(Standard disclaimer applies here. This is not investment advice and it’s not a research report. Don’t blindly follow or believe anything you read on this blog. I could be making all of this up. This is written for informational and entertainment purposes only.)
This is a follow up to my technical analysis post. In it I will discuss how technical indicators informed my decision to trade shares of Embraer (ERJ). As of 01/17/18, I had earned a 66% IRR on my ERJ trade versus what would have been a 35% cash return from buying and holding the shares. I don’t say this to claim I am the world’s greatest investor or trader. I promise you I am not. I am merely writing to illustrate my thought process and why I believe there are real dollar benefits to looking at the world through both fundamental and technical lenses.
I am an investor first and a trader second (if at all). I seek out long-term investments and will only trade them actively if the following conditions are met:
- High confidence in my estimate of the business’s intrinsic value. For ERJ, by playing around with the numbers in a discounted cash flow model I estimated the stock was worth $25-$30/share at time of purchase and could be held for the long term based on a competitive moat and full-cycle returns on capital. For me, intrinsic value serves as the anchor for any trading activity. The less confident I am in my valuation, the less likely I am to trade.
- The stock is liquid enough to trade actively. I invest in small caps and even micro caps at times. Even my very small orders can move the market for those securities. If my market impact will be significant I would rather not trade as transaction costs (namely the bid-ask spread) will weigh heavily on returns.
- High confidence the stock price is misaligned with intrinsic value, and that the misalignment will correct or over-correct in time. Usually this means there is some element of cyclicality in play, but it can also be the product of non-fundamental buying and selling.
ERJ met all of these criteria.
It is worth mentioning I have a clear idea of what I am trying to achieve when I actively trade a stock: I am looking to improve the IRR on the position versus what I would earn as a buy-and-hold, cash return. I don’t typically trade fully in and out of positions. Rather, I dynamically overweight and underweight positions over time. This is my preferred strategy for investing in well-run, cyclical businesses (poorly run cyclical businesses go bankrupt so are dangerous to own without solid stressed/distressed investing chops).
Embraer’s (Abridged) Fundamental Story
ERJ is a Brazilian aerospace manufacturer. Despite being domiciled in Brazil, most of its revenue is earned abroad, specifically from its North American commercial aviation business, which competes with Bombardier. ERJ also manufactures executive jets and military aircraft. The bulk of today’s revenue and operating profit lie in the commercial aviation business.
ERJ is nearing the end of an investment cycle for the next generation of its successful E-Series jets. Major capex programs create business uncertainty, as well as a near-term drag on financial results, and this is what created the opportunity in ERJ shares. I believe my initial estimate of ERJ’s intrinsic value was higher than the market’s because the market had underestimated the probability of success for the E-2 Series program, and was undervaluing the optionality of the defense and executive jet businesses.
Trading ERJ
I was very lucky with my entry point. I always say I would rather be lucky than good. Money earned from luck spends the same as money earned from skill. And anyway no one looking at your returns can tell the difference.
As ERJ’s price approached $24 it was also approaching the lower end of my valuation range ($25-$30). However, the fundamentals of the business hadn’t really changed. Nor had the uncertainty inherent in the E-2 Series program been resolved in a significant way. And with 2018 set to be a “transition” year for the business as the first E-190 jets rolled out to customers, it was very possible a temporary setback such as a weak quarter or E-2 development delay could easily send the shares much, much lower. Given the deteriorating risk/reward ratio, this seemed like a great opportunity to trim the position and lock in some gains. $24 coincided with a resistance level for the stock (though honestly I didn’t draw the lines when I placed the trade). Around this time the money flow index was also indicating the stock was overbought.
Again, I was lucky in my timing. I waited patiently for ERJ to fall to its established support level of ~$19.50 and rebuilt the position. The stock traded sideways until late December, when ERJ and Boeing confirmed they were engaged in merger talks. I will not bore you with the details but I felt there was a high probability the talks would end with no deal or at best some kind of joint venture agreement due to a veto right held by the Brazilian government related to ERJ’s defense business. During this time, the prior resistance level of $24 turned into the new support level.
That makes intuitive sense. No chart pattern voodoo is required. Previously, $24/share had been on the high end of fundamental investors’ estimates of the stock’s value. Now that ERJ’s fundamentals had inflected positively, it would make sense for that price to become the low end of a new range.
A couple of weeks after the original announcement a news story broke that Boeing had offered $28/share for a full takeover. $28 happened to lie smack in the middle of my $25-$30 valuation range. This was a critical piece of information because it implied the risk/reward tradeoff had deteriorated significantly. There was probably 1:1 upside to downside in the position at best. I trimmed heavily at a little over $26 and still hold a small position. If a deal gets done I will make a little more money on the takeout. If a deal doesn’t get done I will have an opportunity to rebuild the position at a lower level having gained additional conviction in my fundamental investment thesis.
Takeaways
This case study illustrates my view of active trading: it is a tool for managing the risk/reward tradeoffs embedded in a portfolio. Personally, I want to overweight positions when the risk/reward tradeoff is good and underweight them when it deteriorates. What I do not want to do is make binary decisions (e.g. choosing between “fully invested” and “100% cash”). In my opinion, there is too much randomness and uncertainty in the world and in markets to make blanket, binary calls about position sizing. See the chart below for a stylized example.
A good business will steadily compound its intrinsic value over time (red line). However, there are times when market price overshoots or undershoots intrinsic value (black line). In this way, having the ability to trade at the market price is kind of like owning an option struck at the intrinsic value per share. When a stock is overvalued the ability to trade functions like a put option (you can sell the stock for more than it is really worth). When a stock is undervalued the ability to trade is like a call option (you can buy the stock for less than it is really worth). The cost of the option is your transaction costs (commissions, bid-ask spread, taxes).
Put more simply: active trading allows you to overweight risk when you are getting paid well for taking it and to underweight risk when markets get stingy. However, using this approach, it is absolutely critical to have a high confidence estimate of intrinsic value. Otherwise you risk burning up capital as you chase the price around, getting whipsawed by reversals as you go.