Saturday, December 29, 2012

An outsider's view of insider trading

As an investment professional, I follow the insider trading laws. And as a CFA charterholder, I follow the more rigorous ethics required by the CFA Institute. But I don't believe in insider trading restrictions. That is I don't subscribe to the theory of justice underpinning insider trading prohibitions. I would like to see these prohibitions largely changed to the extent of elimination generally. I believe this would be an improvement to our society's justice and economic/market efficiency.

The idea of prohibitions on insider transactions hinges on the idea that profiting from knowledge is good but profiting from too much knowledge is bad. Those supporting insider trading restrictions would probably say I've got that wrong. That it isn't too much knowledge but rather unfair knowledge. My answer to that is there is no principled concept of "fair" that allows one to draw a line in the way insider trading laws do making the distinguishment between fair knowledge and unfair knowledge. It takes logical magic tricks to make the distinction. Simply put, the distinction is arbitrary, which is antithetic to logical principals. The arbitrariness can be seen in how ridiculously vague the insider laws are. This makes for dangerous risks--it puts arbitrary power in the hands of already powerful people.

Let's make clear a couple of points. In my opinion insider trading prohibitions are not about prohibiting fraud or misrepresentation. Hence, reducing or eliminating them would not be any sort of condoning of fraud or misrepresentation. They are about making illegal a victimless crime that has in the general public opinion a very negative perception (people benefiting from too much information).

Prohibiting insider trading has several very real negative effects:

  • It violates property rights--the right to freely buy and sell in the market.
  • It reduces economic/market efficiency by limiting who can bring knowledge into the price system.
  • It promotes a false sense of security (moral hazard) by promising that securities transactions are between generally equally equipped traders--this illusion as well as the above problem with market efficiency is mitigated by the next effect.
  • It drives some market transactions (insider transactions) into the dark and gives pause to other transactions for fear of raising insider suspicions. This is very much like the negative effects an onerous, complicated tax system brings--wasted resource allocation in compliance and reduced otherwise beneficial activity in avoidance.
My solution is disclosure-based insider trading rules. I am not alone in this idea. Basically I would like to see insider trading laws replaced by a rule requiring open disclosure of any "significant" transactions from an "insider". I would let the courts decide what a "significant" transaction would be, but as a guidance perhaps a trade over $10,000 in notional or exercise value. I would expand the definition of an "insider" to include any employee of a firm (not just the current definition which includes a company's officers, directors and any beneficial owners of more than 10% of a class of the company's equity securities) and as with the current definition any individual who trades shares based on material non-public information in violation of some duty of trust whether inherent or imputed (e.g., getting a tip from the CEO one could reasonably expect was material non-public information). Now more truly if you're not "inside", you're "outside". Failure to properly disclose an insider trade would result in a fine equal to say 25% of the gross profit from the alleged trade. Any employee trade not properly disclosed would also result in the same fine incurred by the employer unless the employee was acting with malicious intent. 

The reason companies would find this change to be largely in their interest is the same reason why companies would want restrictions on insider trading in many cases. Companies have at least two reasons why they don't want their officers making some kinds of insider trades: 
  1. It makes for very negative PR for a CEO to sell (buy) the company stock on insider knowledge that negative (positive) news is forthcoming. 
  2. A company wants a CEO's incentive to be with the long-term interest of the company whereby he gains (looses) as the firm gains (looses). (Unfortunately, we continue to allow insiders to avoid losses their firms incur generally at tax-payer expense. But that is a problem for another blog post.)
I would anticipate greater popularity of agreements between corporations and their insiders that allow for clawback of earnings or outright damages for insider trades not in company interest. 

Friday, December 28, 2012

Resolve to be happier

What should your New Year's Resolution be? I'm glad you asked. I think a good go to resolution is to simply resolve to be happier. Simply looking to have a better outlook on life and especially if followed up with happiness-increasing actions, can improve your life significantly.

The Happiness Project might offer some clues that would help including these tips on how NOT to be happy.

Here is my contribution. It is a bit of a happiness hack. I think one should view developments not fully within one's control but definitely affecting one's life as first offers where one has a right of negotiation. Rather than seeing these developments as ultimatums or demands or requirements that are "happening to me", I like to think of them as changes in my opportunity set. Some examples:

  1. My child's soccer team's new practice schedule conflicts with other activities, or my child's soccer  team is moving up into a more competitive league that I am not necessarily comfortable with. 
  2. At work my department is moving floors where I am probably getting a downgrade if offices, or my employer is changing the schedule of benefits reducing those most advantageous to me, or my employer is asking me to go into a conference room to discuss how I spend my day with a consultant.
  3. Near my quiet home a new commercial development is announced with the possibility of more traffic, more noise, and perhaps more crime.
Aside from the nearly always applicable assuaging line that it is probably just not that bad, I look at these types of developments as challenges where I have options. Assuming even that I cannot fight directly to reverse or direct the changes, I consider my options: 
  1. This may be the end of soccer for my child (perhaps she wasn't destined for World Cup) and perhaps another sport or other activity would be a close substitute (it may even be an improvement), or perhaps there is another soccer league.
  2. Is this the impetus I need to consider a change in jobs, or perhaps this offers the incentive I need to work harder for a promotion or other recognition.
  3. What do I truly value in a home and can I find a better match to my desires? How might the new commercial property actually benefit me?
This is not about "bright-siding" every situation. It is about being realistic and open minded. Life is about constant change of varying degrees and at sudden impacts. Those who adapt to that immutable quality of the universe are better equipped for success and happiness.

Update: new research indicates that being happy correlates and perhaps contributes to success. http://www.aeaweb.org/aea/2013conference/program/retrieve.php?pdfid=29

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

New Year's Resolution

Last year my New Year's Resolution was to change a strongly held personal belief. I definitely changed my mind about quite a few things, but one stands out as truly qualifying: I changed my belief about the direction and implications of Federal Reserve policy. Basically, I adopted Scott Sumner's view that The Fed has been too tight in monetary policy, despite the phenomenal explosion in base money, reversing my previous view that The Fed was recklessly expanding the money supply with an accommodative policy that was creating an imminent threat of significant inflation. As a corollary to this change came an understanding that this tight-money Fed action was a significant contributor to the financial crisis and recession and slow recovery.

My thinking in choosing this resolution is my belief that we all tend to error in not changing our minds enough, not challenging the beliefs we hold, and not being open minded in general. This is the major contribution of Freakonomics to the human race. We need to do more self-critical thinking. Much of what we believe is to some degree factually wrong or weakly understood often to the point of being shallow drivel.

To continue and expand the progress, my New Year's Resolution for 2013 is to either 1. Change or significantly modify a strongly held personal belief or 2. Find a completely new and significant rationale in support of a strongly held personal belief. 1 is preferable to 2, but having both keeps me searching and thinking more.

On a blog-specific note, I seek to expand upon my Nov. 10, 2012 declared intention of referencing a movie in every blog post. I will expand the allusions to books, television, and other art forms. Coming up with just movie references was stretching my Swiss-cheese brain to its limits. These leaps are getting harder.

Signs (at Christmas) that you are a parent . . .

You measure the quality of the Christmas day by the following criteria:

  1. How late you could sleep in.
  2. How few batteries were required.
  3. How little assembly was needed.
  4. How little packaging needed to be removed (including those gawd-awful twist ties).
  5. How quickly you could pick up and put away all the loot. 
  6. How well received were all items especially as compared to any enjoyment derived from large, now empty boxes. 
  7. How soon school starts back up.
Update: 8. You actually think about toys and gifts considering the risk that you'll shoot your eye out.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

What if the Fiscal Cliff solution were to actually get us out of this fine tax mess?

As mentioned previously, I would like to briefly sketch out an approximation of what a terrifically better tax system would look like. This is a second-best solution since I start with the assumption we need a tax burden so massive as to accommodate a government nearly as massive as the one we have today.

If I were asked, "explain taxes to me like I'm a four-year old," I would struggle. Ron Swanson (below) does a decent job striking the emotional chord many of us feel, but this is obviously an emotional appeal designed around the tight confines of satirical comedy. For if it were a comprehensive approach, the tax code would come out looking much worse.



Swanson only gets at the raw theft of it all. He leaves out the destructive properties of bad incentives and resources wasted in compliance and avoidance and evasion.

If we have to have a taxes, we at least should have them with minimal impact both direct and indirect. Directly we waste resources complying and seeking to avoid. Indirectly the effects are much more severe. By taxing capital, we discourage work, risk-taking, and saving. By taxing consumption, we discourage work, risk taking, and consumption. By taxing work, we discourage work, risk taking, consumption, and saving. Work, risk taking, consumption, and saving are all desirable things. But saving has added desirability as it creates opportunities for more of all the other desirable things. Saving is deferred consumption. The reward for the deferring is more later. So it should be obvious, but sadly is not to too many that taxing (discouraging) saving has a compounding negative effect. Which brings me to my proposal for greatly improving upon this fine mess of a tax system we have.

First, we must eliminate all capital taxation (capital gains with its ridiculous long-term/short-term distinction, dividend and interest income, estate taxation, et al.). A flat-income tax would be a big, BIG improvement over were we are today. But we can do better still as this would still be an income tax with the associated negative effect on saving.

Here is the idea (not at all original to me): tax consumption (a sales tax). Let's assume the rate is 20%. We will apply this rate to the purchase of all final goods and services. Income taxes and payroll taxes (save for a new one outlined below) are gone. No longer will we need to turn in an annual term paper on our income to the IRS. No more manipulations of charitable giving and loss carry forward. No more shelters, loopholes, deductions, exemptions, forms 8166 sub A worksheet nine, math that you never can get to add up to the same total twice. Buy something and a tax is built in (this is preferable rather than being added on after the fact). The business submits sales data and taxes due. Most of this infrastructure is in place already. And notice how little opportunity there is for tax evasion save for the ever-dwindling cash side business.

"But what about the poor?" I hear you say. We rebate to every adult the amount of consumption tax that a spending level near the poverty level would imply. Let's target $20,000 (about $5,000 below the official poverty level of income). 20% of $20,000 is $4,000. That amount is payable to every adult American citizen.

"But what about poor children?" I hear you cry. We rebate to every adult claiming a unique dependent (someone cannot be claimed twice as with the current regime) some amount of consumption tax an incremental amount of spending would imply. Let's target $10,000. 20% of $10,000 is $2,000.

"But what about the 'rich' who are now getting checks from the government?" I hear you shriek. That's where the low-impact payroll tax comes in. I think of it as "low impact" because it will be handled by employers similarly to how they handle payroll taxes now. We will maintain the benefit of not having individuals have to play guess how many toothpicks are on the floor with Uncle Sam. The payroll tax will be a marginal rate of say 10% applied to total compensation (wages and benefits) starting at $100,000 with this threshold indexed to inflation.

The structure is the major source of the benefits. The rates and levels are negotiable. Here is what it looks like for a family of four:


Notice that it is progressive. Notice that it is straightforward. Notice that it is not of this world . . . yet.

Update: Some might ask how housing should be treated: as a capital good excluded from taxation or a consumption good subject to taxation. The answer is it depends but can work well in either case. As a capital good making the assumption (probably a bad assumption, that housing is always an investment), it would be excluded. As a consumption good, it would lower the overall tax rate necessary to generate appropriate revenues. The most logical treatment in my mind is to treat any sale or rental of real property as a capital good. Although this increases the tax rate otherwise applicable to consumption, it is a much more straightforward and less manipulable arrangement.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Dollars,Taxes

As we continue to hurtle ourselves toward the fiscal cliff as the Mayans predicted, the prospects for meaningful tax reform dwindles. I thought I'd take a second to reflect on some brief ideas about what good tax reform should encompass.

  • Simplification - this is the lower-hanging fruit. We need fewer exemptions, deductions, rates, categories, etc. Unfortunately, this reform has some of the biggest obstacles since so many vested interests are at stake. 
  • Eliminating the worst tax policies from an economic-desirability standpoint - this is where economics needs to trump emotion. We need to stop taxing capital--capital gains (both individual and organizational), dividends, interest, corporate profits, etc. These taxes are economically destructive. They discourage savings and lower the trajectory of economic potential. The economic distortion from taxation is no where more insidious than in capital taxation. There is certainly crossover between this reform group and the next. 
  • Eliminating the worst tax policies from a justice/fairness standpoint - this is where justice and ethics need to trump envy. We need to stop taxing estates. Death should not imply an additional tax liability. Not only does this tax unfairly tax wealth that has been repeatedly taxed already, but it also causes economic resource distortions as people go to great lengths to avoid the tax. Additionally, we need to stop taxing so progressively. Taxation that compounds as success increases assumes that property rights have a diminishing marginal validity. I fail to see how that can be a reasonable principled position. 
In a later post I plan to sketch out my idea of the tax policy I would most like to see replace our current nightmare. 

Saturday, December 8, 2012

The Heisman isn't what you think it is.

In a few hours from my writing this post the winner of the 2012 Heisman Memorial Trophy will be announced. The mythology and atmosphere of the prize are perfect for what the Heisman is, a beauty contest, but they mislead the many into believing there is an objective order at work. Kevin Gemmell at ESPN.com has a great article defending the Heisman, and I have to agree with many of his points. However, he stops short of a meaningful understanding of the key difference I believe I have identified. Namely, that we are recognizing someone who has lucked into winning the beauty contest rather than definitively achieved the status of "outstanding college football player in the United States"--the trophy's official meaning.

Here are my main faults with the Heisman:

  • It is ironic that in the most quintessentially team team sport, the most celebrated individual award at the college level is bestowed. We should already be suspect that there is less meaningfulness in the award than conventional wisdom holds.
  • There is certainly an element of Keynes' beauty contest going on in the voting where voters are attempting to vote a ballot they expect others will respect. The easiest way to do this is to vote congruently to the perceived typical ballot. 
  • But at the same time there is rampantly poor voter performance including nearly fraudulent behavior. Leaving candidates off ballots because including them hurts the chances of a voter's preferred candidate undercuts the legitimacy of the award. Voting early is also a problem. The bias in voting cannot be overlooked when evaluating if the process is flawed. 
  • The criteria is unclear and inconsistent. Gemmell holds this as a feature, not a bug. He may be right, but it still argues against the idea that this process produces an objective result. Running with that a little more, we have to recognize that statistics drive this award. And not just any stats, cumulative and simplistic stats. Stats that have little to do with a team winning football games but a lot to do with an individual winning awards. Stats that are highly correlated with winning but that have weak casual or predictive effect on winning. That is a very key distinction. Do you realize that most teams who lead the game at half time go on to win the game? If you find that meaningful, reread the sentence again until it fails to impress you. Coffee is for closers. If stats are your guide to Heisman immortality, they should be stats that indicate contribution more than just participation.
  • The pretentiousness of the prize must also be mentioned. For all the reasons above, we cannot be so pious when considering the prize. 
If we gave a Heisman Trophy in business, Apple would win for its beauty narrowly edging out Wal-Mart who is a finalist based on size. Yet, the goal of business is to make a profit. Both of these firms are very profitable, but Microsoft achieves about 50% more profit per dollar of revenue than does Apple and Exxon Mobil is more profitable than Apple and Wal-Mart combined. The goal of a football team is to win games and the objective of an individual football player should be to contribute to his team's winning. Just as our hypothetical Heisman Trophy for business is recognizing the wrong firms, the real Heisman Trophy is flawed in process such that the recognition fails to be very meaningful.

Truthfully, I am more impressed by awards like Oklahoma's Don Key Award. From SoonerSports:
Oklahoma coaches describe the award as the highest honor an OU football player can receive while playing for the Sooners. The Don Key Award is the only individual award given in Oklahoma football. It goes to the player who best exemplifies the many superior qualities of Key, both on the field and in the classroom.
That award is subjective, but it is limited to the subjectivity of a highly informed coaching staff. It goes to the player or players who contribute to the team and achieve individual success almost as a byproduct.

Friday, December 7, 2012

What's so bad about prices that can change or "float"?

In a surprising and somewhat hopeful development, SEC member Luis Aguilar has told the WSJ (gated) that he has now changed his position on allowing money market mutual funds to have prices different than $1 per share. Technically, the net asset value (NAV) of money market funds are currently pegged to a fixed unit value. Investors put a dollar into a fund, are paid interest on that dollar (recently as low as .01% but not too long ago more like 2-3%), and then can redeem their investment at any time to be returned exactly one dollar. If the value of the fund's investments ever falls below $1 per dollar invested, the fund has "broken the buck" and goes to time out . . . and the financial world comes to an end, or so Federated Investors among others would have us believe.

Federated has been a vocal incumbent fighting these reforms. The firm started one of the first money market funds back in 1974. It has a lot at stake here. The dollar peg restriction acts as a check on entrants into the industry. 

I applaud the idea of a floating NAV for money market funds. As a money manager for hundreds of investors of very wide and diverse liquidity needs, I understand what is at issue with a floating NAV. It probably makes my job a little harder at least initially. But it will make the market deeper and more informative. 

One major benefit of the change could be that the moral hazard that comes from the "guaranteed" dollar value of money market funds is reduced. Investors, especially institutional investors like myself, will have to be more diligent in selecting money market funds. But with that will come more choices and richer choices as competition increases.

Another benefit would be the choice investors would have between funds that aim for a continuation of the dollar peg, but without the legal obligation, and those that allow a wider range of value. Couple this with another important potential reform--allowing funds to gate or block investors from making redemptions on demand. Again, this means more choice for investors allowing them to trade off between liquidity and performance.

Before we get too carried away with this sudden move by the SEC to rationalvania, let's wait to see what actually emerges. The SEC probably hasn't freed itself of the public choice capture that has long plagued it. The exact quote by Mr. Aguilar was, "I'm not fundamentally opposed to including a properly structured floating net asset value as part of a proposal." There is wiggle room there. Still, this seems to be a promising development. Someone somewhere is probably complaining, "This country is going to the dogs. You know, it used to be when you bought a politician, that S.O.B. stayed bought."

Update: Just in case anyone is out there trying to make 2 + 2 = 7, I am not implying there has been any literal purchasing of regulators in Mr. Anguilar's case or any other. 

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

What explains the ideology we choose?

Arnold Kling writing at his new blog (I join many others in welcoming his return to blogging) calls to task those of us who uncharitably describe our ideological opponents in this excellent post. This opened my eyes a bit to my own uncharitable attitudes.

But that wasn't the thing I liked most about the post. The highlight was his characterization of what drives ideologies. I recently was sketching out my own theory as to what the essence of political and ideological beliefs are. Here is my theory:

Most people from all political positions base their beliefs primarily out of a desire to mitigate if not eliminate their fears.

  • Progressives fear free market outcomes from three respects:
    1. Perceived inefficiencies (too many cereals, three gas stations at one intersection, streams of failed businesses, et al.)
    2. Perceived uncertainties (again failing businesses, uncertain future investment & retirement values, fluctuating prices, job losses or changes, et al.)
    3. Perceived inequalities (different pay scales, different growth rates of income, consumption, wealth, etc., varying levels of quality/quantity for goods and services, et al.)
  • Conservatives fear disorder from three respects:
    1. Perceived indulgences (gluttony, sexuality, et al.)
    2. Perceived freeloading (unnecessary welfare, shirking of duty, et al.)
    3. Perceived radicalism (morality without God, challenge to authority, breaking of protocol or decorum, et al.)
  • Libertarians fear corrupt control from three respects:
    1. Perceived economic restraint (property rights violations, reordering of economic outcomes, reversals of earned fortunes, et al.)
    2. Perceived intolerance (personal life decisions like who to marry, methods to find pleasure from drugs to sex to music to travel to thoughts, et al.)
    3. Perceived association prohibitions (where and with whom to live, to work, to trade, et al.)

Maybe I've been reading Kling so long that we are mind melding, or perhaps great minds independently think alike. I look forward to the essay he says in the post is forthcoming on this topic.

P.S. Another way of looking at these three groups might be that progressives worry about who wasn't invited to the party, conservatives worry there will be a party, and libertarians worry the progressives and conservatives are going to ruin the party, TOGA! TOGA! Yes, this is probably uncharitable. 

Planes, trains, and central planning

I recently took the family to the 36th annual Oklahoma City Train Show. Since my 3-year-old son thinks trains are the reason for man's being, this event was a big hit. Several of the displays were quite impressive. It is always amazing to me how diverse and intense human interests can be.

Looking at the various model towns and layouts, I couldn't help but think how much these models look like the real world but are in fact so very different. There is a lesson here for economics. Our models are vague facsimiles of what human existence looks like. They are not complete representations. We zone and plan cities as if we were designing a model train set rather than establishing incentives/disincentives in relative darkness.

The human world is filled with incredible complexities no individual or group can possibly know, understand, or fully appreciate. The train set world is a design-able project aimed at satisfying one train enthusiast or at most a small group. The human world must evolve over time with many random, chaotic elements interceding. The train set world is fixed.

There is no cause and effect in designing model train layouts aside from the designer wanting something and then acting to bring it about. But cause and effect is multidimensional and phenomenally jumbled in the human world. Of course this inconvenient fact need not stop our attempts at assigning cause to effect. Hence, renters and multi-unit housing cause higher crime rates and lower home values. Good urban planning causes successful restaurants and profitable entertainment districts.

Yet again I hear Hayek:
The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.