The Best Kept Secret off Wall Street. February 2011. I am glad to be back at my
dinner table after finishing the addition/remodel. I am less certain my kids like to ...
The Best Kept Secret off Wall Street February 2011 I am glad to be back at my dinner table after finishing the addition/remodel. I am less certain my kids like to be reminded of a few of the same old table talk topics like our family rule that “We do what we need to do before we do what we want to do.” Yes, Jack, that still means a little broccoli before chocolate cake. The same principle holds true at our offices where occasionally we inspire the same eye-rolling when we surprise most folks that are referred to us by discussing the importance of defense disproportionately to the time we spend outlining our offense. We think now is a particularly good time to review how we like to play defense and answer a few questions raised recently which have created a historic opportunity shown just below. I want my own investment portfolio, no different than my home, to have a secure foundation with insurance to protect it against storms before I worry about any add-ons or growth of any kind. Outside of retirement accounts, each partner of ours who trusts us to do for them what we do in our own personal accounts – a solemn oath we take at our family owned and operated firm - knows that handpicked individual tax-free municipal bonds (Munis) are what provide that peace of mind for all of us. By the time you are done reading why we believe so strongly in one particular type of Muni, you will wonder as we do why it remains the best kept secret off Wall Street. Perhaps it is because Texas, where that secret lives, could not be farther away from Wall Street by proximity or principles. Every investor you know has a greater fear of loss after this past decade. And looking forward, there is not one of them that believe federal income taxes are headed lower. So then why is a secure Muni owned by less than 2% of households in the United States? Never in my career have I found a more astounding contradiction. The answer used to be that Munis just made sense for the “rich.” That is no longer the case. Munis have always traded with a lower yield than comparably safe U.S. Treasury Bonds because taxes are owed on a Treasury’s interest, unlike a Muni. However, as a result of the global credit crisis over the past few years, there has been worldwide demand for Treasury Bonds in a flight to safety pushing those yields down so low that math on this Muni/Treasury ratio has been turned upside down in a historical anomaly.
AAA-Municipal / Treasury Yield Ratio (10yr) 130.0% 120.0% 110.0% 100.0% 90.0% 80.0%
Muni / TSY
Dec-10
Nov-10
Oct-10
Sep-10
Aug-10
Jul-10
Jun-10
May-10
Apr-10
Mar-10
Feb-10
Jan-10
Dec-09
Nov-09
Oct-09
Sep-09
Aug-09
Jul-09
Jun-09
May-09
Apr-09
70.0%
Average Since 1987
This chart shows the yield on a Muni as a percentage of a Treasury, both maturing in ten years. Historically, that ratio has been around 83%. In other words if the Muni yielded 3% tax-free, a Treasury would be expected to yield close to 3.7% which was fully taxable. Now, as you can see above, AAA-rated tax-free Muni yields are higher than taxable Treasury yields. Finding secure tax-free yields higher than taxable yields is the silver lining from Wall Street’s storms for an investor in any tax bracket and is hiding in plain sight right now from more than 98% of U.S. households who do not own any. Yet they all agree that their taxes are about to go up without them!
What you have just read is only an excerpt of the K&C letter dated above. If you would like to be added to our private group of partners and friends who will receive future letters please call or e-mail our office.
713.784.3878 8401 Westview Drive, Houston, TX 77055
[email protected] [email protected] This letter contains the current opinions of K&C Capital Partners LLC (“K&C”) at the time it was written, but they are subject to change at any time without notification. The letter is shared for educational purposes only and should in no way be considered investment advice of any kind to anyone. K&C cannot and will not assess the suitability of any particular investment to any personal situation and the reader of this letter bears complete responsibility for their own investment decisions and should seek personal advice from a qualified investment advisor and tax professional. The information is not necessarily complete and its accuracy is not guaranteed by K&C although they are obtained from sources K&C believes is reliable. Therefore all information contained is provided “AS IS” without any warranty of any kind. Trading in securities can result in immediate and substantial losses of the capital invested. Past performance of the Model Portfolio may not be indicative of future results and the performance of a specific individual client account may vary substantially from the results described, in part because client accounts may be allocated among several accounts with different inception dates. K&C may trade securities that are described, both before and after the articles are published and/or may have a position in such securities that may change at any time. K&C is not registered as a broker-dealer with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission or with any state securities regulatory authority or with any foreign country. K&C is registered as an investment adviser with the SEC and only transacts business in states where it is properly registered, or is excluded or exempted from registration requirements. Registration as an investment adviser does not constitute an endorsement of the firm by the SEC nor does it indicate that the adviser has attained a particular level of skill or ability. Nothing contained herein should be interpreted as a recommendation to any investor or category of investors to purchase, sell or hold any security. The information contained in this letter is private, confidential and protected from disclosure. No part of this article may be reproduced in any form, or referred to in any other publication, without express written permission from K&C. No current or prospective investor should assume that the future performance of any specific investment or strategy will be profitable or equal to past performance levels. All strategies are based upon assumptions that may never come to pass. Historical performance results for investment indexes and/or categories generally do not reflect the deduction of transaction and/or custodial charges or the deduction of an investment-management fee, the incurrence of which would have the effect of decreasing historical performance results, whereas client accounts are presented net of fees and include the reinvestment of dividends and capital gains. Economic factors, market conditions, contributions and withdrawals, and investment strategies will affect the performance of any portfolio, and there are no assurances that it will match or outperform any particular benchmark. Past performance is not a guarantee of future investment success.
