Tag: US Market
Business Strategy and Outlook
Deere’s strong brand is underpinned by its high-quality, extremely durable, and efficient products. Customers in developed markets also value Deere’s ability to reduce the total cost of ownership. The company’s strategy focuses on delivering a comprehensive solution for farmers. Deere’s innovative products target each phase of the farming process, which includes field preparation, planting and seeding, applying chemicals, and harvesting. The company also embeds technology in its products, from guidance systems to seed placement and spacing and customized spraying applications. Deere is committed to expanding customer offerings and providing value-added services. Additionally, we believe the management team will look to reduce the company’s cost structure as some markets have matured, providing an opportunity to rethink its footprint and create a leaner organization.
Financial Strength
Deere maintains a sound balance sheet. On the industrial side, the net debt/adjusted EBITDA ratio was relatively low at the end of fiscal 2021, coming in at 0.4. Total outstanding debt, including both short- and long-term debt, was $10.4 billion. Deere’s strong balance sheet gives management the financial flexibility to run a balanced capital allocation strategy going forward that mostly favors organic growth and also returns cash to shareholders. The company’s cash position as of fiscal year-end 2021 stood at $7.2 billion on its industrial balance sheet. We also find comfort in Deere’s ability to tap into available lines of credit to meet any short-term needs. Deere has access to $5.7 billion in credit facilities.
Additionally, management is determined to rationalize its footprint by reducing the number of facilities in mature markets. If successful, this will put Deere on much better footing from a cost perspective, further supporting its ability to return cash to shareholders. The captive finance arm holds considerably more debt than the industrial business, but this is reasonable, given its status as a lender to both customers and dealers. Total debt stood at $38 billion in fiscal 2021, along with $38 billion in finance receivables and $829 million in cash. In our view, Deere enjoys a strong financial position supported by a clean balance sheet and strong free cash flow prospects.
Bulls Say’s
- Higher crop prices encourage farmers to grow more crops and will lead to more farming equipment purchases, substantially boosting Deere’s revenue growth.
- Deere will benefit from strong replacement demand, as uncertainty around trade, weather, and agriculture commodity demand has eased, encouraging farmers to refresh their machine fleet.
- Increased infrastructure spending in the U.S. and emerging markets will lead to more construction equipment purchases, benefiting Deere.
Company Profile
Deere is the world’s leading manufacturer of agricultural equipment, producing some of the most recognizable machines in the heavy machinery industry. The company is divided into four reportable segments: production and precision agriculture, small agriculture and turf, construction and forestry, and John Deere Capital. Its products are available through a robust dealer network, which includes over 1,900 dealer locations in North America and approximately 3,700 locations globally. John Deere Capital provides retail financing for machinery to its customers, in addition to wholesale financing for dealers, which increases the likelihood of Deere product sales.
(Source: Morningstar)
General Advice Warning
Any advice/ information provided is general in nature only and does not take into account the personal financial situation, objectives or needs of any particular person.
He also tends to add and trim positions aggressively as they become more or less attractive according to analyst models, a tendency that benefits when stock prices mean revert. While Davis’ artful approach has some appeal, it doesn’t have a discernible edge relative to its competition.
Portfolio:
This portfolio finds a balance between differentiation and careful risk management. It held 51 stocks at the end of September 2021, significantly less than the 140-180 it used to have when it had three independently managed sleeves. However, manager Scott Davis’ desire to let stock selection drive results leads to only modest sector and industry tilts relative to its S&P 500 benchmark. Davis also considers factor exposure when building the portfolio. For instance, he increased the portfolio’s stake in financials companies toward the end of 2020 to bolster its exposure to cheaper, more cyclical stocks to help offset its lack of exposure to the energy sector.
The portfolio has historically leaned a bit more toward a growth style, and that still rings true. It displayed a slight growth bias relative to the benchmark as of October, sporting higher valuation metrics such as price/ sales and faster trailing revenue- and earnings-growth rates.
People:
This strategy continues to rely heavily on J.P. Morgan’s core research team, but it is now led exclusively by Scott Davis, who oversaw the strongest-performing sleeve of this formerly multi-managed offering. Davis became a named manager in August 2014, inheriting a 10% slice of the strategy, but quickly saw his share grow, most notably after manager Thomas Luddy stepped down at the end of 2017. Davis continues to leverage the ideas of J.P. Morgan’s core research team, which consists of 23 analysts with extensive industry experience.
Performance:
A good portion of the fund’s success came in 2020, which skews the trailing return figures a bit. Its 26.7% gain in 2020 outpaced the benchmark by over 8 percentage points, the best calendar year since Davis debuted. The fund’s case over other time periods is weaker: It outperformed the bogy about 51% of the time on a rolling one-year basis since Davis joined.
(Source: jpmorgan.com)
Price:
Analysts find it difficult to analyse expenses since it comes directly from the returns. Analysts expect that it would be able to generate positive alpha relative to its benchmark index.
(Source: Morningstar) (Source: Morningstar)
About Funds:
The investment objective of this fund is to achieve a return in excess of the US equity market by investing primarily in US companies. It uses a research-driven investment process that is based on the fundamental analysis of companies and their future earnings and cash flows by a team of specialist sector analysts.
(Source: Morningstar)
General Advice Warning
Any advice/ information provided is general in nature only and does not take into account the personal financial situation, objectives or needs of any particular person.
Fund Objective
The investment seeks long-term total return, consisting of current income and capital appreciation.
Approach
The strategy targets a yield of 4%-5% and allocates 60%-90% of assets in fixed income, with the remainder in stocks. The team may also employ tactical shifts, vetted by the firm’s tactical trading council, by trading currencies or equity sector indexes, but these can be difficult to execute well consistently. Since introducing a multisleeved approach in early 2018, this strategy has undergone three prospectus benchmark shifts that signal it continues to experiment with its profile. The most recent adjustment (February 2020) decreased the equity exposure by 10 percentage points to 25% in order to make room for a more diversified bond sleeve. Other adjustments include the removal of a REITs sleeve in September 2018, the addition of a securitized bond sleeve in March 2019, and the introduction of an options sleeve in January 2020.
Portfolio
As fixed-income markets have proved richly priced, the portfolio managers cited more attractive capital appreciation and dividends in the equity space, prompting an uptick in the equity holdings to roughly 38% here by September 2021. Within that equity sleeve, technology stocks (Microsoft MSFT is a holding) and healthcare stocks (such as Bausch Health Companies BHC, DaVita DVA, and AbbeVie ABBV) occupied roughly 27% and 17% of assets, respectively.
High-yield bonds dominate the fixed-income portion of the strategy (59% of the portfolio as of September 2021), and it is worth noting that these are more sensitive to equity markets than the investment-grade fare employed by many peers for downside protection in stressed markets. Other bond sleeves here are modest but diversifying relative to the portfolio’s historical profile and include municipal bonds (3%) and securitized bonds (2%).
People
Kandarp Acharya as co manager alongside Margie Patel, who was the sole manager since 2007 but is departing this strategy (though she remains on Allspring Diversified Capital Builder EKBYX) as of Dec. 13, 2021. This move is accompanied by the arrival of quantitative researcher Petros Bocray, a 15-year firm veteran and Acharya’s collaborator on Allspring Asset Allocation EAAIX.
Performance
Over the strategy’s short tenure with its new contours (January 2018 through November 2021), the 5.5% annualized return of its R6 share class modestly outpaced the 5.3% return of the Morningstar Conservative. Target Risk Index and trailed the 6.7% return of its custom benchmark (60% ICE BoA U.S. Cash Pay HY Index, 25% MSCI ACWI, and 15% Barclays Aggregate Index). From an absolute return perspective, the strategy also generated a higher return than the 5.0% median of its typical allocation–15% to 30% equity Morningstar Category peer.This strategy has a riskier profile than many strategies in the category, particularly during stress periods, resulting in risk-adjusted returns (as measured by the Sharpe ratio) that trail all comparative points (typical category peer and benchmark as well as custom benchmark) over the aforementioned period. In three recent stress periods (when energy prices plummeted from June 2015 to February 2016, the 2018 fourth-quarter high-yield sell-off, and the coronavirus-driven market panic of Feb. 20-March 23, 2020), the fund lagged its category index by more than double and trailed its typical peer.
Top 10 Holdings
About the fund
The Fund seeks high current income from investments in income-producing securities. The Fund will normally invest at least 80% of its assets in income producing securities, including debt securities of any quality, dividend paying common and preferred stocks, convertible bonds, and
derivatives. The strategy targets a yield of 4%-5% and allocates 60%-90% of assets in fixed income, with the remainder in stocks. The team may also employ tactical shifts, vetted by the firm’s tactical trading council, by trading currencies or equity sector indexes, but these can be difficult to execute well consistently.
(Source:Morningstar)
General Advice Warning
Any advice/ information provided is general in nature only and does not take into account the personal financial situation, objectives or needs of any particular person.