The merger between Devon (DVN) and WPX Energy (WPX) offers a marked contrast to Occidental’s (OXY) ill-fated acquisition of Anadarko. Synergies are coming from cost savings not revenue opportunities, a defensive move that will likely spur further consolidation. The annual savings of $575MM will cover the modest 2.6% premium paid by DVN in less than two months. OXY paid a 62% premium 18 months ago.

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The new Devon’s dividend policy has been well received – by paying out half the excess Free Cash Flow (FCF) over the current dividend, it allows investors to model different oil price scenarios and their impact on the payout. It’s another acknowledgment that bringing energy back in favor requires greater financial discipline.

A Biden administration has vowed to cease issuing new permits for fracking on Federal land, a policy that would constrain DVN’s Permian output. States benefit from the associated economic activity – the labor involved in drilling, fracking, transportation of water and other inputs to and from the site all create local jobs. In addition, New Mexico for example, where DVN has much of its Permian acreage, receives a 20% royalty. The Biden campaign’s promise to curtail fracking plays well with the base but is unlikely to be popular closer to the regions affected.

Switching gears, society is adjusting to life with Covid, where data continues to show positive trends. New Jersey, population 9 million with the worst fatality rate of any U.S. state, has 421 Covid patients in hospital, down 95% from the peak in April. We spend hours poring over the data, reading and learning about it. As chronicled before, your blogger doesn’t want to get sick and follows mask/hygiene protocols. But we think the market’s rapid recovery reflects the data – vulnerability increases sharply with age and certain risk factors. For the vast majority it’s not fatal.

Anecdotes also inform – here are some of ours:

One good friend at serious risk because of pre-existing health issues endured an extremely mild case of “Covid toes” – chilblains and nothing more. Once it was clear he was not in danger, I applied one of Winston Churchill’s many great quotes to him. “There’s nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at and missed.”

Another friend, in his late 50s and fit with no obvious risk factors, spent four days in hospital on oxygen (but thankfully not on a ventilator). His entire family was infected when their son returned from college. He’s recovered, but doesn’t care to repeat the experience.

The head of Trauma at a local hospital recounted somberly what his life was like in March and April. He’d never seen x-rays and conditions like those that presented. He’s hopeful it’s under control, but also noted that substance abuse is up sharply. Self-quarantines and the stress of financial losses are creating mental health issues.

Another friend recounted how her daughter, at college in Colorado, has endured a series of self-quarantines. As soon as one finished, she was found to have been in contact with another infected person and had to do another two weeks. This has continued for a couple of months, and the daughter is showing signs of mental stress.

My wife is a teacher, and modified in-person classes require wearing a mask all day. Although there’s no evidence than extended mask wearing causes any harm through oxygen deprivation, and it’s routine for health care workers, working with a mask on permanently is a lousy way to spend your day.

Then there’s the older woman in North Carolina who was sufficiently fearful of infection that she insisted her landscapers wear booties over their shoes. She brought home a case of diet coke, and out of an abundance of caution decided to sterilize the cans by placing them in her dishwasher. Well into the dishwasher cycle she was awoken in bed by a series of loud explosions, as the hot water ruptured the soda cans. Convinced her house was under attack, she alerted her neighbors.

Very little attention is being paid to the human and financial costs of mitigation, but we suspect that when a final reckoning is done it’ll be clear that cost-benefit analysis was completely absent.

We are invested in all the components of the American Energy Independence Index via the ETF that seeks to track its performance

With pipeline stocks having their worst month since the depths of Covid-panic selling in March, investors are wondering when the smart money will finally respond to today’s extreme undervaluation and commit capital. Recent price action makes little sense, something that becomes very apparent in discussions with clients. 2Q20 earnings were as expected, and dividends unchanged. The yield on the American Energy Independence Index, the most representative index of North American midstream energy infrastructure, is now over 10%.

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Two items stand out as the most compelling bullish arguments. The first is that the yield on Free Cash Flow (FCF, the cash flow available after ALL capex spending) is approaching 13% for 2021. We had previously been targeting $30BN for next year, (see Pipeline Earnings Should Confirm Growing Cash Flows), but following second quarter earnings have revised this higher, to $40BN. We don’t know of another sector of the market delivering such a high FCF yield. The broader market’s FCF yield is around 4% and the utility sector, the one most similar to pipelines, has a negative yield.

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The jump in FCF is driven by continued falling growth capex, which peaked in 2018. Pipeline companies are reinvesting less in the business, leaving more for buybacks, deleveraging and distribution increases. Pipeline companies are still investing in growth though, spending on average 6% of their market caps on growth capex.  A sustainable cash flow yield assuming no new projects approaches 20%.

The second bullish item lies in the gulf between perceptions of bond and equity investors in the same company. Enterprise Products Partners (EPD) has 30 year bonds outstanding that yield 3%, less than a third of the distribution yield on their common units (see 4^th chart in Stocks Are Still A Better Bet Than Bonds). Energy Transfer issued 10 year debt early last year, which trades above par following a sharp dip in March. Meanwhile, its common units have sunk to less than half the price at which they traded when the debt was issued (see The Divergent Views About Energy Transfer). While the dour view of equity markets towards the energy sector has driven prices down to where payouts yield 10% or more, long term bond investors see little to concern them. Conventional wisdom holds that bond investors are usually right, because they do more detailed analysis. But that is little comfort for today’s pipeline investors.

Berkshire Hathaway’s $10BN purchase of Dominion Energy’s natural gas pipeline network last month was welcomed by some investors as confirmation of the inherent value in the sector. The natural gas outlook offers more clarity than for crude oil. Covid dramatically altered travel. Gasoline consumption in the U.S. has recovered to within 10% of year-ago levels, but it’s widely believed that office work will never be the same. Increased remote working, less use of public transport, and migration to the suburbs complicate long term forecasts.

By contrast, since natural gas has minimal use in transportation, it is shielded from this uncertainty. Domestic consumption is down slightly from a year ago, but exports are rising and growing demand from developing countries is forecast in the years ahead. Moreover, continued phasing out of coal plants and increased use of renewables are likely to require more natural gas, both here and abroad.

Although California aims to rely on solar and wind for almost all their electricity, recent power outages and high prices make this a strategy few will care to follow. It’s unlikely intermittent renewables can maintain their growth without further reliance on always-there natural gas power plants.

For the twelve months ending in June, natural gas generated 1.6 Terawatt Hours (TW) of electricity. This was an increase of 124 Gigawatt Hours (GWh), or 8%, compared with the same period a year ago. To put this in perspective, total solar power generation over the past year was 81 GWh. On a percentage basis, renewables show high growth, but in absolute numbers natural gas growth dominates. Solar and wind growth combined was 58 GWh, less than half the growth in natural gas. As we switch off coal burning power plants, they are more often replaced with natural gas.

Meanwhile, Berkshire Hathaway has quietly become the sixth biggest operator of natural gas pipelines in America. Buffett presumably sees many years of predictable cashflows from these assets, offered at a cheap price. The smart money is here.

We are invested in all the components of the American Energy Independence Index via the ETF that seeks to track its performance

More risk more return is a truism of finance, and much else besides. It makes intuitive sense (why bungee jump unless the rush of near-death exceeds the actual risk?) and also has a place in finance, via the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). This formalizes the relationship between risk and return, allowing securities to be priced, or shown to be mis-priced, relative to one another.

Finding fault in elegant algebraic solutions to markets occupies the minds of many. CAPM has long been known to be flawed – in reality, it turns out that investors pay more than they should for risky stocks, and pay too little for more stable ones. Many of Warren Buffett’s holdings exploit this inefficient bias.

Since taking more risk for less return should leave an investor poorer over time than following CAPM, why does he do it? An explanation that we’ve always liked relies on the misalignment of interests between many asset managers and their clients.

Funds flow in the direction of performance. It’s much easier to find new clients when things are going up, and in that environment it doesn’t pay to deliver middling performance. The simplest way to beat a rising market is to take more risk – hence, actively managed funds are generally found to have a beta above 1.0 (the market’s beta is 1.0).

Such funds should correspondingly underperform when markets are falling – but since it’s harder finding new clients in such an environment, poor relative performance doesn’t hurt much. The  asset manager’s asymmetric business model (“heads I win big, tails I lose a bit”) doesn’t match the investor’s, for whom ups and down of equal magnitude cancel out.

The solution is for clients to reject fund managers who aren’t heavily invested alongside them. This ensures that the linear exposure to market returns is felt by the fund manager and clients, creating a proper alignment of interests. Not surprisingly, your blogger’s fund business fits this model, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this article.

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Recent market performance has turned this relationship on its head – investors seeking more risk are being handsomely rewarded, while those holding more stable names are watching them languish. It’s like CAPM on steroids – not just more return for more risk, but much more. Low vol stocks are delivering less than half of the returns of the market with slightly higher volatility.

This can be seen by comparing the S&P500 Low Vol High Dividend index (LVHD) with the S&P500.

Through 2016, they mostly tracked one another, with LVHD’s underperformance roughly commensurate with its lower risk. Over the next three years the gap widened. Starting in January, perhaps not coincidentally around the time Covid-19 entered into common conversation, the relationship shifted dramatically. Since then, the S&P500 has made new highs, while LVHD remains 20% off its best levels.

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The second chart takes the ratio of returns between the two indices, and volatility (defined here as the average daily move over the prior year). Prior to 2016 the two lines roughly matched each other, confirming the risk/return symmetry of CAPM. Since then, and most dramatically this year, the relationship has broken. Supposedly less risky stocks are moving more than they should relative to the market, and more risky stocks are over-delivering good returns.

It’s well known that the extreme social distancing and other steps to impede virus transmission favored technology stocks, and anything that helps people live without proximity to others. The winners are not low vol stocks, and the recent shift towards growth has been dramatic.

In the late 1990s, tech stocks generated very strong outperformance against the market as investors grasped the internet’s enormous potential. LVHD doesn’t extend back that far, but other work we’ve done shows the same lagging results of stable stocks. Berkshire’s portfolio was among them.

The subsequent 2000-02 bursting of the internet bubble reversed everything.

The market’s inconsiderate recovery since the lows in March (see The Stock Market’s Heartless Optimism) has been driven by the pandemic’s economic winners, even though many find this an incongruous concept during a severe worldwide recession. Nonetheless, as improving treatments and immunity, eventually aided by vaccines, restore much of our former lives, the market will re-sort the winners and losers. Stable businesses with reliable dividends will be back in vogue.

We are invested in all the components of the American Energy Independence Index via the ETF that seeks to track its performance

To be an investor in the energy sector nowadays requires a view on the politics of climate change. Exxon Mobil’s (XOM) investor day slides go straight there in the Overview, noting the continued demand growth expected of non-OECD countries and its impact on emissions. The debate over global warming can be summed up thus:  OECD countries seek reduced emissions, while developing countries want higher living standards. The world’s energy-related CO2 output will move on the interplay between these conflicting goals.

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It’s as if the company is warily watching the climate extremists who believe they shouldn’t exist, while investing heavily to meet the demand growth they anticipate. The industry has sharply cut near term growth capex because of Covid. XOM plans a 30% reduction, which they nonetheless described as mostly deferrals, not cancellations. Although they lowered their long term growth capex guidance, they still expect to spend $25-28BN per year (prior guidance was $30-35BN). They see their future in oil and gas.

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Over the past five years, Cash Flow From Operating Activities (CFO) has averaged $29.6BN. XOM is roughly sinking every dollar they generate back into the ground. They still regard themselves as a growth company.

The presidential election is as vital to energy companies as to any sector. Trump’s 2016 victory was hailed by energy executives, who eagerly anticipated deregulation and pro-fossil fuel policies. The last four years have been a bust, as exuberant spending led to overproduction that Covid brutally exposed.

XOM has lost more than half its value since the 2016 presidential election. The company is expected to post a loss this year – the glut of oil and gas that has long weighed on prices has been exacerbated by the pandemic. But the potential for public policy to shift away from fossil fuels has further depressed its cash flow multiple – typically, multiples peak at market lows because the denominator is very low. But XOM’s price to cash flow multiple is at the low end of the past decade’s range.

The presidential cycle is too short to drive XOM’s capital allocation decisions. Nonetheless, they must contemplate the impact of a Biden victory. Future returns are likely to turn on the interplay between green policies that constrain fossil fuel output and the reduced supply that today’s curtailed spending will cause. Although XOM has trimmed its own long term capex guidance, the only way this level makes sense is if they expect industry-wide reductions to be greater.

Democrat policies that seek to lower fossil fuel consumption tend to focus on curtailing supply – it’s easier to control the few hundred companies involved in oil and gas production than to change the behavior of hundreds of millions of people.

XOM isn’t allocating capital based on the election – but it’s also safe to assume that a Biden victory won’t cause those plans to be altered much either. Since Democrat policies will constrain fossil fuel supply, it’s likely that energy prices will rise. A carbon tax would add further upward pressure. Energy prices are low in America, with plenty of room to rise without causing much outcry.

Higher prices support a green agenda, because they make renewables more competitive. Perversely, this could also usher in a period of improved profitability for the energy sector. XOM’s long term capex plans imply that governments and reduced industry capex will be more successful in constraining supply than demand, leaving higher prices as the main catalyst for changed consumer behavior.

On XOM’s 2Q investor call, SVP Neil Chapman noted that around 70% of its investor base is retail. So it’s not surprising that a quick tour of Seeking Alpha’s website reveals dozens of recent XOM articles targeting the self-directed investor. Many of these offer views on the likelihood of a dividend cut – with its shares yielding over 9%, there are many skeptics. It’s clearly at risk. At just under $15BN, the annual dividend is unlikely to be covered by free cash flow until at least 2023, according to a model from JPMorgan. Like MLPs during the exuberance of the Shale Revolution, XOM is investing in the future and borrowing to pay its dividend.

The most likely way for XOM to sustain its dividend is through higher crude oil prices. Their investors may not appreciate this, but a President Biden could be their path to better returns.

We are invested in all the components of the American Energy Independence Index via the ETF that seeks to track its performance.

The contrast between the pricing of debt and equity issued by pipeline companies is probably the topic that most engages clients in our discussions. In a recent piece on the equity risk premium (see Stocks Are Still A Better Bet Than Bonds) we used the example of Enterprise Products Partners (EPD). Because EPD’s common units yield 3X its long term debt, an investor with the flexibility to move from one asset class to another could achieve a bond-like return by investing a small portion of her capital in the equity.

In short, it seems implausible for the market to be so enthusiastic about a company’s long term debt while at the same time pricing its equity as if prospects are dire. Nonetheless, this fairly describes the current state of the public markets for midstream energy infrastructure securities.

Bond yields are low everywhere, partly the result of inflexible investment mandates by a significant portion of the global investor base. We have touched on this issue before (see Blinded By The Bonds and Real Returns On Bonds Are Gone). The persistence of negative real yields on sovereign debt, and indeed negative nominal yields, such as German ten year government bonds at -0.50%, can hardly reflect a widespread fear of deflation. Fiscal discipline is no contest for fighting the pandemic, and the Federal Reserve has even modified its inflation targeting to allow an overshoot of 2%. The only logical conclusion is that a great many institutional investors own bonds not because they want to – but because they have to.

This situation has been years in the making. Rates fell to previously inconceivable levels during the 2009 financial crisis, and have remained there ever since.

The comparison of Energy Transfer (ET) debt and equity over the past eighteen months offers a striking example of investors’ divergent views.

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ET issued new ten year bonds in early January 2019, with a yield of 5.25%. The chart above shows the path followed by this debt and ET’s common units from that issue date. The two securities tracked one another for a few months before the bonds began to modestly outperform.

During the pandemic, debt and equity both fell sharply. The bonds fell less, reflecting their senior position in the capital structure. But the most striking feature of the chart is that the bonds have almost completely recovered and trade well above par, while the equity remains 50% lower than January 2019.

ET has a poor reputation for corporate governance, something we have noted (see Will Energy Transfer Act with Integrity?). Kelcy Warren’s bare-knuckle approach to business has made many enemies. But the company didn’t suddenly adopt its culture.

Legal challenges with the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) are a potential headwind, but DAPL is around 3.5% of ET’s EBITDA so even a complete shutdown shouldn’t seriously impact the company (see Pipeline Opponents Help Free Cash Flow).

If the company’s prospects are as poor as implied by the weakness in its equity price, its debt has no business trading with a 4% yield. Conversely, if its balance sheet is as solid as this yield implies, the equity is mispriced.

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Just as bond investors seem to buy yield-less government bonds without regard to value, equity investors in this sector seem to sell with equal disregard for the outlook. MLP funds have labored under outflows virtually all year. In conversations with investors, the biggest source of frustration is that prices don’t reflect fundamentals, and are often under pressure. The consequent fund outflows are, for now, drawing more selling. Nobody worries about pipeline stocks being overpriced (a preposterous notion). They do ask when the stocks will go up.

The answer is, when the current cohort of frustrated sellers is done. It could be any day.

We are invested in all the components of the American Energy Independence Index via the ETF that seeks to track its performance.

Growth isn’t always good. The Shale Revolution led to enormous growth in U.S. oil and gas output, but abundance pressured prices and, for investors in U.S. exploration and production, it’s been a bust. Midstream energy infrastructure joined in the race for growth projects – but not every investment was accretive. Some, like Plains All American (PAGP), have seen their stock price lose 90% of its value since 2014. It’s the result of serial bad capital allocation decisions. The drop in Permian crude output caused by Covid will leave PAGP with excess pipeline capacity in the region.

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Energy investors have become so wary of growth capital expenditures that they now cheer when a company reduces future spending. Enterprise Products Partners (EPD) has managed their business better than most over the past few years. Their investment in new infrastructure plus acquisitions peaked in 2014, and had already resumed its downward trend last year before the pandemic caused an industry-wide reassessment.

EPD last week canceled their planned Midland to Echo 4 (M2E4) pipeline carrying crude from the Permian to storage facilities on the Gulf of Mexico. Although much of the 450,000 barrels per day of capacity was already committed, EPD was able to get its customers to agree to extend the term of their agreements while reducing near term volume commitments. The crude oil originally intended for M2E4 will now move on other parts of EPD’s pipeline network.

Excess pipeline capacity out of west Texas is the most visible consequence of Covid on U.S. oil output. EPD’s move helps them but doesn’t solve the problem for other pipeline operators. “The Permian will still be significantly overbuilt” warned Ethan Bellamy, managing director of midstream strategy at East Daley Capital Advisors.

On Wednesday morning when the news was announced, EPD’s stock opened strongly and outperformed the American Energy Independence Index (AEITR) by 2% on the day. EPD estimates its growth capex will be $800MM lower over the next couple of years as a result, continuing the trend of recent years.

Lower growth spending means more free cash flow. CEO Jim Teague commented that, “The capital savings from the cancellation of M2E4 will accelerate Enterprise toward being discretionary free cash flow positive, which would give us the flexibility to reduce debt and return additional capital to our partners, including through buybacks.”

This is welcome news, and represents the new normal in the pipeline business.

We expect free cash flow for the industry to more than double this year. From our calls with investors, there’s substantial interest in today’s attractive yields, especially following 2Q earnings. EPD stands out with a distribution yield 3X their 30 year debt. As the industry continues to generate more cash, equity buyers will start to appreciate the long term stability of the best run businesses, as bond buyers already do.

We are invested in all the components of the American Energy Independence Index via the ETF that seeks to track its performance. We are also invested in PAGP and EPD via the SMAs and mutual fund we manage.

Long-time MLP investors need little reminding that the sector is out of favor. The Alerian MLP ETF (AMLP), with its tax-inefficient structure (see MLP Funds Made for Uncle Sam) has been shedding clients for years (see AMLP’s Shrinking Investor Base). Its focus on MLPs while they dwindle in number means it omits most of the biggest pipeline companies, as they’re corporations. AMLP’s distributions are down by a third (see Why Are MLP Payouts So Confusing?).

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AMLP is designed to provide passive exposure to the Alerian MLP Infrastructure Index (AMZIX). It turns out that pipeline companies haven’t done nearly as badly as this index. The focus on MLPs has always excluded corporations – for many years, when MLPs were controlled by a General Partner (GP), Incentive Distribution Rights (IDR) allowed generous payments from the limited partners in AMZIX to the GP’s. Because AMZIX excluded corporations, it left out many of the GPs who were receiving IDRs payments. Although this model has largely disappeared, the exclusion of most GPs meant that AMZIX included the inferior side of the GP-LP equation. And there remain a handful of MLPs that still labor under the burden of making IDR payments to their GP — all unfortunately included in AMZIX. These include MLPs Cheniere Energy Partners (CQP, controlled by Cheinere Energy Corp, LNG) and TC Pipelines (TCP, controlled by TC Energy, TRP). Avoiding MLPs that owe IDR payments to a parent would have helped AMZIX perform better.

The GP-LP relationship has always looked more like the one between a hedge fund manager and its hedge fund. Hedge fund managers and MLP GPs both fared much better than investors in MLPs and hedge fund (see MLPs and Hedge Funds Are More Alike Than You Think).

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Canadian pipeline companies are among the best run in North America. In recent years they have been acquiring MLPs, rolling them up into the corporate parent. For example, Enbridge acquired U.S. pipeline company Spectra Energy, which included Spectra Energy Partners, its MLP, in 2016. Transcanada (TRP) bought Columbia Pipeline Group the same year, and later rolled up their MLP. All these acquisitions led to the assets leaving AMZIX, because they were no longer housed in MLPs. Excluded from AMZIX but still significant was when Pembina (PBA) bought Veresen in 2017 and also acquired Kinder Morgan Canada after it has sold its Trans Mountain Express pipeline expansion to the Canadian Federal government.

In early 2018, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) surprised investors with a tax ruling that prevented MLPs from including investors’ imputed tax liability in setting natural gas pipeline tariffs. Although FERC later walked back this hasty ruling, the damage was done and natural gas pipelines are largely housed in corporations, where FERC’s tax ruling has no effect.

The general shift from MLPs to corporations as the desired corporate form, so as to access a broader set of investors, has taken place throughout this time. The result is that AMZIX doesn’t reflect the North American pipeline industry (see MLPs No Longer Represent Pipelines). It has the last three big pipeline companies that maintain their MLP status, and a bunch of small gathering and processing names that are more risky. It also has an overweight to crude oil and refined products pipelines, with a corresponding underweight to natural gas pipelines.

AMZIX has wound up with a form of adverse selection – seemingly always on the wrong side of the trade. Holding MLPs that paid IDRs to GPs, rather than GPs themselves; gradually becoming more concentrated as MLPs were rolled up into corporations; and drifting away from natural gas pipelines, leaving them with commensurately more crude oil risk at a time when transportation demand faces a lot of uncertainty.

The American Energy Independence Index (AEITR) was always designed to reflect the better side of the historic GP-LP relationship, and to be broadly representative of the North American pipeline industry. MLPs, as defined by AMZIX and its associated investment product AMLP, have had a miserable decade. But the broad North American pipeline industry as defined by AEITR has done substantially better over multiple timeframes, because of the construction advantages noted above. For almost the past decade it’s performed 14% p.a. better

When an investor complains about lousy MLP performance, they’re right, but they’re also revealing that they’ve had too much exposure to the wrong index.

We are invested in all the components of the American Energy Independence Index via the ETF that seeks to track its performance.

Last week the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) told state health officials to prepare for vaccine distribution as soon as November 1. “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.” was first spoken by President Gerald Ford following Nixon’s resignation under threat of impeachment in 1974. But it could equally apply to Covid in 2020.

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The pain has been unevenly distributed. Since March, stocks have defiantly marched higher in the face of relentlessly bad news. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost, and billions turned upside down. Yet people have adapted, and technology stocks such as Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN) have benefited enormously from the shift to socially distanced living. Tesla (TSLA) has shown that stock splits are bullish, even if caused by prior huge gains (see Tech Stocks Have Energy).

The market’s gains have reflected the distasteful reality that the economic impact of Covid is driven by our efforts at mitigation. Public understanding of the actual numbers reveals huge misconceptions (see Covid Exposes Innumeracy) about its lethality and who is really at risk. Recently, the CDC quietly added the following to Table 3 of its Covid website (Conditions contributing to deaths involving coronavirus disease): “For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned.” In other words, 94% of Covid victims had a pre-existing condition (a “co-morbidity”) which may have contributed to their outcome. It’s still tragic for each person, but as we learn more the seeming randomness of Covid becomes less so.

For an interesting perspective on mitigation efforts elsewhere, see Brazil – Not the Disaster We’ve Been Led to Believe.

Last week’s sharp market reversal around the CDC’s announcement was probably no coincidence. U.S. hospitalizations are down by a third from their recent second peak. Fatalities never reached the levels of early April, and in former hotspots like New York and New Jersey, hospitalizations are down by 95% from the peak.

A vaccine will accelerate the progress towards herd immunity that seems to be already underway. The possibility that the near future may see a modified return of our former lifestyles has hurt technology stocks but breathed new life into stocks like Carnival Corp (CCL). A resumption of cruising might be the final confirmation that we’re post-Covid, that the hospitality business no longer faces quite the same existential threat.

Few will be surprised that the outperformance of energy stocks caught our attention. The least liked and therefore most undervalued sector doesn’t suffer like AAPL from the loss of momentum investors, because there were none. The rubber band between liked and hated sectors is stretched taught. If the imminence of a vaccine has triggered a great unwind, pipeline stocks have substantial upside.

Relative valuations are provoking comparisons with past episodes that ended poorly, such as the late 1990s tech bubble. Tesla (TSLA) has risen 75% since announcing its 5:1 split on August 11^th. Apple (AAPL), and their 4:1 split caused Exxon Mobil (XOM) to be dumped out for the Dow (see The Dow’s Odd Construction).

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There are plenty of articles comparing growth with value. For an energy flavor, consider the comparison with pipeline company Enterprise Products Partners (EPD). As recently as early last year, like AAPL, it traded at under 10X cash flow. Their paths soon diverged, and this year’s Covid-inspired tech rally has led us to the surreal moment at which EPD would need to increase in price by 4.5X, or AAPL drop by 78%, in order for their cash flow multiples to be synchronized once again. AAPL’s net income over the past five years has varied between $46BN and $59BN, with $56BN expected this year. A reduced sharecount due to buybacks makes the EPS figures look better but, unsurprisingly with $50BN+ in anual profit, AAPL is no longer a high growth company.

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Technology has been hot to be sure, but in spite of what a cursory glance might suggest, the energy sector has not been completely abandoned. Investors who purchased EPD’s 5.1% 2045 maturity bonds issued in February 2014 have been handsomely rewarded – at least by the extremely modest standards which bond buyers have long accepted. At the time, the cash flow yield on EPD’s stock was modestly higher than the bond yield, which probably convinced some that the bonds, with their fixed coupons and no participation in EPD’s future cash flow growth, weren’t cheap enough.

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Those original investors have received their 5.1% coupon and enjoyed some modest price appreciation, since their bonds are now priced at around 120. This is in spite of making their purchase less than six months before energy stocks peaked. Since then, the Shale Revolution has been ruthlessly crushed, leaving energy stocks in disorderly retreat and sweeping EPD down with the rest. Since few bond investors have the flexibility to leap down the capital structure no matter how compelling the opportunity, the holders of this debt with 25 years yet remaining must regard EPD’s equity as altogether divorced from reality.

The change in valuations has been stunningly swift, and when the relationship between EPD’s stock and almost every other non-energy equity security is reverting to the mean, it will have all seemed inevitable. Until then, we can simply gaze at charts like these and wonder how the CFA curriculum will one day turn this into a teachable moment.

We are invested in all the components of the American Energy Independence Index via the ETF that seeks to track its performance.

Last week’s ejection of Exxon Mobil (XOM) from the Dow Jones Industrial Average looks like another indication of the declining relevance of energy stocks. XOM had been in the Dow since 1928, and until 2013 was the most valuable publicly listed company. Its market cap peaked with oil prices in 2014 at $446BN, and is now around $171BN.

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Pfizer (PFE) and Raytheon Technologies (RTX) were also dropped along with XOM, and these three were replaced by Salesforce (CRM), Amgen (AMGN) and Honeywell (HON).

Being dropped from an index is never good. For the much maligned energy sector, it’s tempting to regard this as the bell ringing at the market bottom – the sign that sentiment is so irretrievably poor that the only way from here is up. But the list of such past signals is already long.

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The quirky construction of the Dow is the cause of these changes. The Dow may be “venerable”, and still the most widely followed index, but nobody would create anything quite like it today.

This is because it’s a price-weighted index, rather than market-cap weighted like most indices. This means that the price of a stock determines its importance in moving the Dow. Apple (AAPL) is the highest weighted stock in the Dow by virtue of its price. Because of its impending 4:1 split, its weighting is about to drop by around three quarters – for market cap weighted indices such as the S&P500, a stock split has no impact on the weights of the components.

If Berkshire A (BRK-A) was in the Dow, at $326K per share it would dominate the index.

Perhaps when Charles Dow and Edward Jones first published their eponymous average in 1896, calculating the average daily price of twelve stocks without a calculator was already enough work for two financial reporters. But their simple approach remains with us today.

The tables below illustrate the shortcomings. Perhaps the biggest is that a price-weighted index doesn’t reflect market cap weighted moves in its components. This makes it less representative. From next week moves in AAPL’s value will have much less impact on the index. An investor wishing to track the Dow Jones has to sell most of her AAPL’s shares, even though it’s still in the index. Tracking the Dow is more difficult and costly because it requires frequent rebalancing. That’s why there’s far more money invested in products linked to the S&P500, and they have much lower tracking error.  Market-cap weighted indices by definition reflect the experience of all the money invested in their components, and are more easily tracked by portfolios invested in them.

One result is that although the recent rebalancing reflects the biases of the committee that oversees the Dow Jones, the smaller size of Dow Jones-linked funds limited the rebalancing trades by investors tracking the index.

Energy investors can console themselves that XOM’s ignominious ejection is due to AAPL’s meteoric rise and subsequent split. Several big companies have had a sporadic relationship with the Dow. General Electric (GE) has been spurned three times, most recently in 2018. Since then, GE has lost almost half its value. Given valuations, energy investors are likely to do much better.