Buy These 3 Stocks Profiting From Trump’s Trade War
I like to look for what are called contrarian investments. That is, trades where Wall Street is piled into one side of the ‘boat’. When this happens, the ‘boat’ has a tendency to ‘capsize’ turning into very large profits for taking the opposite side of the trade that Wall Street is on.
There are several of these trades going on right now including shorting U.S. Treasuries, being long the U.S. dollar, being short commodities, and also shorting overseas markets and using the proceeds to go even longer with even more leverage in the U.S. on favorites like the FANG stocks.
The reason for the latter trade is that Wall Street’s perception is that the tariffs imposed on foreign products will hurt those economies even though history says just the opposite – that the country imposing the tariffs is hurt the most. So what I have done in my personal account is scour the globe for companies that are actually benefiting or may gain from the tariffs imposed by the Administration.
Don’t Ignore ADRs
This really isn’t hard, with many of these type of companies trading right here in the U.S. in the form of American Depository Receipts or ADRs. Some of these are large, well-known companies such as Alibaba (NYSE: BABA). Here is a quick overview of ADRs.
ADRs can be sponsored or unsponsored and have three different levels, depending upon foreign companies’ access to US markets, as well as disclosure and compliance requirements. Level 1 ADRs cannot be used to raise capital and are only traded on the over-the-counter market. Level 2 and Level 3 ADRs are both listed on an established U.S. stock exchange, with Level 3 ADRs having the ability to be used to raise capital.
Most ADRs that trade over-the-counter as easy to spot since the last letter of the five letters in their symbol is always a Y. For instance, the food giant Nestle symbol is NSRGY and China’s internet and gaming powerhouse Tencent symbol is TCEHY.
However, the number of ADRs listed in the U.S. has shrunk drastically in recent years. The reason for that lies in the cost of compliance with among other regulations, Sarbanes-Oxley. It is just not cost-effective for companies to spend millions of dollars to comply and then see little daily trading in their ADR thanks to lack of interest in foreign firms by U.S. investors (home bias).
If you do stick with ADRs, the commissions charged you by brokerage firms, such as Charles Schwab, is the same as for U.S. companies – $4.95.
And if you’re worried about the accounting standards at foreign companies, don’t be. Listed foreign companies follow international accounting standards as set by the IFRS. There are differences between IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) and GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) standards here in the U.S. But that would be a long, boring discussion we don’t have the time to get into.
Suffice it to say that IFRS standards are very good and better than the pro forma earnings numbers often reported here in the U.S., which I consider to be trash. As Warren Buffett has often pointed out, pro forma earnings often leave out real expenses, such as stock compensation.
Convergence between IFRS and GAAP standards have been a topic of discussion at the SEC and other governmental agencies for years. But interestingly, U.S. officials seems to dragging their feet. Maybe it’s because the U.S. doesn’t always have the highest standards for corporations.
Take Ali Baba (NYSE: BABA), for example. It listed here in the U.S. and not in Hong Kong because the corporate governance rules were less strict here in the U.S. The Hong Kong Exchange frowned upon the company wanting to nominate the majority of the board itself. Although now there is talk Hong Kong will adopt the lower U.S. standards.
Now let me move on and bring you three ADRs I found that are either benefiting from the tariffs or are unaffected. Keep in mind that these are major companies in their home markets that trade millions of shares a day there.
Soybeans Anyone?
One of most prominent retaliations taken against the U.S. was China’s tariffs on U.S. farm products such as soybeans. That immediately make me think of another big agricultural economy that China already bought a lot of products from – Brazil.
One of the largest agricultural companies in Brazil is a company named SLC Agricola SA that does have an ADR with the symbol SLCJY. The ADR is liquid enough for individual investors (I do own it) with trading volume of about 15,000 a day.
The company, founded in 1977, has an English website slcagricola, so it’s easy to get information on it. The company has 16 production sites located in six Brazilian states totaling 404,479 hectares during the 2017/18 crop season. The acreage breakdown is: 230,164 of soybeans, 95,124 of cotton, 76,839 of corn and 2,352 of other crops, such as wheat, corn 1st crop, corn seed and sugarcane.
The ADR has taken off in recent months and is now up 100% year-to-date and 140% over the past year. I’m sure many Brazilian farmers, as well as Agricola shareholders, are thankful tariffs were imposed.
Germany’s Square
Another favorite target seems to be Germany, so I looked to see what I could find there. And I came up with a global leader in the payments space, a company named Wirecard AG that has an ADR with the symbol WCAGY. Its ADR also has decent liquidity with about 10,000 shares traded daily even though it only became available in late 2016.
Wirecard is one of the fastest growing financial commerce platform that services 36,000 large- and medium-sized merchants and 191,000 small-sized merchants. It had over $106 billion in processed transaction volume worldwide in fiscal year 2017.
The company works together with ApplePay in many European countries. And it bought Citibank’s prepaid card services in North America as well as its merchant acquiring business in the Asia-Pacific region.
Due to its strong organic growth in excess of 25%, management raised its guidance in April for the 2018 fiscal year from 510 million to 535 million euros up to 520 million to 545 million euros. This has not been lost on investors. . . . .
Its ADR is up 60% year-to-date and has soared more than 143% over the past year.
It’s Not Made Here
The final ADR is one that is thinly traded (only a few hundred shares daily). But I wanted to bring it your attention because it makes something that is NOT made in the U.S. meaning that barriers or not, it is an absolute necessity for some firms. Let me explain. . . . .
If you’re having trouble finding some electronic devices, such as a Sony Playstation 4, it is likely due to the ongoing global shortage of MLCCs, or multilayer ceramic capacitors. You may never see these capacitors, which are less than one millimeter on each side. But they are a crucial component of your smartphone as well as your car. They help control the flow of electricity and store power for semiconductors, without which no electronic device will function.
The market for MLCCs is dominated by Asian manufacturers with just three companies controlling 60% of the market – Korea’s Samsung Electro-Mechanics and two Japanese firms, Murata Manufacturing and Taiyo Yuden. Both Japanese companies have ADRs trading in the U.S. with the symbols MRAAY and TYOYY respectively.
Murata has more liquidity, with over 18,000 shares traded daily versus just a few hundred shares. But Taiyo Yuden is by far the better performer. Even before the shortage occurred, Taiyo Yuden saw its sales of capacitors increase by over 21% in its last fiscal year.
That helped send its stock skyward. Its ADR is up 87% over the past year, with most of the performance occurring this year – up 82.5% year-to-date – as the realities of a global shortage of MLCCs have set in.
There you have it – just three of the overseas companies that either are benefiting or will be unaffected by tariffs. There are plenty more too, so please do not be afraid to put a little bit of your portfolio into stocks outside the U.S.
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Category: Stocks
