Notes From Ira Sohn Conference 2013: Einhorn, Druckenmiller, Eisman & More

Today we present notes from the 2013 Ira Sohn Conference in New York.  The 18th annual event featured top hedge fund managers presenting investment ideas and the proceeds from the event benefit pediatric cancer research and treatment via the Sohn Conference Foundation.  Summaries of each speaker's talk are linked below.


Notes From Ira Sohn Conference 2013

Stanley Druckenmiller (Druckenmiller Family Office) on commodities, short Australian Dollar

David Einhorn (Greenlight Capital) on Oil States International (OIS)

Steve Eisman (Emrys Partners) on housing plays: OCN, LEN, PHM, FBHS, FOR, CLNY, AMWD

Paul Singer (Elliott Management): a financial overview & history of markets

Jim Chanos (Kynikos Associates): short disk drive makers Seagate & Western Digital

Kyle Bass (Hayman Capital) on Dex Media (DXM) and Japan

Bill Ackman (Pershing Square): long Procter & Gamble (PG)

Jeffrey Gundlach (DoubleLine) on quantitative easing, short French bonds, short Chipotle

Jonathon Jacobson (Highfields Capital): Short Digital Realty Trust (DLR)

Mitchell Julis (Canyon Partners) on Clear Channel Outdoor (CCO) & Apple (AAPL)

Keith Meister (Corvex Management): long Time Warner Telecom (TWTC) & Level 3 (LVLT)

David Stemerman (Conatus Capital): short African Bank (ABL:SJ)

Li Lu (Himalaya Capital) on Korean preferreds (Samsung, Hyundai)

Clifton Robbins (Blue Harbour Group) on CACI & Akamai

Tor Olav Troim (Seadrill) on opportunities in cyclical industries

Simeon McMillan (Columbia MBA, investment contest winner) on Tribune Company

Jon Jacobson's Sohn Conference Presentation: Short Digital Realty Trust (DLR)

We're posting up notes from the Ira Sohn Conference 2013 in New York.  Next up is a summary of the presentation from Jonathon Jacobson of Highfields Capital.  He presented "The Illusion of Yield."  His pitched the short case on Digital Realty Trust (DLR).  


The Illusion of Yield

Jacobson said money market assets are in decline. Individual investors fled mutual funds, and slowly, but surely individuals are tiptoeing back to the market. They are buying high-yield bond funds and dividend stocks.

"Low risk" such as REITs, pharma/healthcare, Utilities, Telcos, even blue chips. He showed how health care is up 18% ytd, Utilities 18%, staples 16%. Very rare for this to happen in a bull market. This shows that investors are buying high dividend "safe" stocks. "All dividends are not created equal"

AT&T (T) beware: wireline a melting ice cube, wireless becoming competitive. Short: Linn Energy (LINE). Half of cash flow is from hedging gains.


Short Digital Realty Trust (DLR)

Short idea: Digital Realty Trust (DLR). $9B market cap, trades at 18x AFFO (adjusted funds from operations), 4.6% dividend yield. Fundamentals deteriorating, commodity business without barriers to entry.

CAPEX higher than company represents, dividend not sustainable. Stock worth about $20/share, not the $65 it's trading for. Cloud-based competition is coming in- Google (GOOG), Amazon.com (AMZN), and Microsoft (MSFT).

Rents at new data centers are down 20% since 2006. Spent $967M on CAPEX, claim only $22M of it was maintenance capex. This doesn't square. It's actually more like $413M/ year over time. So on $1B on revenue, cost of maintenance capex is more like 40%, not 2% This makes a huge difference- it implies they are only making 87c/share, not $3.12/share.

With a 4% yield on this 87c, you get a $19 stock. Replacement cost as estimated by the company is $18/share.  With no barriers to entry, increasing competition, prices dropping, why should you pay 3x book value for this business? Keep issuing secondary shares to fund ongoing operating cash shortfall, still doing acquisitions to mask what is happening.


Check out the rest of the hedge fund presentations from the event: notes from Ira Sohn Conference 2013.

Strategist Saut Thinks Trading Bottom Is Near

Jeff Saut is out with his latest investment strategy comments, emphatically titled, "Ouch." This of course refers to the precipitous decline in markets as of late. He writes, that, "My risk management discipline forced me to raise more cash again on Friday, even though I believe the stock market is in the process of making a significant 'low.' "

We've covered Saut's risk management principles before and while those principles caused him to raise cash levels last week, he's confident that markets are now oversold.

He cites the great folks at Bespoke who said that "61.4% of the SPX's stocks are oversold. The current oversold level is only the 27th time since 1990 that more than 60% of stocks in the index have been [this] oversold."

At this point, Saut believes you should 'keep your head screwed-on straight' and start compiling your buy list. In addition to some of Saut's favorite stocks, he recently added Abbott Labs (ABT), Copa Holdings (CPA), Digital Realty Trust (DLR) and Norfolk Southern (NSC) as solid candidates.

Embedded below is Jeff Saut's latest market commentary where he talks about an impending trading bottom in stocks drawing near:



You can download a .pdf copy here.

Analysts' Best Stock Picks For 2011

Raymond James is out with its Analysts Best Picks for 2011 report. We highlighted their picks from 2010 and those performed pretty well with a 22.3% return. In fact, their annual selections have a 10 year average return of 12.4%.

The report details analysis of the fundamentals, growth prospects and risks associated with each stock. They've selected 13 stocks again this year and in alphabetical order, here are the Analysts' Best Stock Picks for 2011:

- Allscripts Healthcare (MDRX)
- Bank of America (BAC)
- CONSOL Energy (CNX)
- Covidien (COV)
- Digital Realty Trust (DLR)
- Equinix (EQIX)
- Halliburton (HAL)
- HealthSouth (HLS)
- Lincoln National (LNC)
- NVIDIA (NVDA)
- Panera Bread (PNRA)
- Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD)
- Stanley Black & Decker (SWK)

There are some pretty familiar names in that bunch and a few prevalent themes. They've included multiple plays in the health space with MDRX, HLS, and COV. Also, technology is represented with two names in NVDA and EQIX. Also, energy/natural resources are abundant via PXD, CNX and HAL. We wanted to highlight a few of their selections below:

Bank of America (BAC): This name is interesting because it was also on the analysts' best picks list for 2010. However, over the course of last year the stock declined. Raymond James sees the price depreciation as further opportunity and is again a buyer of shares this year. Not to mention, some of the largest hedge funds in the game have sizable stakes in BAC, including John Paulson.

Halliburton (HAL): Arguably, the time to buy this name was during the Gulf oil spill when uncertainty abounded and the stock price was depressed. Yet, RJ feels the company will see near-term earnings momentum and a rebound in international activity. We've talked about how hedge funds are betting on higher oil prices as well.

Equinix (EQIX): This tech name is intriguing because it saw some volatility last year. And as we detailed in our Hedge Fund Wisdom newsletter months ago, a large shareholder (Shumway Capital) was reducing its position size and could be partially responsible for the volatility. Raymond James likes the company's dominant market position in the colocation market and data center industry.


Keep in mind that obviously with the market rally, a lot of these names have been bid up significantly already. Some strategists would obviously advocate waiting to purchase some of these names given that they're extended and knowing that the market doesn't go straight up forever. RJ's Chief Investment Strategist Jeff Saut expects a buyable pullback.

Embedded below is the full research on Analysts' Best Picks for 2011:



You can download a .pdf copy here.

For further research from this shop, head to the previous best stock picks for 2010 as well as Jeff Saut's risk management principles.