Tue, Sep 27, 2016 page10

• Apple now ‘boring’ enough to buy

  VIEW FROM SCANDINAVIA: Nordia Bank’s Robert Naess thinks Apple’s long-term prospects are good, but he is less sanguine about Tesla Motors’ ability to make money

  • Bloomberg
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  Apple Inc losing steam only makes it a bargain.

  The iPhone maker is cheap and the risk is lower, according to Robert Naess, who oversees 33 billion euros (US$37 billion) in stocks at Nordea Bank, Scandinavia’s largest bank.

  “Apple is boring now,” he said in an interview at Nordea’s offices in Oslo on Thursday. “Before there was no stability and growth was too high.”

  Investors have started questioning Apple’s ability to expand after the company ended 13 straight years of uninterrupted sales growth earlier this year. Shares are up 6.8 percent so far this year.

  For Naess, 52, it is a buying opportunity. He started buying stock in May and now holds about 2 percent in Apple in his funds.

  “It’s the first time,” he said. “We’ve had the fund since 2005 and never owned Apple.”

  Naess and his partner Claus Vorm quantitatively analyze thousands of companies to build a portfolio of about 100 “boring” stocks. They are investing in companies with the most stable earnings and avoiding expensive stocks.

  Global Stable Equity Fund has returned 19 percent on average in the past five years, beating 98 percent of its peers.

  “Many think it’s a peak, Apple is done and won’t succeed anymore, but we look at the long-term earnings trend,” Naess said. “Our case it that they keep their market share and that things will be OK going forward.”

  Overall, earnings growth estimates for next year are too high, according to Naess.

  A year from now, global earnings growth will be as low as zero percent, which will cool the market, he said.

  While Naess operates strictly by the spreadsheet when it comes to investing, on a personal level his passion is cars, especially Teslas.

  He and his family have bought so many of the top-end electric cars that Elon Musk’s carmaker at one time banned him from ordering more.

  With sales now down, he said he is once again allowed to place orders and is about to receive a Tesla Model X in the fall.

  However, one thing he will not buy is the company’s stock.

  “Don’t buy Tesla [Motors] because they lose money all the time,” he said. “Economically, Tesla is a terribly bad company.”

  There is a high risk Tesla will not make any money because it is difficult to go from producing 50,000 cars to more than 500,000 cars, he said.

  “I think they won’t make it,” Naess said. “I use Tesla as an example of a stock you shouldn’t invest in, even if they make fun and fine cars that I buy.”

  While his funds have outperformed in the low rate environment in the years after the financial crisis, Naess sees rising rates as a long-term threat to his funds’ returns.

  “It’s difficult to hide from that risk,” he said. “But the risk for that is low. It could happen but it could take 30 years before it happens.”
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