Top 5 Stock Picks for 2021

​When Wilfred Frost interviewed me on CNBC a year ago on 12/31/2019 for my top picks for 2020, I chose: AMD, DIS, FB, LITE, and NVDA. Below is how they have performed year-to-date through 12/28/20:

Top Picks for 2020 had a technology bias

Name	YTD (12/28/20)
AMD	100%
DIS	24%
FB	35%
LITE	25%
NVDA	119%
Average	60%

However unlike my top picks for 2020, my top picks for 2021 have a value reopening bias.  My picks are the following: JPM, XLE, MGA, ORCL, and GAN.

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Global Perspective

The S&P500 is up 16% YTD (12/28/20) and at an all-time record highs despite Covid-19 driven by both monetary and fiscal stimulus.

1. Global stimulus is over 20% of GDP and over 30% of GDP in the US. The Fed balance sheet has expanded 77% YTD from $4.2 trillion to $7.4 trillion. Compared to $22 trillion in US GDP, this is obviously significant. This has driven Money Supply (M2) up 25% y/y vs a prior record of 14%. ​  

Other positive factors include:

1. Vaccinations have started and have up to a 95% efficacy 
2. The US Congress should be split following the Jan. 5th Georgia election results.  This should lead to more centrist tax & regulation policies than expected under a “Blue Wave,”
3. Janet Yellen (former Fed chief) as the new Treasury Secretary will push easy fiscal policies in conjunction with the easy monetary policies of the Fed which anticipates no interest rate increases till 2023

The S&P gain of 16% YTD follows a 29% return last year despite earnings growth of just 1% in 2019 and a decline of 8% expected in 2020.  As a result of this discrepancy, the total market cap of the US stock market divided by GDP is at a record 1.6x versus a 50-year average of 0.8x.  An unprecedented surge in both fiscal and monetary stimulus has driven this and is expected to continue in 2021.

However, inflation has been relatively non-existent since the Global Financial Crisis (arguably for 40 years) and is worth watching in 2021.  Right now, broad measures of inflation look contained and any concerns about inflation due to the easy money policies following the global financial crisis have been wrong. In fact 10 year treasury yields have been in a bull market for nearly 40 years since peaking at 16% in 1981 and currently are at 0.9%. 

Rising Commodity Prices

We find it troubling that prices for industrial metals like copper, nickel and zinc are all up over 20% YTD during a global recession and agricultural commodities such as corn and wheat are up almost 10% YTD.  And this is reflected in the price of gold that is up over 20% and bitcoin up over 250%.  Even high-priced items like used US cars are up 17% y/y in November and US home prices are up 7%.  There has been underinvestment in agricultural, mining and oil for the last decade which has helped drive price increases during a global recession.  What might commodity prices do in late 2022 when demand improves after we have had mass vaccinations and global economies are fully re-opened?  10-year treasury yields started the year at 1.9% hit a low of 0.5% and are still only at 0.9%.  US GDP is forecast to be up over 5% in 2021 which will be the best growth since 1984.

Potential Rising Interest Rates

It is not a stretch to think 10 year treasury yields could head back towards the 2% level prior to Covid by late 2021 from roughly 0.9% today as global economies reopen.  The question is what this does to the record high S&P500 multiple and especially long duration assets such as growth stocks.

Potential Reduction in Pace of Future Stimulus

Stimulus has been incredibly important during this last decade for markets and if it is more subdued as economies get back to normal, this could be an issue as we have seen in the past.  In 2011, 2015, 2018, and 2020, the stock market fell 10-20% over 1- 5 months during periods when monetary stimulus was flat to down. 

• In 2011, the Fed hinted at not expanding its asset purchase program just before a 19% drop in the S&P 500 over 5 months.
• In 2015, talk of balance-sheet shrinkage preceded a 12% S&P decline in just a month.
• In late 2018, a comment about the Fed balance sheet unwind on “autopilot” plus the ongoing trade war coincided with a nearly 20% S&P drop in 3 months.
• In 2020, the S&P dropped 10%, with 7% in just three trading days starting on 9/2.  The Fed balance sheet had been flat to down since mid-June.

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Investment Themes 2021

JPM- banking for higher rates in 2021 as economies reopen

As we look toward 2021, we have more of a value bent to our investments and banks could be the ultimate reopening trade in 2021.  The sector should benefit from stronger loan growth from an improving economy in tandem with expanding profit margins, yield curve steepening, reserve releases and share buybacks. This has been the second worst performing sector in the S&P in 2020 (down 5% YTD) and we believe it could be one of the best in 2021. 
The S&P financial sector has a CY21 PE of 11x and a dividend yield of 2.1% and is down 5% YTD versus the S&P up 16% YTD, a 22x PE and dividend yield of 1.6%.  At one point, this sector had the worst performance relative to the S&P in the history of the data back to the mid-1980s, which includes the global financial crisis and the tech bubble meltdown. We believe EPS growth for the sector could approach 20% in both 2021 and 2022. 
In the banking sector, JPM (13x CY21 PE) is our core investment benefitting from a stronger economy driving loan growth and rising treasury yields. We also own Wells Fargo (-44% YTD) as a higher risk/higher reward way to play this theme as well as some smaller regional banks. 

XLE- energy for improved demand as economies reopen

The energy sector has been the worst S&P sector (-37% YTD) by far this year but reopening economies will lead to an improvement in oil demand in 2021. We like the energy ETF (XLE) as a diversified way for investors to play this theme where many companies have high leverage/risk.  We own a basket of individual names in the sector.  Also with the focus on Green energy, the energy sector is hated and therefore valuations are low. 

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Tech Sector Picks

In the technology sector, we recently added more value oriented names to the portfolio to play our favorite themes such MGA (12x CY21PE) for Electric Vehicles, Oracle for cloud (14x CY21 PE) and GAN (8x EV/Sales) for online gambling. ​ 

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ORCL – a value play in cloud software

Oracle has had no real revenue growth over the past 3 years with only 2% revenue growth in their most recent November quarter while the software sector has been one of the hottest areas within technology.  We think that in 2021, Oracle may finally see revenue growth starting to pick up driven by their Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) business which grew 139% y/y and their autonomous database business which grew 64%.  OCI growth could have been even better if not for capacity constraints. Both businesses combined are $1.5B in revs (4% of total) but are growing at ~100% and should matter to rev growth next year.  Given Oracle trades at only 14x CY21 PE relative to the S&P at 22x, any improvement in their growth rate is likely to help their stock price tremendously.   Oracle is also very shareholder friendly and has cut their share count by 40% through buybacks over the past 10 years. ​

MGA- a value play for Electric Vehicle adoption

Unit sales has improved for the auto industry from down 48% y/y in April to down 5% in November.  Low interest rates, low inventories, more driving, less flying, has driven auto sales. The focus on green energy has helped drive EV sales as witnessed by the addition of Tesla to the S&P500.  But EV industry shipments are only 3% of the total with a lot of growth ahead.  MGA already has relationships with Fisker, Waymo (Google) as well as automakers in China and Korea around EV vehicles. MGA a few years ago was reportedly in discussions with Apple on helping them produce EV vehicles.  Magna’s JV with LG Electronics announced last week helps round out the components they did not possess.  At only a 12x PE, MGA is a cheap way to play the EV trend.

​GAN- a value play as Online Gambling becomes the next big internet market (Replaced by $BETZ on 1/19/21 here)

Online sports betting is the next massive internet market driven by state legalization following the Supreme Court legalizing online sports betting in May of 2018. The total Global Gaming market is roughly $450B and growing ~10% per year w/ only 12% on-line. GAN, with their acquisition of CoolBets, now has an online sports betting offering to complement their iGaming products.  We believe the multiple will rerate as more states use GAN partners, such as FanDuel, who will be using their technology.  The stock only trades at 8x CY21 EV/Sales versus some comparable companies that are over 20x.

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