5+ trillion to buy there as well. If their assets were merged with GPIF as well, there could be 10+ trillion to buy.&nbsp;</li></ul></li></ul></li></ul>&nbsp;CONCLUSIONS<ul><li>JAPAN STOCKS:<ul><li>All told, the analysis below suggests there is still something like 4-7 trillion yen of domestic equities still to be bought by GPIF and the Three Others to reach the mid-point of their allocation and 2.5 trillion to be bought by the BOJ to reach their QQE target for this year.</li><li>Japan Post has stocks to buy at some point&nbsp;- both Post Bank and Post Insurance will likely be buying many more trillions (and the back-room chatter leads&nbsp;me to believe JP&nbsp;Insurance probably bought both last quarter and this quarter). &nbsp;</li><li>10 trillion is enough to keep the market decently supported. It is 80% of what foreigners net bought in Japanese stocks between the time PM Abe was made head of the LDP in mid-Nov-2012 through end of 2013.</li><li>Given the backdrop of companies trying to raise ROE to compete for better Governance and Stewardship, and Dan Loeb's pat on the back, along with Japanese banks' &nbsp;desire to lower cross-holding levels, the easiest way to raise ROE is to reduce the E by buying back stock (and retiring it!).&nbsp;ROE going up means EPS going up means higher dividends means virtuous circle.&nbsp;</li><li>There is likely more behind the above number as over the longer-term the government pushes for more professional management of the nation's financial assets, and as bonds yield nothing, stock dividends are higher, and&nbsp;public sentiment says those assets should be earning something, or liquidated to pay down debt (ha!).</li></ul></li><li>FOREIGN CURRENCY BUYING:<ul><li>The numbers suggest $140bn of foreign securities buying to be done by just the GPIF and the Three Others.</li><li>For Kampo (Japan Post Insurance) to target a 10% foreign securities holding ratio post-IPO of JP Holdings would be reasonable (the rest of the life insurance industry is at 21% as of Mar-2014);&nbsp;that would require an additional $70bn in foreign securities purchases</li><li>That is $150+ billion worth of yen-selling to be done before we start counting anyone else's activity (while GPIF's mandate for foreign securities assumes no forex hedge, Japanese life insurers historically&nbsp;hedge a large&nbsp;portion of their investment with collars)</li></ul></li><li>There is a fair chunk of money being thrown around.&nbsp;</li></ul>

On Friday March 20, Japan's "Other Three" public pensions (Chikyoren, KKR, and Shigaku Kyosai&nbsp;(nota bene: links are to the Japanese sites - each has an English site but they are far more limited in data, info, etc; &nbsp;a comprehensive list of web links is at the end of this piece)), which together manage ~33 trillion yen in assets, jointly&nbsp;confirmed&nbsp;(Japanese only announcement so far) last month's vaguer announcement with the 130 trillion yen&nbsp;GPIF&nbsp;(Government Pension Investment Fund of Japan) that they had unified their portfolio allocation models to a single allocation model. This allocation model is the same as was announced&nbsp;by GPIF last October 31 (there are tiny technical differences in the mandates, but given the flexibility they all have, the details are meaningless).&nbsp;The move pushed the allocation policy across all four funds to the following ratios:Domestic Bonds &nbsp; &nbsp; 35%&nbsp;&plusmn;10%Domestic Equities 25% &plusmn;9%Foreign Bonds &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 15% &plusmn;4%Foreign Equities &nbsp; &nbsp; 25% &plusmn;8%While these Other Three&nbsp;Public Pensions&nbsp;have assets totalling only a quarter of the assets of GPIF, they are most likely (given publicly available information) starting from a point well behind where GPIF is currently in moving to the new allocation level.&nbsp;These Other Three Public Pensions&nbsp;have been&nbsp;scheduled to merge with the GPIF in terms of fund management operations in October of 2015, meaning that the combined policy mix will truly be combined 6 months from now. Given the recent upheaval in the fund's management and independence, rumours of discord between GPIF head Mitani-san and the new CIO Mizuno-san, the delay in the reform bill, and the fact that Mitani has just signed on for another term starting April 1 (despite saying last November he would likely not), this merger could get delayed, but one should assume that they are working behind the scenes to get something done to make it effectively so, if not so in form.&nbsp;WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?This situation&nbsp;presents us with an opportunity to review&nbsp;the structure of Japanese public pension funds and their assets, and to introduce a couple of other players making similar moves.&nbsp;It also gives us an opportunity to, as Jim Rogers recommended (as a strategy)&nbsp;most eloquently in his book,&nbsp;Investment Biker, to FOLLOW THE MONEY&nbsp;in order to figure out what might happen to Japanese stocks, and possibly also to&nbsp;the yen against foreign currencies.As anyone following the money in the story thus far would have understood, they are all going to be BUYING JAPANESE EQUITIES&nbsp;and SELLING JAPANESE BONDS. They will also be&nbsp;BUYING FOREIGN STOCKS &amp; BONDS. As this is an ongoing story, progress and timing is discussed below.&nbsp;Despite public pension methodology being something of a bore for most people, there is something to know/learn here.&nbsp;Those investing in the Japanese market are forewarned that the time of significant flows&nbsp;is upon us - both in recent history, possibly the VERY near-term future, and over the next many months.&nbsp;From the publicly available data, it is nigh&nbsp;impossible to conclude that GPIF has completed its transition from the old levels to the middle of the new policy allocation levels. The start date for these new policy allocation levels (as&nbsp;GPIF's official benchmark) is April 1.&nbsp;On the other hand, given that Trust Banks (which are the custodians of Japanese pension assets not held at life insurers) have net purchased Japanese equities 10 months in a row (a first since 2001), and are also purchasing foreign securities at the rate of 600+bn a month over those same 10 months, it is likely there has been buying at these funds. The news wires are full of stories saying the gains in Japanese stocks since the bottom last year&nbsp;are being driven by pension buying but from April to December, foreigners bought almost as much. Only in January did foreigners spit the dummy, but they have again matched Trust Banks dollar for dollar since Feb1.At the same time, the GPIF is a bureaucracy. Bureaucracies everywhere, including Japan, operate off the principle of "First, do&nbsp;no self-harm" (i.e. don't do anything&nbsp;which would allow anyone to blame you for something)." The GPIF and the MHLW policy panel members have said in public they are&nbsp;sensitive to front-running risk and getting gamed. They don't&nbsp;want to be accused of broadcasting exactly what they were going to do, and have the market pushed up in front of them, so the punters can sell them everything at the new higher price.That said, they also don't want to be caught significantly short on their performance because their actual allocations were way off their benchmark.&nbsp;TACTICAL TRADING:I would not be short Japan next week until month-end, and I would watch for signs of significant flows on program desks. The last week of March 2014&nbsp;saw significant portfolio transition trades, and there were significant dislocations within sectors and amongst sectors, and among biases.Data later showed that involved trust banks (which are the custodians for the public pension funds) being significant net buyers&nbsp;as well. GPIF data confirms they net purchased 250 billion yen in the March quarter. The internal data on active and passive portfolio changes also suggests a&nbsp;$23bn transition trade (sell one set of portfolios to buy another) having been done at the end of March. Anecodatal evidence from the time agreed.If there are significant flows, and they push the market up, I would be hesitant to short the pop. &nbsp;There is more buying to go, and it will last for months.GPIF is well aware of their impact their trading has on the market. They don't want to be gamed, and they are familiar with running a tail on allocation (i.e. not completing a transition trade into a benchmarking date, but leaving some to buy after that date when presumably prices fall back).&nbsp;There is only a bureaucratic "requirement" that they be&nbsp;within the ranges as of April 1, and they were already there as of end-Dec 2014. It is easy for them to explain the need to move slowly to avoid impact. It is less easy to explain buying 5 trillion at the end of March to make sure you were exactly at the mid-point.GPIF is aware of the long gamma nature of asset allocation portfolios. If stocks fall, the allocation goes down as a percentage of the overall portfolio, so they buy more. It's also a cheaper way to buy your allocation if you are under-allocated.&nbsp;Expect them to use that.In addition, the "Other Three" public pensions will be moving their allocations to the new level over the next several months. They probably also have a fair&nbsp;ways to go.And as most Japan observers know, there is&nbsp;more public money buying stocks.&nbsp;One strategist of an Undoubtedly large Bank&nbsp;based in&nbsp;Switzerland apparently&nbsp;wrote in a&nbsp;March 6th report that&nbsp;the potential flows into stocks&nbsp;from public institutions and pension funds could be as high as &yen;27.2 trillion. I didn't see the report and don't have his numbers&nbsp;and while perhaps that is the high end of the range, there is a lot of flow to come. The BOJ buys the dips. They have a 3 trillion yen program this year as of now (and could easily add more QQE later this year). They are not price-capped; if the market rises, they buy a higher low. So far this calendar year the BOJ has purchased 652 billion yen of index ETFs (after Friday's 35.2bn), buying 1 days in four for an average of 32 billion per order. At this rate they will not be able to complete this year's QQE program so will have to up the pace at some point. They have 2.35 trillion to go.Japan Post&nbsp;has apparently been moving money in to stocks as well. JP Insurance had 600-odd billion of equities (&lt;1% of assets) at end-Mar-2014, and JP Bank had almost none. Media reports suggested they had 600+bn in stocks at end-December. If so, they almost certainly sold some in Q4. The ever-interesting IJAPICAP blog&nbsp;late last year provided analysis&nbsp;suggesting that if Japan Post Insurance wanted to move its portfolio allocation to just the level of the other major life insurers (~7% as of March 2014), it would have to purchase 6+ trillion yen of domestic stocks. I would note that Japan's insurers continue to lower equity holdings - they net sold domestic shares every month of the year last year according to TSE data. The Nikkei suggested&nbsp;last month, without providing any data and possibly jumping the gun, that two "whales"&nbsp;- the GPIF and Japan Post Insurance - were "making big splashes" by buying domestic stocks.&nbsp;A week later the Nikkei suggested&nbsp;Japan Post would set up a risk-taking division as early as summer 2015 in order to re-invest maturing domestic bond principal into equities and other 'risky investments' (i.e. the understanding being they did not have the capability to do so yet).&nbsp; It must be noted that the Annual Report&nbsp;for the Japan Post Life Insurance specifies that JP holds zero in stocks as of end-March 2014. The numbers in "designated money trusts" suggest however they held 580-odd billion yen of stocks after newly investing 300 billion yen in the &nbsp;year to end-March 2014. It is possible that is in foreign bonds but the language in the footnotes, as well as the 'dynamism' of the mark-to-market vs mark-to book calculations suggests it would be stocks.The GPIF and Other Three Pension Plans have 4-7 trillion of stocks left to buy.According to the Final Report&nbsp;of the&nbsp;Panel for Sophisticating the Management of Public/Quasi-public Funds,&nbsp;here is another 50 trillion yen of quasi-public and public financial assets across 100 independent administrative agencies ex-GPIF which as of March 2013 apparently had 50+trillion of financial assets of which zero was invested in domestic stocks, and some 139 billion yen (just under 0.3%) was invested in foreign bonds. some 13+ trillion was in domestic bonds (reading between the lines, the rest was in bank deposits or short-term funding to FILP or similar). If they started buying foreign stocks, there could be another 5+ trillion to buy there as well. If their assets were merged with GPIF as well, there could be 10+ trillion to buy.&nbsp;&nbsp;CONCLUSIONSJAPAN STOCKS:All told, the analysis below suggests there is still something like 4-7 trillion yen of domestic equities still to be bought by GPIF and the Three Others to reach the mid-point of their allocation and 2.5 trillion to be bought by the BOJ to reach their QQE target for this year.Japan Post has stocks to buy at some point&nbsp;- both Post Bank and Post Insurance will likely be buying many more trillions (and the back-room chatter leads&nbsp;me to believe JP&nbsp;Insurance probably bought both last quarter and this quarter). &nbsp;10 trillion is enough to keep the market decently supported. It is 80% of what foreigners net bought in Japanese stocks between the time PM Abe was made head of the LDP in mid-Nov-2012 through end of 2013.Given the backdrop of companies trying to raise ROE to compete for better Governance and Stewardship, and Dan Loeb's pat on the back, along with Japanese banks' &nbsp;desire to lower cross-holding levels, the easiest way to raise ROE is to reduce the E by buying back stock (and retiring it!).&nbsp;ROE going up means EPS going up means higher dividends means virtuous circle.&nbsp;There is likely more behind the above number as over the longer-term the government pushes for more professional management of the nation's financial assets, and as bonds yield nothing, stock dividends are higher, and&nbsp;public sentiment says those assets should be earning something, or liquidated to pay down debt (ha!).FOREIGN CURRENCY BUYING:The numbers suggest $140bn of foreign securities buying to be done by just the GPIF and the Three Others.For Kampo (Japan Post Insurance) to target a 10% foreign securities holding ratio post-IPO of JP Holdings would be reasonable (the rest of the life insurance industry is at 21% as of Mar-2014);&nbsp;that would require an additional $70bn in foreign securities purchasesThat is $150+ billion worth of yen-selling to be done before we start counting anyone else's activity (while GPIF's mandate for foreign securities assumes no forex hedge, Japanese life insurers historically&nbsp;hedge a large&nbsp;portion of their investment with collars)There is a fair chunk of money being thrown around.&nbsp;

JAPAN: Three Public Pensions Add Fuel to the Fire

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JAPAN: Three Public Pensions Add Fuel to the Fire

On Friday March 20, Japan's "Other Three" public pensions (Chikyoren, KKR, and Shigaku Kyosai (nota bene: links are to the Japanese sites - each...

Travis Lundy