The Dollar Index (DXY) is usually considered a trading equivalent of the spot currencies on which it is based. But despite its firmly speculative nature, the index has been no more volatile than its currency components over the past year and in specific cases it has been considerably less so.
The DXY is composed of a basket of five currencies, Euro 57.6%, Yen 13.6%, Sterling 11.9%, Canadian Dollar 9.1%, Swedish Krona 4.2%, and Swiss Franc 3.6%. The index, whose futures trade on the Intercontinental Exchange, was originally created in 1973 by JP Morgan. It components have only been rebalanced once for the inception of the Euro.
Indices are private trading vehicles designed to reflect market interest and to be instruments that traders find useful for speculation. They are designed solely to attract trading enthusiasm; they are not necessarily intended to accurately reflect the economic or financial realities of the currency or its country.
DXY 10 Year Chart (Bloomberg)
The DXY does not mirror the United States trade position in the global economy. It is heavily weighted to Europe, undervalues the Canadian Dollar, ignores South Korea Taiwan and by necessity China. A firm cannot settle a trade flow in the DXY nor is it particularly useful as a hedge because of the specific matrix of its components. But because of these non-economic aspects, an index may conceivably reflect speculative currency opinion more accurately than the underlying currencies. Indices are not directly buffeted by trade flows, subject to investment and capital controls, banking regulation and other rules and regulation impinging on currency speculation except as they affect the constituent components of the index. The speculative urge should dominate the index.
For these reasons the DXY and other instruments like it are thought to reflect overall speculative dollar sentiment without the complicating factors of economics and finance. As example if dollar sentiment is negative then it could be more negative in an index because the makeup of open positioning will only be between the overall positive and negative market sentiment for the currency. From a trader’s point of view, the more an index reflects speculative intent the more volatility it is likely to contain and the more it will move. Movement equals profit, or at least potential profits.
Over the past year dollar sentiment has boomed during the acute crisis phase of the financial crisis, from September to early March for most currencies, and then beat a long retreat as the fear of world economic collapse has ebbed. Is this movement reflected in the volatility of the DXY and does it compare to the shifts in its major components?
During the Dollar positive phase of the crisis, the DXY gained 18% (9/22/08-3/4/09). In the same time frame the US Dollar added 16% versus the Euro (9/22/08 to 3/4/09 and 22% from the 7/15/08 low), 26% against the Sterling (9/18/08 to 1/23/09), 8% against the Swiss Franc (9/22/08-3/12/09), and 27% versus the Canadian Dollar. The American Dollar lost 0.5% % against the Yen from September to early April but gained 16% from its December low to its April 4th high.
The Yen is the exception to the general improvement in the Dollar in this period because its valuation was driven by the precipitous fall in the Yen crosses. The Yen crosses had to reach their nadir which the Euro/Yen did on January 21st before the Dollar could begin to trade higher on its own against the Japanese currency.
Since the index reached its crisis high on March 4th of this year it has lost 16% to Friday’s close. In that same period and from its March high the Dollar lost 19% against the Euro, 23% against the Sterling (from 3/11), 12% versus the Yen, 15% against the Swiss Franc and 19% against the Canadian. The Dollar lost more against each component currency except the Yen and the Swiss that it did in the DXY. From a speculative trading perspective, as least during the Dollar retreat, the components were the place to be.
The peculiar conditions of the financial crisis may have played a large part in this unusual volatility in the real rather than the created currency. The salient fact in the first phase of the crisis was the pursuit of safety by any means. The currency flows during this period were a flood into dollar assets and then in the work out phase an even greater flood out. It seems that when these flows were added to the normal speculative positioning in the currencies they added substantially to the volatility in the real rather than the DXY.
The trading advantage of the currencies over the Dollar Index was most pronounced in the Dollar retreat. Once the reasons for the Dollar ascent in the acute phase of the crisis became clear, and it also became evident that the government rescues would succeed, large speculative interest joined the simple reversal of the pro-Dollar risk aversion trade. These speculative positions were all against the Dollar. Once traders had a chance to assay the situation it became obvious that the abnormal piling into Dollar assets would reverse and the market would join in the rout.
In currency trading the advantage for potential profitability between a derivative and its underlying generally lies with the underlying instrument. For the Dollar Index it is no different. Even during the immense dislocation of the financial crisis the greatest potential for profit was in the spot currencies themselves.
Joseph Trevisani
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Market Direction
President Obama’s trip to Asia is one part introduction, one part diplomatic dialogue and eight parts competitive economics. Whatever agreements are met with leaders of Japan, and South Korean or communiqués are issued from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference (APEC) in Singapore, it is the visit to Beijing that matters.
The American President would like China’s cooperation on the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs, a more flexible currency policy for the yuan, open trade and continued Chinese purchase of American debt. He is likely to obtain only the last, the price for which will be all the others.
China wants unquestioned sovereignty over Tibet, an uncritical acceptance of its internal political and economic policies and reassurance that the United States will honor its debts, rein in deficit spending and prevent a dollar collapse.
The Beijing rulers received assurance on Tibet when Obama refused to see the exiled Tibetan Dali Lama. This administration has not, as in previous terms, harangued China to open its political and economic system. There has been little or no criticism of China from the American political establishment prior to this trip, Treasury Secretary Geithner’s ‘manipulated yuan’ comment before the Senate Finance Committee notwithstanding.
The trade-off will come between the competitive economic agendas of China and the United States. The terms of this agreement have already been set; the China trip simply makes the new status quo plain for all to see.
President Obama will reassure President Hu that Washington takes its debt obligations seriously, that it is about to become serious about controlling Federal spending and that it holds to a strong dollar policy. President Hu will promise not to withdraw Chinese support from the Treasury market. The Chinese will pretend to believe the Americans and the Americans will not press them on any other topic.
The price for China’s continued support of the US debt market and by extension of the administration’s domestic agenda is American acquiescence in all international topics of importance to China. For the Chinese it is an excellent trade, a chance to neuter its greatest international adversary for the price of an investment it would probably have to make anyway. The basic fact of the trade is that China feels it has choices and the United States fears it does not. As long as a Chinese withdrawal from the US debt markets is more frightening to Washington than to Beijing China will have the upper hand in this relationship.
The Chinese currency policy does not just affect its trade with the United States. Because the yuan has been essentially fixed against the dollar since last summer it has depreciated against all other currencies as the dollar has fallen. Terms of trade have worsened for Europe, South Korean, Japan, Taiwan and all of China’s trading partners. Asian central banks have had to spend billions of reserves defending the dollar against their own currencies lest the appreciation become detrimental to their economies. Though the recession has been less severe in Asia it has not skipped over the region. World trade has had a larger percentage drop than the fall in GDP of any individual national economy; the economies that depend most heavily on exports have suffered the most. It does not help that the currency markets have long participated in the positive speculative view of Asian currencies against the dollar.
China’s position as the chief and most important creditor of the United States gives it an influence in the world economy much greater than its relatively fragile political and economic strength warrants. Only the United States has the economic, political and military weight to challenge the Beijing Government’s economic and trade policies. But US opposition is hamstrung by its need to petition the Chinese for more and more money. One cannot ask one’s banker for bigger and bigger loans and then complain about the interest rate.
Beijing’s understanding of the terms of trade that are best for the Chinese economy is encapsulated by its yuan policy. In the long run a currency program that beggars its neighbors does not do China, its trading partners or the world economy any good. After all someone, someplace has to buy Chinese products. Stable economic development for China, as for all others, depends on a domestic economy that absorbs a large portion of the national production. But, at least for the time being China’s rulers have decided that they can obtain a better deal in the global market than the combined opposition of her trading partners led by the United States would have formerly permitted.
President Obama’s visit to Beijing is an acknowledgement of the new status quo in the world economy. China will set the terms of her trade for the world until the United States regains control of its own budget.
Joseph Trevisani
The American President would like China’s cooperation on the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs, a more flexible currency policy for the yuan, open trade and continued Chinese purchase of American debt. He is likely to obtain only the last, the price for which will be all the others.
China wants unquestioned sovereignty over Tibet, an uncritical acceptance of its internal political and economic policies and reassurance that the United States will honor its debts, rein in deficit spending and prevent a dollar collapse.
The Beijing rulers received assurance on Tibet when Obama refused to see the exiled Tibetan Dali Lama. This administration has not, as in previous terms, harangued China to open its political and economic system. There has been little or no criticism of China from the American political establishment prior to this trip, Treasury Secretary Geithner’s ‘manipulated yuan’ comment before the Senate Finance Committee notwithstanding.
The trade-off will come between the competitive economic agendas of China and the United States. The terms of this agreement have already been set; the China trip simply makes the new status quo plain for all to see.
President Obama will reassure President Hu that Washington takes its debt obligations seriously, that it is about to become serious about controlling Federal spending and that it holds to a strong dollar policy. President Hu will promise not to withdraw Chinese support from the Treasury market. The Chinese will pretend to believe the Americans and the Americans will not press them on any other topic.
The price for China’s continued support of the US debt market and by extension of the administration’s domestic agenda is American acquiescence in all international topics of importance to China. For the Chinese it is an excellent trade, a chance to neuter its greatest international adversary for the price of an investment it would probably have to make anyway. The basic fact of the trade is that China feels it has choices and the United States fears it does not. As long as a Chinese withdrawal from the US debt markets is more frightening to Washington than to Beijing China will have the upper hand in this relationship.
The Chinese currency policy does not just affect its trade with the United States. Because the yuan has been essentially fixed against the dollar since last summer it has depreciated against all other currencies as the dollar has fallen. Terms of trade have worsened for Europe, South Korean, Japan, Taiwan and all of China’s trading partners. Asian central banks have had to spend billions of reserves defending the dollar against their own currencies lest the appreciation become detrimental to their economies. Though the recession has been less severe in Asia it has not skipped over the region. World trade has had a larger percentage drop than the fall in GDP of any individual national economy; the economies that depend most heavily on exports have suffered the most. It does not help that the currency markets have long participated in the positive speculative view of Asian currencies against the dollar.
China’s position as the chief and most important creditor of the United States gives it an influence in the world economy much greater than its relatively fragile political and economic strength warrants. Only the United States has the economic, political and military weight to challenge the Beijing Government’s economic and trade policies. But US opposition is hamstrung by its need to petition the Chinese for more and more money. One cannot ask one’s banker for bigger and bigger loans and then complain about the interest rate.
Beijing’s understanding of the terms of trade that are best for the Chinese economy is encapsulated by its yuan policy. In the long run a currency program that beggars its neighbors does not do China, its trading partners or the world economy any good. After all someone, someplace has to buy Chinese products. Stable economic development for China, as for all others, depends on a domestic economy that absorbs a large portion of the national production. But, at least for the time being China’s rulers have decided that they can obtain a better deal in the global market than the combined opposition of her trading partners led by the United States would have formerly permitted.
President Obama’s visit to Beijing is an acknowledgement of the new status quo in the world economy. China will set the terms of her trade for the world until the United States regains control of its own budget.
Joseph Trevisani
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Market Direction
The spectacular rise in gold, now hovering in record territory, has been fostered by three very different conceptions: gold as a trader’s choice, gold as a theoretical proof and gold as a historical metaphor.
For the believers in metaphor the ascent of the metal is an augury for the decline of the west; for the theoreticians it is the only secure defense against inflation; for the traders it is a momentum purchase not to be missed. All three groups are buying gold and as yet, none have been proven wrong.
If we translate these speculations into currency terms the traders promise a long position with better returns than any other investment. The theoreticians predict a global currency system ravaged by government inflation and a revolving cast of devalued national scripts. And the third intimates the ultimate end of the dollar as the world reserve currency presumably replaced by the yuan. All three foresee a continued fall in the value of the dollar.
The economic logic of the three groups of gold supporters is currently aligned and all are profiting from the rise in prices. But it would be remarkable if three such disparate scenarios remained in tune for long.
The east may indeed replace the west as the dominant global economic center but it will not do so in time for the ‘metaphorical Spenglerians’ (so named for Oswald Spengler who published The Decline of the West in 1918) to take profit on their investment. Even if true the western decline will be slow and erratic and these position takers will miss their profit levels waiting for the final collapse.
For the theoreticians or monetarists, the second group of ‘gold bugs’, inflation will suddenly spring out of the ground like the product of so many governmental dragons’ teeth. It is inevitable, increase the money supply and inflation follows.
However, with prices in decline in many industrial economies and unemployment at a new and much higher normal, it is hard to see firms extracting higher prices from consumers when cheaper international goods are so readily available. Whatever the theoretical prospect for inflation the current empirical evidence points the other way, toward deflation.
For the third group, the traders, theory and metaphor are irrelevent. The global financial system is under a soothing blanket of liquidity. The central bankers who have warmed the world with cash and who are now (we assume) very aware of the danger of prolonged cheap credit will (we assume), sooner or later, begin to draw back the protecting cover of liquidity. But the reabsorption of liquidity by the banks is wholly conditional on economic recovery. The most forthright of the world’s central bankers, Ben Bernanke of the American Federal Reserve has stated this over and over; there is no reason to doubt his word.
The gold buyers in this group believe the Chairman. Until the central bank begins to tighten credit, excess cash and the pursuit of trading profit determines the price of gold. It does not matter that the bankers say they will tighten credit when the proper time comes, what matters is action. Until the banks actually begin to raise rates and subtract liquidity, for them, gold is a solid buy.
Of the three scenarios the first, the ‘Spenglerian’ is the most impervious to evidence. It exists apart from factual verification or to put it another way, it is always possible to find evidence that the west is declining. It is just a matter of choosing the right statistics. In practical and emotional terms this group will always be long gold, though it is in unsettled times like ours that they do the most buying.
For the monetarists results depend largely on logic and economic equations. If so much liquidity is loosed on financial markets it must over time (duration unspecified) produce inflation. It is a simple monetary equation, a rising pile of cash chasing a much more slowly rising pile of goods and assets. Over time inflation is the end product. But inflation is not solely the product of a balanced equation between cash and goods. Firms must be able to raise prices and consumers must be able to pay those higher prices and those last factors are now very much absent.
Yet economic stagnation and inflation are not mutually exclusive. If returning American economic growth is not sufficient to reduce unemployment what are the chances that the Fed will commence raising rates regardless of the price index? And if on the other side of the world East Asian economic growth takes off and forces commodity and goods prices higher those prices will shortly be felt in the United States. Irrespective of what the US economy is doing the world’s markets can export inflation to the US.
What would prevent the price of oil from climbing as it did last summer if the Chinese, Indian and Brazilian economies accelerate and that third of the world creates its own economic cycle? Will the US be dragged by East Asia into robust recovery? Unknown. But the effect on the overextended American consumer and economy of $100 oil is not unfathomable. There is no certainty that one third of the world economy will be dynamic enough to force prices higher in the US. But if inflation comes in the US it will probably arrive from overseas and US domestic liquidity will have done little to create it.
For the Fed to raise rates and by default defend the dollar US economic growth will have to be robust enough to begin to take down the unemployment rate. This is an entirely unsure prospect.
US consumers are tapped there has been no sign in retails sales or consumer credit that the drivers of US growth have resumed their seats behind the wheel. The effect of a weak dollar on US exports may be pronounced. Shipments may increase enough to substantially reduce the trade deficit. But the US is not an export driven economy nor is its work force widely engaged in manufacturing. Exports may grow appreciably without it having any noticeable effect on American unemployment. Exports might look excellent to economists and free traders without US workers feeling any better or increasing their spending.
Of the three gold buying groups, the monetarists and the traders are most susceptible to Fed policy changes. But the traders are likely to act first. For them the earliest indication of a genuine change in Fed policy will be enough to abandon their long gold positions for profit. Monetarists are likely to wait until they are sure the Fed will act and then wait again until there is proof that the Fed has acted in time to prevent inflation.
And there we have the pernicious effect on the dollar. Until the Federal Reserve reestablishes the link between economic growth and interest rates the logic of the gold buyers is inescapable. Gold is not predicting a decline in the dollar or the inevitable advent of inflation but it is promising that without a vigilant Fed the first will continue and the second creep ever closer.
Joseph Trevisani
For the believers in metaphor the ascent of the metal is an augury for the decline of the west; for the theoreticians it is the only secure defense against inflation; for the traders it is a momentum purchase not to be missed. All three groups are buying gold and as yet, none have been proven wrong.
If we translate these speculations into currency terms the traders promise a long position with better returns than any other investment. The theoreticians predict a global currency system ravaged by government inflation and a revolving cast of devalued national scripts. And the third intimates the ultimate end of the dollar as the world reserve currency presumably replaced by the yuan. All three foresee a continued fall in the value of the dollar.
The economic logic of the three groups of gold supporters is currently aligned and all are profiting from the rise in prices. But it would be remarkable if three such disparate scenarios remained in tune for long.
The east may indeed replace the west as the dominant global economic center but it will not do so in time for the ‘metaphorical Spenglerians’ (so named for Oswald Spengler who published The Decline of the West in 1918) to take profit on their investment. Even if true the western decline will be slow and erratic and these position takers will miss their profit levels waiting for the final collapse.
For the theoreticians or monetarists, the second group of ‘gold bugs’, inflation will suddenly spring out of the ground like the product of so many governmental dragons’ teeth. It is inevitable, increase the money supply and inflation follows.
However, with prices in decline in many industrial economies and unemployment at a new and much higher normal, it is hard to see firms extracting higher prices from consumers when cheaper international goods are so readily available. Whatever the theoretical prospect for inflation the current empirical evidence points the other way, toward deflation.
For the third group, the traders, theory and metaphor are irrelevent. The global financial system is under a soothing blanket of liquidity. The central bankers who have warmed the world with cash and who are now (we assume) very aware of the danger of prolonged cheap credit will (we assume), sooner or later, begin to draw back the protecting cover of liquidity. But the reabsorption of liquidity by the banks is wholly conditional on economic recovery. The most forthright of the world’s central bankers, Ben Bernanke of the American Federal Reserve has stated this over and over; there is no reason to doubt his word.
The gold buyers in this group believe the Chairman. Until the central bank begins to tighten credit, excess cash and the pursuit of trading profit determines the price of gold. It does not matter that the bankers say they will tighten credit when the proper time comes, what matters is action. Until the banks actually begin to raise rates and subtract liquidity, for them, gold is a solid buy.
Of the three scenarios the first, the ‘Spenglerian’ is the most impervious to evidence. It exists apart from factual verification or to put it another way, it is always possible to find evidence that the west is declining. It is just a matter of choosing the right statistics. In practical and emotional terms this group will always be long gold, though it is in unsettled times like ours that they do the most buying.
For the monetarists results depend largely on logic and economic equations. If so much liquidity is loosed on financial markets it must over time (duration unspecified) produce inflation. It is a simple monetary equation, a rising pile of cash chasing a much more slowly rising pile of goods and assets. Over time inflation is the end product. But inflation is not solely the product of a balanced equation between cash and goods. Firms must be able to raise prices and consumers must be able to pay those higher prices and those last factors are now very much absent.
Yet economic stagnation and inflation are not mutually exclusive. If returning American economic growth is not sufficient to reduce unemployment what are the chances that the Fed will commence raising rates regardless of the price index? And if on the other side of the world East Asian economic growth takes off and forces commodity and goods prices higher those prices will shortly be felt in the United States. Irrespective of what the US economy is doing the world’s markets can export inflation to the US.
What would prevent the price of oil from climbing as it did last summer if the Chinese, Indian and Brazilian economies accelerate and that third of the world creates its own economic cycle? Will the US be dragged by East Asia into robust recovery? Unknown. But the effect on the overextended American consumer and economy of $100 oil is not unfathomable. There is no certainty that one third of the world economy will be dynamic enough to force prices higher in the US. But if inflation comes in the US it will probably arrive from overseas and US domestic liquidity will have done little to create it.
For the Fed to raise rates and by default defend the dollar US economic growth will have to be robust enough to begin to take down the unemployment rate. This is an entirely unsure prospect.
US consumers are tapped there has been no sign in retails sales or consumer credit that the drivers of US growth have resumed their seats behind the wheel. The effect of a weak dollar on US exports may be pronounced. Shipments may increase enough to substantially reduce the trade deficit. But the US is not an export driven economy nor is its work force widely engaged in manufacturing. Exports may grow appreciably without it having any noticeable effect on American unemployment. Exports might look excellent to economists and free traders without US workers feeling any better or increasing their spending.
Of the three gold buying groups, the monetarists and the traders are most susceptible to Fed policy changes. But the traders are likely to act first. For them the earliest indication of a genuine change in Fed policy will be enough to abandon their long gold positions for profit. Monetarists are likely to wait until they are sure the Fed will act and then wait again until there is proof that the Fed has acted in time to prevent inflation.
And there we have the pernicious effect on the dollar. Until the Federal Reserve reestablishes the link between economic growth and interest rates the logic of the gold buyers is inescapable. Gold is not predicting a decline in the dollar or the inevitable advent of inflation but it is promising that without a vigilant Fed the first will continue and the second creep ever closer.
Joseph Trevisani
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Market Direction
Nothing charges the volatility of the currency markets like an unexpected result for a well watched economic statistic.
A decade ago, the United States International Trade Balance caused violent gyrations in the Forex market, so much so that traders referred to those Friday morning sessions as “New York Fridays” naming and fearing the dangerous market after the trade balance release. Only a few other American statistics, unemployment, GNP (as GDP was then called) and CPI could, on occasion, provide a similar charge. For most traders the US statistical regime was limited to these major national statistics collected by the US government.
Then, as now, these statistics were released and dominated trading once a month. For the rest of the time, markets were moved by trading flows and speculative interest. Second and third tier economic statistics did not draw market attention. Ten years ago no one was betting their P/L on the Chicago Purchasers Index or Housing Starts; the Institute of Supply Management (ISM)) Non-Manufacturing Index was wholly unnoticed.
Over the past several years, market participants and the financial media have substantially widened their statistical focus. Many second and third tier measures now garner the type of interest and comment that used to be reserved for GDP or Non Farm Payrolls. The US economy has over 50 (or 60, or 1000, I am not sure anyone has counted) publicly reported economic statistics. There are easily enough PPI, Industrial Production, Consumer Sentiment, Durable Goods, Retail Sales, ISM, NAPM, TICS, NAHB and Redbook numbers reported each month to keep an army of analysts busy. How can traders judge which statistics deserve attention and which are of cursory or cumulative interest?
Aside from the few well known economy wide measures already mentioned, most statistics record activity in a specific industry or economic sector or for a limited time period. The usefulness and predictive ability of the majority of these indicators is strongest when they are combined with other measures or when part of a trend.
As a general guide to trading value, I have divided indicators into three groups: trend, situational and headline, distinguished by the quality of their information and the type of influence they exert over the current market.
Trend statistics, not surprisingly, are most valuable when they are trending. Because these indicators depict conditions in a relatively restricted area of the economy or for a short amount of time individual releases can be misleading or simply outliers. It is risky to base an economic assessment or trade on the return of a single trend statistic.
Different indicators from the same sector can give an accurate glimpse of that particular economic sector but not necessarily of the economy as a whole. Even when different monthly statistics point in a similar direction, only several months of releases can establish a trend.
A drop in the monthly capacity utilization figure or a rise in the Conference Board Consumer Sentiment measure by itself provides limited information for the trader. But if in the space of a week Consumer Sentiment, Factory Orders and ISM all gain you have the makings of a tradable move. When properly utilized, these trend or secondary statistics can supply invaluable clues to economic strength and to the timing and direction of currency moves but their greatest value lies in combination with other similar indicators.
Situational statistics are indicators elevated in importance by particular circumstances. One could also call these central bank or crisis indicators. These numbers are important because they are used by central banks in their own economic analysis or because they depict conditions in a crucial economic sector. These statistics can change over time. As bankers change and crises come and go, newly favored or newly crucial measures will replace the ones currently popular.
Chairman Bernanke has been particularly frank about using the PCE Deflator for measuring inflation. The ECB’s favored inflation statistics are the Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP), and the M3 Money Supply. Earlier leaders of these institutions preferred different measures or refused to say what measures they considered important.
The collapse of the American housing market has given all statistics associated with housing and home construction substantial import. But the housing crisis will not last forever and as it ebbs so will the importance and influence of its indicators.
Headline statistics are economy wide numbers that give the broadest picture of economic conditions. Non Farm Payrolls and GDP are the best current American examples.
These statistics have a history of volatility and of defying market predictions but they also carry pertinent information about the overall economy. The NFP number in particular relates directly to the dominate percentage of the American economy derived from consumer spending and thus to overall economic health.
There is however, another reason for the volatility that often accompanies the release of these figures. These statistics are the basis for large amounts of speculative positioning, both prior to release and immediately after.
The larger the difference between the expected number and the actual statistic, the greater the volatility as traders adjust their position to the new parameter. Even when a headline number is as predicted it can produce violent reactions as those positions based on the expected number take profit.
Headline numbers go in and out of fashion. Ten years ago the trade balance produced volatility even greater than NFP does today. But twenty years of ever worsening numbers have drained the suspense and traders have noted that the dire predictions for the American economy from permanent trade deficits have amounted to very little.
Today’s global economy is an entirely different creature than it was twenty years ago. Instantaneous global financial flows, international manufacture and trade and a 24 hour media have spread the potential and danger of trading markets to every corner of the world economy.
The speed with which the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers undermined financial markets around the world was simply unprecedented but should not have been unexpected.
Are there indicators that better reflect the new global economy and that could become the new trading instigators? Prediction is hazardous but my nominee for the US is the Treasury International Capital System Report (TICS) of the Treasury Department. This statistic tracks foreign investment in the American economy, the purchases of American stocks bonds and Treasuries. With the Federal deficit largely funded by foreign capital what could be more important?
Joseph Trevisani
A decade ago, the United States International Trade Balance caused violent gyrations in the Forex market, so much so that traders referred to those Friday morning sessions as “New York Fridays” naming and fearing the dangerous market after the trade balance release. Only a few other American statistics, unemployment, GNP (as GDP was then called) and CPI could, on occasion, provide a similar charge. For most traders the US statistical regime was limited to these major national statistics collected by the US government.
Then, as now, these statistics were released and dominated trading once a month. For the rest of the time, markets were moved by trading flows and speculative interest. Second and third tier economic statistics did not draw market attention. Ten years ago no one was betting their P/L on the Chicago Purchasers Index or Housing Starts; the Institute of Supply Management (ISM)) Non-Manufacturing Index was wholly unnoticed.
Over the past several years, market participants and the financial media have substantially widened their statistical focus. Many second and third tier measures now garner the type of interest and comment that used to be reserved for GDP or Non Farm Payrolls. The US economy has over 50 (or 60, or 1000, I am not sure anyone has counted) publicly reported economic statistics. There are easily enough PPI, Industrial Production, Consumer Sentiment, Durable Goods, Retail Sales, ISM, NAPM, TICS, NAHB and Redbook numbers reported each month to keep an army of analysts busy. How can traders judge which statistics deserve attention and which are of cursory or cumulative interest?
Aside from the few well known economy wide measures already mentioned, most statistics record activity in a specific industry or economic sector or for a limited time period. The usefulness and predictive ability of the majority of these indicators is strongest when they are combined with other measures or when part of a trend.
As a general guide to trading value, I have divided indicators into three groups: trend, situational and headline, distinguished by the quality of their information and the type of influence they exert over the current market.
Trend statistics, not surprisingly, are most valuable when they are trending. Because these indicators depict conditions in a relatively restricted area of the economy or for a short amount of time individual releases can be misleading or simply outliers. It is risky to base an economic assessment or trade on the return of a single trend statistic.
Different indicators from the same sector can give an accurate glimpse of that particular economic sector but not necessarily of the economy as a whole. Even when different monthly statistics point in a similar direction, only several months of releases can establish a trend.
A drop in the monthly capacity utilization figure or a rise in the Conference Board Consumer Sentiment measure by itself provides limited information for the trader. But if in the space of a week Consumer Sentiment, Factory Orders and ISM all gain you have the makings of a tradable move. When properly utilized, these trend or secondary statistics can supply invaluable clues to economic strength and to the timing and direction of currency moves but their greatest value lies in combination with other similar indicators.
Situational statistics are indicators elevated in importance by particular circumstances. One could also call these central bank or crisis indicators. These numbers are important because they are used by central banks in their own economic analysis or because they depict conditions in a crucial economic sector. These statistics can change over time. As bankers change and crises come and go, newly favored or newly crucial measures will replace the ones currently popular.
Chairman Bernanke has been particularly frank about using the PCE Deflator for measuring inflation. The ECB’s favored inflation statistics are the Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP), and the M3 Money Supply. Earlier leaders of these institutions preferred different measures or refused to say what measures they considered important.
The collapse of the American housing market has given all statistics associated with housing and home construction substantial import. But the housing crisis will not last forever and as it ebbs so will the importance and influence of its indicators.
Headline statistics are economy wide numbers that give the broadest picture of economic conditions. Non Farm Payrolls and GDP are the best current American examples.
These statistics have a history of volatility and of defying market predictions but they also carry pertinent information about the overall economy. The NFP number in particular relates directly to the dominate percentage of the American economy derived from consumer spending and thus to overall economic health.
There is however, another reason for the volatility that often accompanies the release of these figures. These statistics are the basis for large amounts of speculative positioning, both prior to release and immediately after.
The larger the difference between the expected number and the actual statistic, the greater the volatility as traders adjust their position to the new parameter. Even when a headline number is as predicted it can produce violent reactions as those positions based on the expected number take profit.
Headline numbers go in and out of fashion. Ten years ago the trade balance produced volatility even greater than NFP does today. But twenty years of ever worsening numbers have drained the suspense and traders have noted that the dire predictions for the American economy from permanent trade deficits have amounted to very little.
Today’s global economy is an entirely different creature than it was twenty years ago. Instantaneous global financial flows, international manufacture and trade and a 24 hour media have spread the potential and danger of trading markets to every corner of the world economy.
The speed with which the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers undermined financial markets around the world was simply unprecedented but should not have been unexpected.
Are there indicators that better reflect the new global economy and that could become the new trading instigators? Prediction is hazardous but my nominee for the US is the Treasury International Capital System Report (TICS) of the Treasury Department. This statistic tracks foreign investment in the American economy, the purchases of American stocks bonds and Treasuries. With the Federal deficit largely funded by foreign capital what could be more important?
Joseph Trevisani
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Market Direction
When yields on the 10 Year Treasury note were climbing to 4.0% last spring bond traders fears were focused three items: the Federal Reserve’s liquidity provisions, the Obama administration’s ten year deficit projections and the inflationary potential of both programs. The collapse in Treasury prices prompted the Fed’s entry into the Treasury market. Its $300 billon program to purchase government debt led to suspicions that the US Government had embarked on direct monetization of its debt, printing dollars to make up for the revenues it no longer had. As the Treasury began to auction its debentures these fears undermined confidence that investors would accept the new issuance at market rates.
China and Russian were the most vocal about the danger to their American investments from a collapsing dollar but the risk applied to all holders of US notes. The Chinese and the Russians outlined their concerns in clear and unsusually plain language. Chinese officials warned the US government to be mindful of its status as the world's largest holder of US debt and cautioned Washington to act as a careful custodian of its currency. The Russian were blunter, calling for a new world reserve currency to replace the dollar.
If the debt markets did not readily buy American notes because of worries about the US dollar, American bond rates would be forced higher dragging mortgage and other US rates with them. The US government’s efforts to limit the economic damage of the financial crisis and recession would be far less effective with higher mortgage and credit card rates. Few economists and officials then thought the American economy could tolerate a substantial rise in rates.
But rhetoric aside, the Chinese had reasons of their own to fear what would have been a dangerous fall in the Treasury markets and the consequent rise in American interest rates.
China depends on the world’s economy to buy her exports. If the US Treasury markets had cratered in the spring the effect on the US economy and the world could have been catastrophic. In the frightened atmosphere last spring that risk was very high.
At the very least a collapse in the Treasury market would have heightened the sense of disaster that was just beginning to ebb, seriously deepened the recession and hastened the decline in world trade. In that febrile atmosphere a Chinese withdrawal from the US Treasury markets would have had global effects.
Chinese exports contracted dramatically in the late fall, winter and early spring. Factories closed, millions of migrant workers to the cities were thrown out of work bringing with them the specter of civil unrest which is never far from the minds of the rulers in Beijing.
When the US began its Treasury auctions China’s immediate self interest kept her actively involved. As the most visible of the world’s governments participating in the Treasury market any sign of actual withdrawal, as opposed to theoretical criticism, would have had a dire effect on the worldwide appetite for US debt.
China clearly had and has a present interest in keeping the US Treasury market from sinking and in keeping US rates low and the US economy on track for the strongest recovery possible. But there is also a long term Chinese interest in fostering the US debt binge.
The Obama administration has embarked on the largest expansion of US debt in history. Its legislative plans include the greatest addition to government services since the Depression. Such a program cannot be accomplished without the cooperation of the world’s credit markets; the leading buyers of US debt are other governments with China paramount. If China does not acquiesce to the increase in US debt the administration will have a much harder time enacting its plans. The most likely political result in Washington would be a curtailment of US Government spending and a drop in the amount of debt that the Treasury would have to issue.
But if the administration is able to complete its economic agenda the result will be an enormous increase of US debt and eventually higher taxes to pay for those programs and the debt.
The exaction that this debt will take from the US economy in lower productivity and economic growth will permanently alter the position of the US economy in the world. If the administration completes its agenda then the dollar will decline, slowly but inexorably, as the US economy slips from its position as the most vibrant mature industrial economy and loses it position as the world's largest national economy.
The possibility for a devaluation of Chinese dollar holding is very real but perhaps Beijing considers it a down payment on the future. Would it not be a worthy price to pay for assisting the self-imposed crippling of her greatest economic competitor?
Joseph Trevisani
China and Russian were the most vocal about the danger to their American investments from a collapsing dollar but the risk applied to all holders of US notes. The Chinese and the Russians outlined their concerns in clear and unsusually plain language. Chinese officials warned the US government to be mindful of its status as the world's largest holder of US debt and cautioned Washington to act as a careful custodian of its currency. The Russian were blunter, calling for a new world reserve currency to replace the dollar.
If the debt markets did not readily buy American notes because of worries about the US dollar, American bond rates would be forced higher dragging mortgage and other US rates with them. The US government’s efforts to limit the economic damage of the financial crisis and recession would be far less effective with higher mortgage and credit card rates. Few economists and officials then thought the American economy could tolerate a substantial rise in rates.
But rhetoric aside, the Chinese had reasons of their own to fear what would have been a dangerous fall in the Treasury markets and the consequent rise in American interest rates.
China depends on the world’s economy to buy her exports. If the US Treasury markets had cratered in the spring the effect on the US economy and the world could have been catastrophic. In the frightened atmosphere last spring that risk was very high.
At the very least a collapse in the Treasury market would have heightened the sense of disaster that was just beginning to ebb, seriously deepened the recession and hastened the decline in world trade. In that febrile atmosphere a Chinese withdrawal from the US Treasury markets would have had global effects.
Chinese exports contracted dramatically in the late fall, winter and early spring. Factories closed, millions of migrant workers to the cities were thrown out of work bringing with them the specter of civil unrest which is never far from the minds of the rulers in Beijing.
When the US began its Treasury auctions China’s immediate self interest kept her actively involved. As the most visible of the world’s governments participating in the Treasury market any sign of actual withdrawal, as opposed to theoretical criticism, would have had a dire effect on the worldwide appetite for US debt.
China clearly had and has a present interest in keeping the US Treasury market from sinking and in keeping US rates low and the US economy on track for the strongest recovery possible. But there is also a long term Chinese interest in fostering the US debt binge.
The Obama administration has embarked on the largest expansion of US debt in history. Its legislative plans include the greatest addition to government services since the Depression. Such a program cannot be accomplished without the cooperation of the world’s credit markets; the leading buyers of US debt are other governments with China paramount. If China does not acquiesce to the increase in US debt the administration will have a much harder time enacting its plans. The most likely political result in Washington would be a curtailment of US Government spending and a drop in the amount of debt that the Treasury would have to issue.
But if the administration is able to complete its economic agenda the result will be an enormous increase of US debt and eventually higher taxes to pay for those programs and the debt.
The exaction that this debt will take from the US economy in lower productivity and economic growth will permanently alter the position of the US economy in the world. If the administration completes its agenda then the dollar will decline, slowly but inexorably, as the US economy slips from its position as the most vibrant mature industrial economy and loses it position as the world's largest national economy.
The possibility for a devaluation of Chinese dollar holding is very real but perhaps Beijing considers it a down payment on the future. Would it not be a worthy price to pay for assisting the self-imposed crippling of her greatest economic competitor?
Joseph Trevisani
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Market Direction
The yen carry trade was one of the great runs in modern currency history. A long position opened in late in late 2003 and held until mid-2007 appreciated over 30% in capital and could have earned upwards of 7% a year on the interest rate spread. At the trade’s height from mid-2005 until the summer of 2007 the trajectory of yen crosses rose with barely a correction.
Japanese rates in that period never rose above 0.5%. The worldwide lure of yen funding was not only the extremely low cost of money but the knowledge that the Bank of Japan (BOJ) could not raise rates.
Interest rates in the United States are the equivalent of the zero rate policy in Japan. If the Fed cannot raise rates because of anemic US economic growth will the dollar replace the yen as the world funding currency?
The extended period of effective zero interest rates in Japan was the financial rationale for the carry trade. But low interest rates alone did not account for the longevity of the yen carry trade. Long positioning in the carry returned the rate differential and trading interest and easy credit for speculators kept the crosses moving higher. But equally important was the trap that the Japanese economy held for the BOJ. The Japanese central bank could not raise rates. The performance of the Japanese economy since 1989 and her political reality precluded it. Currency traders enjoyed a more than reasonable conviction that whatever BOJ officials might say Japanese rates would stay low.
Japan’s lost decade began in late 1989 when the Bank of Japan sharply raised interest rates to combat a credit fueled bubble in the property and stock markets. Both markets crashed. Twenty years later neither have regained the prices of that decade. But having engineered the calamity the Japanese government did not insist on the rationalization of insolvent banks and industrial companies. Banks were kept alive with government aid and falling companies were supported by bank loans and subsidies. Economic growth ground to a halt.
From 1995 onward the main Japanese interest rate set by the Bank of Japan was never higher than 0.5%. But the extremely low rates did not spur economic growth. The zero rate policy which the bank began in 2001 to counter price deflation and foster economic activity accomplished neither goal.
It was the boom years of the world economy in the middle part of this decade and the external demand for Japanese goods that dragged the export dominated Japanese economy out of its self-inflicted doldrums. With the collapse in world demand last year the Japanese economy was again trapped by its export model. Fifteen years of massive government spending and little economic reform has only succeeded in raising the Japanese debt level to the highest in the industrial world without building a solid domestic base of consumption. Japan’s lost decade could well become permanent if world demand for Japanese products does not recover
In order for the dollar to become the world’s long term funding currency, as the yen was for the better part of the decade, low interest rates are not sufficient. Markets must also become convinced that US rates will stay low for a prolonged period; that period is probably well beyond the horizon currently implied by Fed Chairman Bernanke. Whatever the problems of the American economy markets are far from convinced that a ten year Japanese economic morass awaits the United States.
The currency reaction to the financial crisis and its logic has been well documented. Overnight the dollar and the United States Government became the repository of much of the world’s portable risk capital. The majority of that temporary capital infusion has now left the US seeking investment elsewhere in the world.
The Federal Reserve response to the sub-prime housing problem began two years ago in September 2007 when it cut rates 0.5%. Since then the Fed has taken US rates effectively to zero and supplied enormous amounts of liquidity to the economy, initially to stave off economic collapse and subsequently to secure economic growth.
But the US economy, despite massive losses in property and equities and continuing job destruction, is not facing the economic stasis of Japan’s lost decade
The US economy is larger and more diverse than Japan's. Exports do not dominate the economy. The US population is growing and domestic consumption is the bulk of GDP. The US financial and economic system is far less controlled by the central government and economic rationalization of banks and companies is taking place. The US will probably not have a large number of companies kept alive with permanent government subsidies. In short the US economy is still expected to recover and to grow next year. The Fed will not have to keep rates below 0.5% for a decade. Far more likely is a Fed rate hike cycle beginning in late 2010 or 2011.
The dollar will not become the new world funding currency as long as the US economy performs within a range of its historical potential. If traders thought there was a good chance that the Fed would be forced to emulate the BOJ zero rate policy for a decade then the dollar would already have seen far heavier losses than it has.
Traders are not yet betting on a lost decade in the US. Until they do the dollar will be a funding currency only until the Fed first hints at higher rates The world will borrow cheaply in the US as long as it can, but there will be no five year carry trade punishing the dollar, at least not yet.
Joseph Trevisani
Japanese rates in that period never rose above 0.5%. The worldwide lure of yen funding was not only the extremely low cost of money but the knowledge that the Bank of Japan (BOJ) could not raise rates.
Interest rates in the United States are the equivalent of the zero rate policy in Japan. If the Fed cannot raise rates because of anemic US economic growth will the dollar replace the yen as the world funding currency?
The extended period of effective zero interest rates in Japan was the financial rationale for the carry trade. But low interest rates alone did not account for the longevity of the yen carry trade. Long positioning in the carry returned the rate differential and trading interest and easy credit for speculators kept the crosses moving higher. But equally important was the trap that the Japanese economy held for the BOJ. The Japanese central bank could not raise rates. The performance of the Japanese economy since 1989 and her political reality precluded it. Currency traders enjoyed a more than reasonable conviction that whatever BOJ officials might say Japanese rates would stay low.
Japan’s lost decade began in late 1989 when the Bank of Japan sharply raised interest rates to combat a credit fueled bubble in the property and stock markets. Both markets crashed. Twenty years later neither have regained the prices of that decade. But having engineered the calamity the Japanese government did not insist on the rationalization of insolvent banks and industrial companies. Banks were kept alive with government aid and falling companies were supported by bank loans and subsidies. Economic growth ground to a halt.
From 1995 onward the main Japanese interest rate set by the Bank of Japan was never higher than 0.5%. But the extremely low rates did not spur economic growth. The zero rate policy which the bank began in 2001 to counter price deflation and foster economic activity accomplished neither goal.
It was the boom years of the world economy in the middle part of this decade and the external demand for Japanese goods that dragged the export dominated Japanese economy out of its self-inflicted doldrums. With the collapse in world demand last year the Japanese economy was again trapped by its export model. Fifteen years of massive government spending and little economic reform has only succeeded in raising the Japanese debt level to the highest in the industrial world without building a solid domestic base of consumption. Japan’s lost decade could well become permanent if world demand for Japanese products does not recover
In order for the dollar to become the world’s long term funding currency, as the yen was for the better part of the decade, low interest rates are not sufficient. Markets must also become convinced that US rates will stay low for a prolonged period; that period is probably well beyond the horizon currently implied by Fed Chairman Bernanke. Whatever the problems of the American economy markets are far from convinced that a ten year Japanese economic morass awaits the United States.
The currency reaction to the financial crisis and its logic has been well documented. Overnight the dollar and the United States Government became the repository of much of the world’s portable risk capital. The majority of that temporary capital infusion has now left the US seeking investment elsewhere in the world.
The Federal Reserve response to the sub-prime housing problem began two years ago in September 2007 when it cut rates 0.5%. Since then the Fed has taken US rates effectively to zero and supplied enormous amounts of liquidity to the economy, initially to stave off economic collapse and subsequently to secure economic growth.
But the US economy, despite massive losses in property and equities and continuing job destruction, is not facing the economic stasis of Japan’s lost decade
The US economy is larger and more diverse than Japan's. Exports do not dominate the economy. The US population is growing and domestic consumption is the bulk of GDP. The US financial and economic system is far less controlled by the central government and economic rationalization of banks and companies is taking place. The US will probably not have a large number of companies kept alive with permanent government subsidies. In short the US economy is still expected to recover and to grow next year. The Fed will not have to keep rates below 0.5% for a decade. Far more likely is a Fed rate hike cycle beginning in late 2010 or 2011.
The dollar will not become the new world funding currency as long as the US economy performs within a range of its historical potential. If traders thought there was a good chance that the Fed would be forced to emulate the BOJ zero rate policy for a decade then the dollar would already have seen far heavier losses than it has.
Traders are not yet betting on a lost decade in the US. Until they do the dollar will be a funding currency only until the Fed first hints at higher rates The world will borrow cheaply in the US as long as it can, but there will be no five year carry trade punishing the dollar, at least not yet.
Joseph Trevisani
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Market Direction
One of the most surprising developments of the financial crisis and recession has been the continued strength of the Japanese Yen.
The return of relative stability to the world financial system has not prevented the yen from retaining the majority of its crisis induced advances. The Japanese currency has held onto 75% of its gains against the dollar, 65% versus the euro, 60% from the aussie and 75% from the sterling. In comparison the dollar has retained only 47% of its euro gain, 33% of its aussie improvement and 56% of its sterling take.
From its pre-crisis lows late last summer the yen appreciated 21% against the dollar, 34% against the euro, 47% versus the aussie and 53% opposed to the pound. The dollar also improved dramatically, gaining 23% against the euro, 39% versus the Australian Dollar and 32% against the pound.
But the dollar has since given back a substantial portion of its gains keeping only an 11% improvement against the euro, 13% to the aussie and 18% against the pound. The yen however has remained potent. It is still 16% stronger against the dollar, 22% stronger against the euro, 24% versus Australian Dollar and 39% against the pound.
The dollar and the yen were the only major currencies that strengthened during the crisis and that alone gave de facto status to each as a safe haven currency. But as the dislocations in the financial system have lessened so has the safe haven benefit to the dollar. Not so, or not nearly so much, for the yen. Why has the Japanese currency retained more of its crisis enhanced quality?
At the height of the crisis enormous quantities of American investments, primarily Treasuries were purchased by panicked investors. The demand for dollars to buy those US instruments was one of the driving forces behind the greenback’s ascent. But as the acute phase of the crisis has ebbed, the funds placed in the safety of T-Bills, Notes and Bonds have gradually left the United States seeking more remunerative investments elsewhere.
The effect on the dollar has been plain and predictable. Close to half of its crisis gains have been lost. The rationale for the dollar’s rise and fall in response to the financial crisis has been logical, determined by the balance between the need for safety and earning, risk and return.
If the rise in the yen was due to the same influx of safety seeking funds, one explanation for the subsequent stability of the yen could be that the owners of those funds find in Japan a congenial investment environment. Let us look at some of the possibilities.
Perhaps investors expect the Japanese economy to recover earlier than the United States or Europe. Japan is still the second largest economy in the world and its position in Asia and as a supplier to China, the largest industrial country to sustain strong economic growth, could help restore the Japanese economy. But in reality the Japanese economy has been underperforming for more than a 15 years, throughout the economic rise of China. Japanese decline is largely due to internal factors, including expensive and protected consumer and agricultural sectors, bureaucratic and regulatory control of much of the economy, pointless and never ending domestic spending and a stultified political system that inhibited most change.
Then perhaps the victorious Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) will be able to revive the economy and move the country into the 21st century?
But the policy prescriptions of the DPJ do not give the impression of de-regulatory pro-growth, consumer centered plans for Japan’s economy. Japanese public debt is the highest in the industrialized world at 170% of GDP. Yet the election platform of the DPJ, with its Keynesian emphasis on government spending and its vaguely anti-capitalist and anti-globalization stances seems particularly ill-suited to revive the world’s largest export dependant economy.
When the vagueness of the DPJ economic policies is coupled with the inexperience of their legislators and the opposition of the experienced and entrenched bureaucrats that really run the Japanese economy the promise for reform and restoration becomes even more problematic. It is very hard to discern a positive yen aspect from the DPJ policies themselves or from the movements of the yen in the currency markets over the past several months as the DPJ victory became almost certain.
If the prospects for the Japanese economy have not fortified the yen then perhaps the currency has been supported by its ostensible role as a proxy trade for the Chinese Yuan?
When the financial crisis struck the Beijing Government ended the managed appreciation of the yuan; it has been static against the dollar since last fall. It has been surmised that the yen has played a substitute role to the Chinese currency with traders keeping long positions in the yen as a replacement for the unavailable yuan. And while it is true that the end of yuan appreciation and the advent of yen strength coincide, it is more likely that the proxy currencies for the yuan are the Australian and New Zealand Dollars, which have had strong upward moves largely tied to the success of the Chinese economic stimulus.
If the strong yen is not a harbinger of an economically recovered Japan and if its yuan proxy quality is limited, the remaining reasons behind its supposed safe haven status become even more relevant and interesting.
The idea of the yen as a safe haven currency can be ascribed to two factors. First the likelihood of Japanese default is very low and when tied to Japan’s recent history of deflation Japanese bonds provide the investor with safety of funds and currency stability. That was also the default position of the dollar and its issuer the United States Federal government. Both currencies scored highly in the financial crisis.
The second factor applies only to the yen and might be called the empirical choice. By any measured judgment the yen is an unusual choice for a safe haven currency. Except for the unity of the Japanese political system, most other economic and interest rate factors would seem to be against it. The Japanese economy has performed dismally over the past 15 years and Japan has one of the oldest and most quickly declining populations in the world. Its potential for economic growth seems quite limited.
But the financial crisis played a stronger hand than comparative economics. The worldwide collapse in interest rates destroyed the rationale for the carry trade. The result was a vastly strengthened yen because the attendant trade to the selling of the yen crosses was the panic buying of the yen against the US Dollar. As the carry trade loans came home to Japan and the speculative positions in the yen crosses vanished with the credit lines of the hedge funds the yen was bought extensively but only to close existing positions. In other words once the loans and trade positions were covered there was far less speculative positioning against the yen than would be found in a normal market.
The equation of a stronger yen with financial turmoil was not due to the inherent strength and security of the Japanese economy but to the bubble markets in the carry trade and yen funding. The yen did not rise because traders sought the safety of Japanese investments. The yen rose because the currency markets were overwhelmed by the unwinding of the carry trade and yen funding positions.
But from an empirical view the yen appreciation coincided perfectly with the deepening of the financial crisis. It certainly appeared that the yen was being sought as a safe haven currency. And since the yen had strengthened it was, in fact if not in economic logic, a safe haven currency.
Yen strength, to borrow a phrase, prospered in a fit of absence of mind. The tremendous force of the deleveraging carry trade raised the yen to its current heights. But those forces were one way, buying the yen to close shorts but not opening new long positions.
The yen was not truly a safe haven currency during the financial crisis. With the ending of the crisis the yen has not returned to pre-crisis trading levels. The evidence that there were few safe haven flows into the yen is simple; none have left Japan to weaken the yen.
In the US, a true safe haven during the crisis, the flows that entered during the crisis have now largely left. The dollar was boosted by the flows in and declined as they left. The lack of that second move out of Japan and the yen means that the forces pushing up the yen last fall were not seeking safety in Japanese bonds. The yen was a safe haven only by a trading default of the yen crosses.
The return of relative stability to the world financial system has not prevented the yen from retaining the majority of its crisis induced advances. The Japanese currency has held onto 75% of its gains against the dollar, 65% versus the euro, 60% from the aussie and 75% from the sterling. In comparison the dollar has retained only 47% of its euro gain, 33% of its aussie improvement and 56% of its sterling take.
From its pre-crisis lows late last summer the yen appreciated 21% against the dollar, 34% against the euro, 47% versus the aussie and 53% opposed to the pound. The dollar also improved dramatically, gaining 23% against the euro, 39% versus the Australian Dollar and 32% against the pound.
But the dollar has since given back a substantial portion of its gains keeping only an 11% improvement against the euro, 13% to the aussie and 18% against the pound. The yen however has remained potent. It is still 16% stronger against the dollar, 22% stronger against the euro, 24% versus Australian Dollar and 39% against the pound.
The dollar and the yen were the only major currencies that strengthened during the crisis and that alone gave de facto status to each as a safe haven currency. But as the dislocations in the financial system have lessened so has the safe haven benefit to the dollar. Not so, or not nearly so much, for the yen. Why has the Japanese currency retained more of its crisis enhanced quality?
At the height of the crisis enormous quantities of American investments, primarily Treasuries were purchased by panicked investors. The demand for dollars to buy those US instruments was one of the driving forces behind the greenback’s ascent. But as the acute phase of the crisis has ebbed, the funds placed in the safety of T-Bills, Notes and Bonds have gradually left the United States seeking more remunerative investments elsewhere.
The effect on the dollar has been plain and predictable. Close to half of its crisis gains have been lost. The rationale for the dollar’s rise and fall in response to the financial crisis has been logical, determined by the balance between the need for safety and earning, risk and return.
If the rise in the yen was due to the same influx of safety seeking funds, one explanation for the subsequent stability of the yen could be that the owners of those funds find in Japan a congenial investment environment. Let us look at some of the possibilities.
Perhaps investors expect the Japanese economy to recover earlier than the United States or Europe. Japan is still the second largest economy in the world and its position in Asia and as a supplier to China, the largest industrial country to sustain strong economic growth, could help restore the Japanese economy. But in reality the Japanese economy has been underperforming for more than a 15 years, throughout the economic rise of China. Japanese decline is largely due to internal factors, including expensive and protected consumer and agricultural sectors, bureaucratic and regulatory control of much of the economy, pointless and never ending domestic spending and a stultified political system that inhibited most change.
Then perhaps the victorious Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) will be able to revive the economy and move the country into the 21st century?
But the policy prescriptions of the DPJ do not give the impression of de-regulatory pro-growth, consumer centered plans for Japan’s economy. Japanese public debt is the highest in the industrialized world at 170% of GDP. Yet the election platform of the DPJ, with its Keynesian emphasis on government spending and its vaguely anti-capitalist and anti-globalization stances seems particularly ill-suited to revive the world’s largest export dependant economy.
When the vagueness of the DPJ economic policies is coupled with the inexperience of their legislators and the opposition of the experienced and entrenched bureaucrats that really run the Japanese economy the promise for reform and restoration becomes even more problematic. It is very hard to discern a positive yen aspect from the DPJ policies themselves or from the movements of the yen in the currency markets over the past several months as the DPJ victory became almost certain.
If the prospects for the Japanese economy have not fortified the yen then perhaps the currency has been supported by its ostensible role as a proxy trade for the Chinese Yuan?
When the financial crisis struck the Beijing Government ended the managed appreciation of the yuan; it has been static against the dollar since last fall. It has been surmised that the yen has played a substitute role to the Chinese currency with traders keeping long positions in the yen as a replacement for the unavailable yuan. And while it is true that the end of yuan appreciation and the advent of yen strength coincide, it is more likely that the proxy currencies for the yuan are the Australian and New Zealand Dollars, which have had strong upward moves largely tied to the success of the Chinese economic stimulus.
If the strong yen is not a harbinger of an economically recovered Japan and if its yuan proxy quality is limited, the remaining reasons behind its supposed safe haven status become even more relevant and interesting.
The idea of the yen as a safe haven currency can be ascribed to two factors. First the likelihood of Japanese default is very low and when tied to Japan’s recent history of deflation Japanese bonds provide the investor with safety of funds and currency stability. That was also the default position of the dollar and its issuer the United States Federal government. Both currencies scored highly in the financial crisis.
The second factor applies only to the yen and might be called the empirical choice. By any measured judgment the yen is an unusual choice for a safe haven currency. Except for the unity of the Japanese political system, most other economic and interest rate factors would seem to be against it. The Japanese economy has performed dismally over the past 15 years and Japan has one of the oldest and most quickly declining populations in the world. Its potential for economic growth seems quite limited.
But the financial crisis played a stronger hand than comparative economics. The worldwide collapse in interest rates destroyed the rationale for the carry trade. The result was a vastly strengthened yen because the attendant trade to the selling of the yen crosses was the panic buying of the yen against the US Dollar. As the carry trade loans came home to Japan and the speculative positions in the yen crosses vanished with the credit lines of the hedge funds the yen was bought extensively but only to close existing positions. In other words once the loans and trade positions were covered there was far less speculative positioning against the yen than would be found in a normal market.
The equation of a stronger yen with financial turmoil was not due to the inherent strength and security of the Japanese economy but to the bubble markets in the carry trade and yen funding. The yen did not rise because traders sought the safety of Japanese investments. The yen rose because the currency markets were overwhelmed by the unwinding of the carry trade and yen funding positions.
But from an empirical view the yen appreciation coincided perfectly with the deepening of the financial crisis. It certainly appeared that the yen was being sought as a safe haven currency. And since the yen had strengthened it was, in fact if not in economic logic, a safe haven currency.
Yen strength, to borrow a phrase, prospered in a fit of absence of mind. The tremendous force of the deleveraging carry trade raised the yen to its current heights. But those forces were one way, buying the yen to close shorts but not opening new long positions.
The yen was not truly a safe haven currency during the financial crisis. With the ending of the crisis the yen has not returned to pre-crisis trading levels. The evidence that there were few safe haven flows into the yen is simple; none have left Japan to weaken the yen.
In the US, a true safe haven during the crisis, the flows that entered during the crisis have now largely left. The dollar was boosted by the flows in and declined as they left. The lack of that second move out of Japan and the yen means that the forces pushing up the yen last fall were not seeking safety in Japanese bonds. The yen was a safe haven only by a trading default of the yen crosses.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Market Direction
The End of the Dollar Bubble
The reaction of traders to Friday’s Non Farm Payrolls may be the most concrete sign that the currency markets are coming to the end of the financial crisis. The initial response was, as it has been since the unwinding of the security dollar bubble began in March, to sell the dollar against the euro. But the dollar sellers exhausted themselves after barely five minutes and the following dollar surge, though also five minutes, covered twice a much ground. From 8:30 am to 8:35 am euro rose 34 points, from 8:35 am to 8:40 am it dropped 76; good American economic news had finally garnered a positive response from the currency markets.
From last September until March the dominant currency trade was a direct kin to the panic in the financial markets. When in doubt, which was a constant, purchase dollar denominated assets. A huge bubble of Treasury assets were bought with foreign and domestic money. As the crisis rolled on, even though it had started in the US, involved many of the most prominent United States financial institutions, and called forth an unprecedented amount of government intervention and a deluge of dollar liquidity, nothing dented the dollar’s ascendancy. Compared with the potential for the rest of the world the United States was the safest holder of wealth.
The strength of the dollar in this period owed nothing to the traditional standards of economic and currency comparison. Though the amassing of the world’s financial liquidity in United States Treasuries would not typically be thought of as an asset bubble, by any measure of the origin and behavior of asset bubbles it was. Treasury prices were driven higher by unceasing demand which for a time ignored cost and return in a desperate race to secure principal. The psychology of fear is not very different from that of greed in its ability to push markets to excess. Bubbles can form for negative as well as positive reasons.
The dollar asset bubble began to unwind with the bottom of the equity markets in March. If the September to March dollar was the security dollar then we can call the March to June dollar the repatriating dollar.
As financial conditions gradually improved, investors sold Treasuries and placed their funds in commodities, worldwide equities, currencies and other instruments looking for appreciation and return. Because the process did not unfold at once, and because it was largely better conditions in the United States that emboldened investors to assume more risk, it seemed that whenever there were improving economic statistics in the US the dollar would sell off. In fact this was the necessary dollar selling that accompanied the repatriation of foreign-owned dollar assets or American dollar assets transferring to overseas markets and investments. .
Neither the rationale for the security dollar nor the logic for the repatriating dollar could last beyond the original financial and market conditions that produced them. Owners of investment funds will not accept minuscule earnings forever. And despite appearances the amount of funds stashed in Treasuries is not infinite. When the repatriation is complete the pressure on the dollar engendered but not caused by a mending US economy will be removed. We may have finally reached that point.
This does not necessarily mean that the dollar is poised for a strong recovery. The US economy has very serious current and pending problems and the path away from the financial crisis to recovery is unknown; but then again that applies to the rest of the world as well.
The Eurozone and Japan are trailing even the small signs of stability that have arrived in the United States. Still, if the historical performance of the US economy is considered along with the enormous fiscal and monetary stimulus that has been applied to the American economy, the dollar could well outstrip its competitors without the revival of normal economic growth anywhere in the world.
Joseph Trevisani
The reaction of traders to Friday’s Non Farm Payrolls may be the most concrete sign that the currency markets are coming to the end of the financial crisis. The initial response was, as it has been since the unwinding of the security dollar bubble began in March, to sell the dollar against the euro. But the dollar sellers exhausted themselves after barely five minutes and the following dollar surge, though also five minutes, covered twice a much ground. From 8:30 am to 8:35 am euro rose 34 points, from 8:35 am to 8:40 am it dropped 76; good American economic news had finally garnered a positive response from the currency markets.
From last September until March the dominant currency trade was a direct kin to the panic in the financial markets. When in doubt, which was a constant, purchase dollar denominated assets. A huge bubble of Treasury assets were bought with foreign and domestic money. As the crisis rolled on, even though it had started in the US, involved many of the most prominent United States financial institutions, and called forth an unprecedented amount of government intervention and a deluge of dollar liquidity, nothing dented the dollar’s ascendancy. Compared with the potential for the rest of the world the United States was the safest holder of wealth.
The strength of the dollar in this period owed nothing to the traditional standards of economic and currency comparison. Though the amassing of the world’s financial liquidity in United States Treasuries would not typically be thought of as an asset bubble, by any measure of the origin and behavior of asset bubbles it was. Treasury prices were driven higher by unceasing demand which for a time ignored cost and return in a desperate race to secure principal. The psychology of fear is not very different from that of greed in its ability to push markets to excess. Bubbles can form for negative as well as positive reasons.
The dollar asset bubble began to unwind with the bottom of the equity markets in March. If the September to March dollar was the security dollar then we can call the March to June dollar the repatriating dollar.
As financial conditions gradually improved, investors sold Treasuries and placed their funds in commodities, worldwide equities, currencies and other instruments looking for appreciation and return. Because the process did not unfold at once, and because it was largely better conditions in the United States that emboldened investors to assume more risk, it seemed that whenever there were improving economic statistics in the US the dollar would sell off. In fact this was the necessary dollar selling that accompanied the repatriation of foreign-owned dollar assets or American dollar assets transferring to overseas markets and investments. .
Neither the rationale for the security dollar nor the logic for the repatriating dollar could last beyond the original financial and market conditions that produced them. Owners of investment funds will not accept minuscule earnings forever. And despite appearances the amount of funds stashed in Treasuries is not infinite. When the repatriation is complete the pressure on the dollar engendered but not caused by a mending US economy will be removed. We may have finally reached that point.
This does not necessarily mean that the dollar is poised for a strong recovery. The US economy has very serious current and pending problems and the path away from the financial crisis to recovery is unknown; but then again that applies to the rest of the world as well.
The Eurozone and Japan are trailing even the small signs of stability that have arrived in the United States. Still, if the historical performance of the US economy is considered along with the enormous fiscal and monetary stimulus that has been applied to the American economy, the dollar could well outstrip its competitors without the revival of normal economic growth anywhere in the world.
Joseph Trevisani
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Market Direction
The rise of the Australian and New Zealand Dollars from their March depths to their current levels has been an Asian success story.
Chinese economic growth has cushioned the effects of the worldwide recession in New Zealand and Australia. Both countries export large amounts of raw materials to Asian manufacturing centers, China foremost. The yuan is fixed to the dollar (unofficially) the aussie and kiwi are not. The Australian economy has avoided recession; the New Zealand economy shrank just 1.0% for two successive quarters. As China returns to strong economic growth and the potential for internal unrest diminishes, the two Asian Dollars rise, and everyone in Asia benefits.
China has boosted her GDP growth from 6.1% in the first quarter of 2009 to 7.9% in the second. Beijing’s four trillion yuan ($587 billion) stimulus has produced tangible results. The Shanghai stock exchange is booming, bank loans and credit are flowing to business and consumers, property markets are hot again, and car sales have overtaken those of the United States. The Chinese government, spending money it actually has, is courted by Washington’s debtor politicians who proclaim their belief in a strong dollar and fiscal rectitude lest China Chinese officials withdraw their support for US deficits. The strength of the Chinese economy is imparted to her trading partners and material suppliers Australia and New Zealand, and their currencies rise against the dollar and the moribund American economy.
The additional success of these two commodity currencies is owed largely to the dynamism of the Chinese economy. Without the demand from the mainland, the miners and ranchers of down under would have few places to sell their products. Though the fall in the Antipodean currencies last year had everything to do with the American dollar, the climb back has been, to a large degree, an Asian affair.
From last summer until this past March the Australian and New Zealand currencies had suffered the same precipitous decline against the dollar as did every major currency except the yen. Panic buying of American Dollar assets trumped every financial and economic consideration during the prolonged financial turmoil. For the six months following the collapse of Lehman in September neither the aussie nor the kiwi sustained any appreciable rally.
However, since the recovery in world financial markets that began in March these two currencies have gained more than twice as much against the dollar as the euro. From March 4th to June 3rd the euro improved 14.3% against the US Dollar. In that same period the Australian Dollar gained 31.4% and the New Zealand Dollar 34.1%.
Traders, portfolio managers, investors, fund managers, almost everyone who had sought safety in the States and Treasury investments began in the second quarter to seek higher returns outside the United States and largely outside the industrialized world. A portion of the improvement in all currencies versus the dollar was due to this repositioning of assets to more favorable economic environments.
The most favorable of all the destinations, by performance, fiscal ability and government intention was China. Of the major trading currencies the Australian and New Zealand economies have the closest economic connection to China. If China grows by exports or domestic consumption the benefit to the Australian and New Zealand economies are direct, substantial and evidenced in the comparative performance of the two economies.
Japan also has large interests in the China. But the Japanese economy is a special case due to its dependence on exports and limited domestic consumer consumption. The yen also has unusual contingencies that give it undue resilience, primarily its decade long participation in the carry trade and its collapse last fall. Nevertheless one of the reasons for the continued yen strength is its Chinese relationship.
The Chinese stimulus was announced in November of last year but its success was not apparent until the recent release of the second quarter GDP numbers. But the advantage to the Australian and New Zealand Dollars was already priced in by the beginning of June.
Further improvement in the currencies will hinge on continued Chinese expansion. The quality of the economic growth in China is open to speculation. Some of the markets, particularly equities and housing, have bubble like aspects to their rise. Bank loans and credit expansion have been overwrought. Mere concern that the government might tighten credit was enough to cause a five percent fall in the Shanghai exchange.
If the Chinese economic recovery is solid, if it is not grounded in misplaced credit generation and speculation, then the aussie and kiwi have a stronger immediate future than any other major currencies. If China cannot sustain her current growth then these commodity currencies will quickly fall to earth. Either way the Australian and New Zealand economic futures will be written in Beijing and not Canberra or Wellington.
Joseph Trevisani
Chinese economic growth has cushioned the effects of the worldwide recession in New Zealand and Australia. Both countries export large amounts of raw materials to Asian manufacturing centers, China foremost. The yuan is fixed to the dollar (unofficially) the aussie and kiwi are not. The Australian economy has avoided recession; the New Zealand economy shrank just 1.0% for two successive quarters. As China returns to strong economic growth and the potential for internal unrest diminishes, the two Asian Dollars rise, and everyone in Asia benefits.
China has boosted her GDP growth from 6.1% in the first quarter of 2009 to 7.9% in the second. Beijing’s four trillion yuan ($587 billion) stimulus has produced tangible results. The Shanghai stock exchange is booming, bank loans and credit are flowing to business and consumers, property markets are hot again, and car sales have overtaken those of the United States. The Chinese government, spending money it actually has, is courted by Washington’s debtor politicians who proclaim their belief in a strong dollar and fiscal rectitude lest China Chinese officials withdraw their support for US deficits. The strength of the Chinese economy is imparted to her trading partners and material suppliers Australia and New Zealand, and their currencies rise against the dollar and the moribund American economy.
The additional success of these two commodity currencies is owed largely to the dynamism of the Chinese economy. Without the demand from the mainland, the miners and ranchers of down under would have few places to sell their products. Though the fall in the Antipodean currencies last year had everything to do with the American dollar, the climb back has been, to a large degree, an Asian affair.
From last summer until this past March the Australian and New Zealand currencies had suffered the same precipitous decline against the dollar as did every major currency except the yen. Panic buying of American Dollar assets trumped every financial and economic consideration during the prolonged financial turmoil. For the six months following the collapse of Lehman in September neither the aussie nor the kiwi sustained any appreciable rally.
However, since the recovery in world financial markets that began in March these two currencies have gained more than twice as much against the dollar as the euro. From March 4th to June 3rd the euro improved 14.3% against the US Dollar. In that same period the Australian Dollar gained 31.4% and the New Zealand Dollar 34.1%.
Traders, portfolio managers, investors, fund managers, almost everyone who had sought safety in the States and Treasury investments began in the second quarter to seek higher returns outside the United States and largely outside the industrialized world. A portion of the improvement in all currencies versus the dollar was due to this repositioning of assets to more favorable economic environments.
The most favorable of all the destinations, by performance, fiscal ability and government intention was China. Of the major trading currencies the Australian and New Zealand economies have the closest economic connection to China. If China grows by exports or domestic consumption the benefit to the Australian and New Zealand economies are direct, substantial and evidenced in the comparative performance of the two economies.
Japan also has large interests in the China. But the Japanese economy is a special case due to its dependence on exports and limited domestic consumer consumption. The yen also has unusual contingencies that give it undue resilience, primarily its decade long participation in the carry trade and its collapse last fall. Nevertheless one of the reasons for the continued yen strength is its Chinese relationship.
The Chinese stimulus was announced in November of last year but its success was not apparent until the recent release of the second quarter GDP numbers. But the advantage to the Australian and New Zealand Dollars was already priced in by the beginning of June.
Further improvement in the currencies will hinge on continued Chinese expansion. The quality of the economic growth in China is open to speculation. Some of the markets, particularly equities and housing, have bubble like aspects to their rise. Bank loans and credit expansion have been overwrought. Mere concern that the government might tighten credit was enough to cause a five percent fall in the Shanghai exchange.
If the Chinese economic recovery is solid, if it is not grounded in misplaced credit generation and speculation, then the aussie and kiwi have a stronger immediate future than any other major currencies. If China cannot sustain her current growth then these commodity currencies will quickly fall to earth. Either way the Australian and New Zealand economic futures will be written in Beijing and not Canberra or Wellington.
Joseph Trevisani
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Market Direction
What is the purpose of the foreign exchange market, or any trading market for that matter? It seems like a simple question with a simple answer. The purpose is to facilitate exchange, to permit participants to sell and buy commodities, equities or futures and to trade one currency for another. But that simple definition disguises a world of complexity.
If two parties wish to conduct an exchange, of one currency for another or of an equity or bond for a sum of cash the first question is at what price should the transaction take place? In the consumer world, in a supermarket or department store, the price is predetermined by the seller and is rarely changed. The purchaser measures their need for the item against the price asked and makes the decision to buy or not. There is little discussion and no bargaining over the price. The consumer does not say the price will be lower in a few minutes; I will wait until then to make my purchase. Likewise the seller does not normally remove the item from sale expecting the price to rise in a few days. This basic function of price determination or price discovery is essentially different in a trading market. A market transaction differs from a consumer purchase because both the seller and the buyer continually adjust their price expectations to information flowing out from the market to participants and into the market from outside sources.
Market participants, in theory, incorporate all available information into the prices at which they buy and sell. This is called the perfect information assumption of efficient markets theory. Each participant in the market acts as an independent decision maker. Each decision influences the overall market and price level. The market or to be more precise, the price level of a market traded item, is, at any time, the amalgamation of all the price decisions made by all market participants.
On this one topic-- what should the market price be-- the market reflects the decisions of its participants. In foreign exchange markets the decision makers are the traders, all of them, from the smallest retail trader to the largest hedge fund. But how do 1,000 or 10,000 individual decisions, made in ignorance of each other become a market price? How do we know that the price of this mass decision accurately reflects the wishes of 10,000 people?
If three market participants want to buy a commodity at a certain price level and 50 want to sell, the market price for that commodity will fall. But what actually happens? The three bids in the market will be filled but that leaves 47 sellers. If no other bids enter the market the sellers will begin to react to the lack of bids by adjusting their offering prices down, displaying lower and lower prices until buyers enter bids and a trade is made at the new lower level. The sellers and the buyers incorporated the information flowing out of the market, the temporary lack of bids, into their price expectations producing a new price.
A commentator would perhaps say ‘the market fell today ‘. But a market is not an entity. It is only a method for coordinating the decisions of its participants. What occurred is that each participant in the market reacted to the information coming to them from within the market and their combined reaction is the movement in price. It appears to an observer that the ‘market’ traded lower because the thousands of individual decisions that comprise the movement are not given separate life. Only the mass decision, ‘the price’, is represented.
This sense of the decision making power of markets and the ‘market’ as almost a living entity is reflected in the terms we use to describe the price action. We often say’ ‘the market reacted badly to the news’ or ‘the market took profit today’. We personify the market and its behavior. Of course we all know that there is no “market” somewhere below the pavement on Wall Street making the decisions for the stock exchange. But the common use of this ‘market’ shorthand tends to obscure what is the most important psychological point in understanding market behavior. Namely, that the ‘market’ is a picture of the thoughts of its participants, the market is a snapshot; it is a mass mind.
We can remove some of the sense of mystery from the term, “the market” when we remember just who or what ‘the market’ is? The answer is plain enough, to paraphrase the comic strip character Pogo, “we have met the market and he is us’. The logic, analysis and fear that motivate market behavior have their source within the mind and psychology of market participants, that is, within each of its traders.
When analyzing market behavior it is instructive to keep this very simple fact in mind. The market is a mass mind focused on one topic, price. It represents the momentary culmination all of the external and internal inputs that bear on the price of the traded commodity as ranked by the traders in that market. But even if the method by which the market arrives at a decision is obscure, its ingredients are not—they exist in the analysis, outlook aspirations and psychology of each individual trader.
Since the market is a reflection of the minds of its participants and a traders job is to make profits it follows that a trader’s primary task it to match his decision to that of the mass, to anticipate and mimic the decision of the market. There should be no mystery in ‘the market’ even when it thrashes our positions, for the chances are that the operating logic was known to most of traders. Known and rejected by the losing minority of traders but embraced by the majority.
When our trades lose money, whatever the logic of the position, we can be sure we were not alone. But we can equally be sure that we were in the minority. Had we been in the majority the market would have performed as we had anticipated. The market decision process is that simple. It is a matter of putting our assumptions in line with the majority as often as we can. The most effective tool to achieve that is our own empirically tested market psychology. We are the market, if only we can let the mass mind of the market and not our individuality rule our decisions.
The market does not reward iconoclasts.
Joseph Trevisani
If two parties wish to conduct an exchange, of one currency for another or of an equity or bond for a sum of cash the first question is at what price should the transaction take place? In the consumer world, in a supermarket or department store, the price is predetermined by the seller and is rarely changed. The purchaser measures their need for the item against the price asked and makes the decision to buy or not. There is little discussion and no bargaining over the price. The consumer does not say the price will be lower in a few minutes; I will wait until then to make my purchase. Likewise the seller does not normally remove the item from sale expecting the price to rise in a few days. This basic function of price determination or price discovery is essentially different in a trading market. A market transaction differs from a consumer purchase because both the seller and the buyer continually adjust their price expectations to information flowing out from the market to participants and into the market from outside sources.
Market participants, in theory, incorporate all available information into the prices at which they buy and sell. This is called the perfect information assumption of efficient markets theory. Each participant in the market acts as an independent decision maker. Each decision influences the overall market and price level. The market or to be more precise, the price level of a market traded item, is, at any time, the amalgamation of all the price decisions made by all market participants.
On this one topic-- what should the market price be-- the market reflects the decisions of its participants. In foreign exchange markets the decision makers are the traders, all of them, from the smallest retail trader to the largest hedge fund. But how do 1,000 or 10,000 individual decisions, made in ignorance of each other become a market price? How do we know that the price of this mass decision accurately reflects the wishes of 10,000 people?
If three market participants want to buy a commodity at a certain price level and 50 want to sell, the market price for that commodity will fall. But what actually happens? The three bids in the market will be filled but that leaves 47 sellers. If no other bids enter the market the sellers will begin to react to the lack of bids by adjusting their offering prices down, displaying lower and lower prices until buyers enter bids and a trade is made at the new lower level. The sellers and the buyers incorporated the information flowing out of the market, the temporary lack of bids, into their price expectations producing a new price.
A commentator would perhaps say ‘the market fell today ‘. But a market is not an entity. It is only a method for coordinating the decisions of its participants. What occurred is that each participant in the market reacted to the information coming to them from within the market and their combined reaction is the movement in price. It appears to an observer that the ‘market’ traded lower because the thousands of individual decisions that comprise the movement are not given separate life. Only the mass decision, ‘the price’, is represented.
This sense of the decision making power of markets and the ‘market’ as almost a living entity is reflected in the terms we use to describe the price action. We often say’ ‘the market reacted badly to the news’ or ‘the market took profit today’. We personify the market and its behavior. Of course we all know that there is no “market” somewhere below the pavement on Wall Street making the decisions for the stock exchange. But the common use of this ‘market’ shorthand tends to obscure what is the most important psychological point in understanding market behavior. Namely, that the ‘market’ is a picture of the thoughts of its participants, the market is a snapshot; it is a mass mind.
We can remove some of the sense of mystery from the term, “the market” when we remember just who or what ‘the market’ is? The answer is plain enough, to paraphrase the comic strip character Pogo, “we have met the market and he is us’. The logic, analysis and fear that motivate market behavior have their source within the mind and psychology of market participants, that is, within each of its traders.
When analyzing market behavior it is instructive to keep this very simple fact in mind. The market is a mass mind focused on one topic, price. It represents the momentary culmination all of the external and internal inputs that bear on the price of the traded commodity as ranked by the traders in that market. But even if the method by which the market arrives at a decision is obscure, its ingredients are not—they exist in the analysis, outlook aspirations and psychology of each individual trader.
Since the market is a reflection of the minds of its participants and a traders job is to make profits it follows that a trader’s primary task it to match his decision to that of the mass, to anticipate and mimic the decision of the market. There should be no mystery in ‘the market’ even when it thrashes our positions, for the chances are that the operating logic was known to most of traders. Known and rejected by the losing minority of traders but embraced by the majority.
When our trades lose money, whatever the logic of the position, we can be sure we were not alone. But we can equally be sure that we were in the minority. Had we been in the majority the market would have performed as we had anticipated. The market decision process is that simple. It is a matter of putting our assumptions in line with the majority as often as we can. The most effective tool to achieve that is our own empirically tested market psychology. We are the market, if only we can let the mass mind of the market and not our individuality rule our decisions.
The market does not reward iconoclasts.
Joseph Trevisani
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Market Direction
Since late May the dollar has traded in a limited four figure range against the euro - limited and a bit odd. Good American economic news pushes the dollar down; bad news returns it to favor.
May Non Farm Payrolls, unexpectedly positive, gave the dollar a fainting spell. The June numbers, worse than predicted, revived the greenback. Retail sales figures and consumer confidence have gradually returned from oblivion and the value of the dollar ebbed as they rose.
Risk aversion is the standard explanation. Risk capital, or perhaps it is better to name it capital that is averse to risk, is sequestered in Treasury bills and other dollar denominated safe investments when the economic environment looks, well, risky. The demand for these dollar assets pushes the US currency higher as foreign denominated capital enters the currency markets and is converted to dollars. When economic risk is judged to diminish these funds suddenly pour back out of US Treasuries seeking higher returns. Since those returns are often overseas the dollars are changed for foreign assets and the dollar sinks.
This mechanistic and simplified logic may suffice to explain the weak pro and anti-dollar moves that have played back and forth in the currency since late May. But a larger question looms. Why hasn’t the dollar benefited from the improvement in the US economy? Currency markets, like equities and futures, are discounting machines. They trade now for where their participants think that currencies, stocks or commodities will be at some point in the near future.
The US economic situation compares favorably with that of any of its major currency trading partners. The financial panic has long since dissipated. The banking system is not going to collapse. Present inflation is benign, whatever the real or imagined fears for 2011 and beyond. The Federal Reserve has restrained its essay into overt monetization. At the last FOMC meeting the Reserve Board declined to add to the $300 billion already allotted for Treasury purchases. Perhaps most informative on Fed thinking, the M2 money supply, long neglected, has leveled and even declined a little in May. Last fall and spring as the crisis escalated M2 had jumped at historically unprecedented rates as the Fed pumped liquidity into the economy. But now it seems the Fed has drawn back from the money glut and that can only help to contain future inflation.
One year ago the US unemployment rate was 5.5 %, it is now 9.5%. While such numbers are a serious hardship for workers and businesses they are also a sign of the flexibility of the US labor market. Because American firms operate under relatively few restrictions they are free to use labor as they see fit. US firms can restructure and redeploy resources to meet actual demand. When growth returns US firms are often in a better financial condition to rehire. US unemployment rises faster in a recession but it also falls faster and to a lower level under economic growth. Compare the US employment situation to that of the European Monetary Union (EMU).
EMU unemployment has risen from 7.4% a year ago to 9.5% in June, half the amount of the US increase. In Europe it is far harder for firms to eliminate workers and doing so is far more costly. Thus when the recovery begins there are fewer empty places to fill. Companies remain wedded to resource deployment designed for the last expansion with no guarantee that the new cycle will ask for the same product mix. In comparison US firms are able to meet the new economic situation with a far more flexible outlook.
Many secondary US economic indicators have improved substantially in the past months. Housing is stable, purchasing managers indices have recovered and consumer confidence and retail sales are on the mend. This is not to say that the recession is ended or even ending. But that as a comparative lesson the US is arguably in better shape for recovery than its European competitors. When this improved economic situation is joined to the historical ability of the US economy to work its way out of trouble faster and with more emphasis than any other industrialized economy we have to ask again: Why has the dollar declined?
The answer may lie in Washington and the political and economic agenda of the Obama administration. Currency markets are making their own discount judgments on the potential economic effect of the two major initiatives of the administration: the climate change bill and the creation of a government health service.
Irrespective of the political and policy aims of the two pieces of legislation, and aside from any opinion on the social and environmental desirability of their stated goals, there is no doubt that both will impose huge economic costs on the US economy. For the climate bill the intention is to apply a proper cost to carbon output. The legislation is designed to impose huge new taxes on any users of carbon. Since almost every consumer or industrial product uses carbon somewhere in the production cycle the economic costs will stretch across the entire economy.
The health service bill cannot be funded without raising taxes and will likely incur large additional deficit spending as well. Few economists advise raising taxes in a recession. A further increase in the already vast Federal deficit could well squeeze out much of credit needed for the private economy and raise the cost of credit for all. Both bills, if passed in present form, seem destined to restrict US economic growth and retard recovery from the recession.
American equities have had a strong recent surge as the passage of these bills has become more problematic. The currency markets will soon notice. If the climate bill fails and the universal health care provision is watered down or put off until next year then restraints on the dollar will fall away and it will follow equities higher.
Joseph Trevisani
May Non Farm Payrolls, unexpectedly positive, gave the dollar a fainting spell. The June numbers, worse than predicted, revived the greenback. Retail sales figures and consumer confidence have gradually returned from oblivion and the value of the dollar ebbed as they rose.
Risk aversion is the standard explanation. Risk capital, or perhaps it is better to name it capital that is averse to risk, is sequestered in Treasury bills and other dollar denominated safe investments when the economic environment looks, well, risky. The demand for these dollar assets pushes the US currency higher as foreign denominated capital enters the currency markets and is converted to dollars. When economic risk is judged to diminish these funds suddenly pour back out of US Treasuries seeking higher returns. Since those returns are often overseas the dollars are changed for foreign assets and the dollar sinks.
This mechanistic and simplified logic may suffice to explain the weak pro and anti-dollar moves that have played back and forth in the currency since late May. But a larger question looms. Why hasn’t the dollar benefited from the improvement in the US economy? Currency markets, like equities and futures, are discounting machines. They trade now for where their participants think that currencies, stocks or commodities will be at some point in the near future.
The US economic situation compares favorably with that of any of its major currency trading partners. The financial panic has long since dissipated. The banking system is not going to collapse. Present inflation is benign, whatever the real or imagined fears for 2011 and beyond. The Federal Reserve has restrained its essay into overt monetization. At the last FOMC meeting the Reserve Board declined to add to the $300 billion already allotted for Treasury purchases. Perhaps most informative on Fed thinking, the M2 money supply, long neglected, has leveled and even declined a little in May. Last fall and spring as the crisis escalated M2 had jumped at historically unprecedented rates as the Fed pumped liquidity into the economy. But now it seems the Fed has drawn back from the money glut and that can only help to contain future inflation.
One year ago the US unemployment rate was 5.5 %, it is now 9.5%. While such numbers are a serious hardship for workers and businesses they are also a sign of the flexibility of the US labor market. Because American firms operate under relatively few restrictions they are free to use labor as they see fit. US firms can restructure and redeploy resources to meet actual demand. When growth returns US firms are often in a better financial condition to rehire. US unemployment rises faster in a recession but it also falls faster and to a lower level under economic growth. Compare the US employment situation to that of the European Monetary Union (EMU).
EMU unemployment has risen from 7.4% a year ago to 9.5% in June, half the amount of the US increase. In Europe it is far harder for firms to eliminate workers and doing so is far more costly. Thus when the recovery begins there are fewer empty places to fill. Companies remain wedded to resource deployment designed for the last expansion with no guarantee that the new cycle will ask for the same product mix. In comparison US firms are able to meet the new economic situation with a far more flexible outlook.
Many secondary US economic indicators have improved substantially in the past months. Housing is stable, purchasing managers indices have recovered and consumer confidence and retail sales are on the mend. This is not to say that the recession is ended or even ending. But that as a comparative lesson the US is arguably in better shape for recovery than its European competitors. When this improved economic situation is joined to the historical ability of the US economy to work its way out of trouble faster and with more emphasis than any other industrialized economy we have to ask again: Why has the dollar declined?
The answer may lie in Washington and the political and economic agenda of the Obama administration. Currency markets are making their own discount judgments on the potential economic effect of the two major initiatives of the administration: the climate change bill and the creation of a government health service.
Irrespective of the political and policy aims of the two pieces of legislation, and aside from any opinion on the social and environmental desirability of their stated goals, there is no doubt that both will impose huge economic costs on the US economy. For the climate bill the intention is to apply a proper cost to carbon output. The legislation is designed to impose huge new taxes on any users of carbon. Since almost every consumer or industrial product uses carbon somewhere in the production cycle the economic costs will stretch across the entire economy.
The health service bill cannot be funded without raising taxes and will likely incur large additional deficit spending as well. Few economists advise raising taxes in a recession. A further increase in the already vast Federal deficit could well squeeze out much of credit needed for the private economy and raise the cost of credit for all. Both bills, if passed in present form, seem destined to restrict US economic growth and retard recovery from the recession.
American equities have had a strong recent surge as the passage of these bills has become more problematic. The currency markets will soon notice. If the climate bill fails and the universal health care provision is watered down or put off until next year then restraints on the dollar will fall away and it will follow equities higher.
Joseph Trevisani
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Market Direction
The origin of the Group of Eight was an invitation from French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing in 1975 to six of the major World War Two combatants to meet at Rambouillet in France. Leaders from West Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the United States, Japan and France attended that first meeting. The impetus to the summit, if not the sole topic, was the first post war economic challenge to the west, the 1973 OPEC oil embargo. In 1976 Canada was invited to join and the group stayed at seven until 1997 when Russia formally became a member.
Although formed a generation after the end of the Second World War, the G-7 represented the dominant nations of the defining event of 20th century history. As with the United Nations for international politics, the G-7 was an attempt to secure the victory of the western economic model. For the first 30 years after the war the only antagonist for the western capitalists had been the political and military threat of the Communists led by the Soviet Union. Until the oil embargo there had not been a serious economic challenge to Western Europe, the United States and Japan.
Why relate this history? The nations of the Second World War consensus that have dominated the world for 60 years are close to bankrupt. Their foreign bankers are now calling the shots; those who pay decide the future.
The abandonment of the climate change issue at the G-8 meeting is an example. Though the global warming agenda is a major part of the domestic political positions of President Obama, Chancellor Merkel, Prime Minister Brown and President Sarkozy the issue was removed from G-8 consideration because China, India and others would not go along. This is perhaps a foretaste of what will happen on every topic in which China and the other BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) countries have an interest.
China, Russia and India have been very public with their concerns for the long term value of the US Dollar and critical of the effect of American deficit spending. In April, China’s holding of US Treasuries fell for the first time in eleven months. The amount was small, $4 billion and partially offset by a small gain in Hong Kong. But in the charged atmosphere of today’s international economics and in light of US funding needs, the drop was widely noted. From April 2008 until March 2009 the Chinese Government had been steadily acquiring Treasuries; its holding had increased from $502.0 to $767.9, a jump of 53%.
China has also moved to increase the supply and demand for the yuan as an alternative to the dollar by starting limited trade settlement in its currency. On July 6th some firms in five Chinese cities were allowed to begin settling transactions in yuan with companies from Hong Kong, Macau and the ASEAN countries. Non-Chinese banks will be able to obtain yuan from mainland institutions to finance trade.
The Peoples Bank of China (PBOC) has also formulated currency swap agreements with Argentina, Belarus, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia and South Korea. The PBOC will render yuan to their central banks as needed to pay for imports if these countries are short of the currency.
These moves by the Chinese authorities will not establish the yuan as an international reserve currency. But they will shift some of the trade demand for dollars to yuan. Offered the choice what Asian trading partner of China would not want to remove the volatile and increasingly questioned dollar from their financial equation? The logic is simple and efficient. Why hold reserves in dollars for your China trade and bear the currency risk? Yuan reserves reduce the need for dollars and reduce dollar currency risk.
China has emerged as the engine of growth in Asia and Asian countries are looking to China for the health of their own economies. If yuan settlement becomes the policy of the Chinese Government what trading partner will want to go against Beijing’s wishes and opt for dollar settlement? Considering the size of China’s foreign trade the potential drop in dollar demand could be substantial.
Until now it has been in China's interest to keep the yuan undervalued for trade competition. Since last summer China has effectively re-pegged the yuan to the dollar after three years of gradual appreciation. But that is likely to be a temporary expedient. If China is serious about using the yuan in trade and in permitting outside players, non Chinese players, to hold and store value in yuan, an essential component of a reserve currency, what better way than to resume a gradual appreciation of the currency? For an exporter in Vietnam or Thailand or even Australia, Japan or New Zealand would not an appreciating yuan be a far better option for your China trade capital than the dollar?
Chinese national interest will determine Beijing’s economic policy. But the time is fast approaching when safeguarding her economic development will be far better served by a strong and convertible currency than by a weak yuan priced for export. A strong dollar has been one of Washington’s most effective foreign policy tools for more than 50 years; that fact is not unknown in the Chinese capital.
Joseph Trevisani
Although formed a generation after the end of the Second World War, the G-7 represented the dominant nations of the defining event of 20th century history. As with the United Nations for international politics, the G-7 was an attempt to secure the victory of the western economic model. For the first 30 years after the war the only antagonist for the western capitalists had been the political and military threat of the Communists led by the Soviet Union. Until the oil embargo there had not been a serious economic challenge to Western Europe, the United States and Japan.
Why relate this history? The nations of the Second World War consensus that have dominated the world for 60 years are close to bankrupt. Their foreign bankers are now calling the shots; those who pay decide the future.
The abandonment of the climate change issue at the G-8 meeting is an example. Though the global warming agenda is a major part of the domestic political positions of President Obama, Chancellor Merkel, Prime Minister Brown and President Sarkozy the issue was removed from G-8 consideration because China, India and others would not go along. This is perhaps a foretaste of what will happen on every topic in which China and the other BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) countries have an interest.
China, Russia and India have been very public with their concerns for the long term value of the US Dollar and critical of the effect of American deficit spending. In April, China’s holding of US Treasuries fell for the first time in eleven months. The amount was small, $4 billion and partially offset by a small gain in Hong Kong. But in the charged atmosphere of today’s international economics and in light of US funding needs, the drop was widely noted. From April 2008 until March 2009 the Chinese Government had been steadily acquiring Treasuries; its holding had increased from $502.0 to $767.9, a jump of 53%.
China has also moved to increase the supply and demand for the yuan as an alternative to the dollar by starting limited trade settlement in its currency. On July 6th some firms in five Chinese cities were allowed to begin settling transactions in yuan with companies from Hong Kong, Macau and the ASEAN countries. Non-Chinese banks will be able to obtain yuan from mainland institutions to finance trade.
The Peoples Bank of China (PBOC) has also formulated currency swap agreements with Argentina, Belarus, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia and South Korea. The PBOC will render yuan to their central banks as needed to pay for imports if these countries are short of the currency.
These moves by the Chinese authorities will not establish the yuan as an international reserve currency. But they will shift some of the trade demand for dollars to yuan. Offered the choice what Asian trading partner of China would not want to remove the volatile and increasingly questioned dollar from their financial equation? The logic is simple and efficient. Why hold reserves in dollars for your China trade and bear the currency risk? Yuan reserves reduce the need for dollars and reduce dollar currency risk.
China has emerged as the engine of growth in Asia and Asian countries are looking to China for the health of their own economies. If yuan settlement becomes the policy of the Chinese Government what trading partner will want to go against Beijing’s wishes and opt for dollar settlement? Considering the size of China’s foreign trade the potential drop in dollar demand could be substantial.
Until now it has been in China's interest to keep the yuan undervalued for trade competition. Since last summer China has effectively re-pegged the yuan to the dollar after three years of gradual appreciation. But that is likely to be a temporary expedient. If China is serious about using the yuan in trade and in permitting outside players, non Chinese players, to hold and store value in yuan, an essential component of a reserve currency, what better way than to resume a gradual appreciation of the currency? For an exporter in Vietnam or Thailand or even Australia, Japan or New Zealand would not an appreciating yuan be a far better option for your China trade capital than the dollar?
Chinese national interest will determine Beijing’s economic policy. But the time is fast approaching when safeguarding her economic development will be far better served by a strong and convertible currency than by a weak yuan priced for export. A strong dollar has been one of Washington’s most effective foreign policy tools for more than 50 years; that fact is not unknown in the Chinese capital.
Joseph Trevisani
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
The Psychological Utility of Technical Analysis. Market Direction
Technical analysis is sometimes studied as if it contains a grain of secret knowledge or portrays an intrinsic truth about currency movements. Often it is said that a specific chart formation will produce a specific price movement.
Technical analysis does nothing of the sort. A chart is a reflection of past prices, nothing more. In itself a graph cannot predict future price movements. A currency does not trade up of down because of a formation on a chart. It moves because market participants make basic assumptions about future price behavior based on the record of past price action. A charted history of price action is the cumulative story of thousands of trading decisions; it is a record of the past behavior of thousands of individual traders.
Price information is meaningful only because trader’s decisions give it predictive power. A simple proof of the limited forward intelligence of historical price action is the well attested notion that fundamental developments always trump technical analysis. If the Federal Reserve raises rates unexpectedly or the Chinese Government announces it will no longer buy US Treasuries there is no chart formation that has ever existed that will prevent the dollar from rocketing up in the first instance or plummeting in the second.
Technical analysis does not produce price movement. I state the obvious because in the endless attribution of trading cause and effect to ‘the market’ it is easy to lose sight of the actual composition of the market--thousands of individual decision makers. The translation mechanism for technical analysis runs from the information contained in a chart, through the assessment of that information by market participants to the trading behavior of those market participants.
Another way to approach this idea is to ask, just who is the ‘market’ and what is it trying to accomplish every day. It is likely that over 90% of the $3.2 trillion daily volume in the FX market is speculative. That means that everyone in the market from the hedge fund trader with $1 billion under management, to the euro trader on the Deutsche Bank interbank desk to the retail trader in her study, is trying to do exactly the same thing, take home daily trading profits.
Interestingly, the overall worldwide foreign exchange trading volume in 2007, the year of the last survey, increased almost 50% from the prior survey in 2004 of $1.9 trillion daily. The counterparty reporting segment to which retail foreign exchange belongs boosted its share of turnover to 40% from 33% according to Bank for International Settlements in Basel (BIS, 2007) which conducts the tri-annual survey.
To return to my previous point, if every market participant is attempting to do the same thing, namely wring trading profits from the day’s activities, how do they all go about it?
The first thing every trader does, in New York, Tokyo, London and in every land in between is to pull up charts and look for trading opportunities. Every trader looking for profit is judging the same charts. Everyone sees the same price history, and everyone identifies the same potentially profitable chart formations. And, in the absence of other factors, the majority of traders will come to the same trading conclusion based on the observed chart formations.
If euro has been in an up channel for two weeks and is approaching the bottom of the channel most traders looking for an opportunity in euro will bet on the continuance of the up trend and the maintenance of the channel. They will place buy orders just above the floor of the channel. And much of the time the charts will have been proven correct, the euro will indeed bounce from the floor of the channel. But it bounces not because, for instance, the ECB is expected to raise rates at some future date, but because of the fit between the goals, information and assumptions of the market’s traders.
Traders need profits, all charts contain the same information and all traders operate with similar assumptions about market behavior based on chart formations. If enough traders place their buy orders above the bottom of the channel it becomes likely that the euro will bounce off the floor of the channel and continue the upward channel formation, barring external events of course.
There is powerful self-fulfilling logic in technical analysis, it works, because everyone trading believes it will work and makes their trading decisions accordingly. For a retail trader this knowledge is the most accessible and effective trading strategy that exists.
Joseph Trevisani
Technical analysis does nothing of the sort. A chart is a reflection of past prices, nothing more. In itself a graph cannot predict future price movements. A currency does not trade up of down because of a formation on a chart. It moves because market participants make basic assumptions about future price behavior based on the record of past price action. A charted history of price action is the cumulative story of thousands of trading decisions; it is a record of the past behavior of thousands of individual traders.
Price information is meaningful only because trader’s decisions give it predictive power. A simple proof of the limited forward intelligence of historical price action is the well attested notion that fundamental developments always trump technical analysis. If the Federal Reserve raises rates unexpectedly or the Chinese Government announces it will no longer buy US Treasuries there is no chart formation that has ever existed that will prevent the dollar from rocketing up in the first instance or plummeting in the second.
Technical analysis does not produce price movement. I state the obvious because in the endless attribution of trading cause and effect to ‘the market’ it is easy to lose sight of the actual composition of the market--thousands of individual decision makers. The translation mechanism for technical analysis runs from the information contained in a chart, through the assessment of that information by market participants to the trading behavior of those market participants.
Another way to approach this idea is to ask, just who is the ‘market’ and what is it trying to accomplish every day. It is likely that over 90% of the $3.2 trillion daily volume in the FX market is speculative. That means that everyone in the market from the hedge fund trader with $1 billion under management, to the euro trader on the Deutsche Bank interbank desk to the retail trader in her study, is trying to do exactly the same thing, take home daily trading profits.
Interestingly, the overall worldwide foreign exchange trading volume in 2007, the year of the last survey, increased almost 50% from the prior survey in 2004 of $1.9 trillion daily. The counterparty reporting segment to which retail foreign exchange belongs boosted its share of turnover to 40% from 33% according to Bank for International Settlements in Basel (BIS, 2007) which conducts the tri-annual survey.
To return to my previous point, if every market participant is attempting to do the same thing, namely wring trading profits from the day’s activities, how do they all go about it?
The first thing every trader does, in New York, Tokyo, London and in every land in between is to pull up charts and look for trading opportunities. Every trader looking for profit is judging the same charts. Everyone sees the same price history, and everyone identifies the same potentially profitable chart formations. And, in the absence of other factors, the majority of traders will come to the same trading conclusion based on the observed chart formations.
If euro has been in an up channel for two weeks and is approaching the bottom of the channel most traders looking for an opportunity in euro will bet on the continuance of the up trend and the maintenance of the channel. They will place buy orders just above the floor of the channel. And much of the time the charts will have been proven correct, the euro will indeed bounce from the floor of the channel. But it bounces not because, for instance, the ECB is expected to raise rates at some future date, but because of the fit between the goals, information and assumptions of the market’s traders.
Traders need profits, all charts contain the same information and all traders operate with similar assumptions about market behavior based on chart formations. If enough traders place their buy orders above the bottom of the channel it becomes likely that the euro will bounce off the floor of the channel and continue the upward channel formation, barring external events of course.
There is powerful self-fulfilling logic in technical analysis, it works, because everyone trading believes it will work and makes their trading decisions accordingly. For a retail trader this knowledge is the most accessible and effective trading strategy that exists.
Joseph Trevisani
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Dajjal Baby (Please be carefull)
Thanks to Mazaahir-ul-Uloom
I have received this email numerous times, many know this is NOT dajjal and its merely a poor baby born with medical condition and deformed developments.
Below is a more official answer to this
The ahadith relating to physical features and appearance of Dajjaal are quite clear. The baby shown on the email pictures cannot be Dajjaal because of the following reasons :
1. Dajjaal was present at least from the time of Nabi Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. A hadith exaplains the expererience of Tamim al-Daari Radhi Allahu Anhu where he saw Dajjaal chained on an island.
2. Dajjaal has been described in the ahadith as having two eyes. One of them will be blind and one will protrude like a grape.
3. The word “kaafir” will be seen on his forehead.
Medical doctors have further confirmed that the case of the baby, in question, with one eye is actually a physical deformity.
One should be particularly careful about circulating emails of this nature because they cause misconceptions and unnecessary confusion. As Muslims we believe completely in the words of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam regarding the emergence of Dajjaal. Our faith in this should not hinge upon images or chain emails.
We should further prepare ourselves from falling prey to the deception of Dajjaal, if we live to see him, by following the prescriptions mentioned in the Quran and ahadith.
And Allah knows best.
Courtesy of : Madrasah Mazaahir al-Uloom. For all Shariah related queries contact Mufti Muhammad Abubakr Minty at almazaahir@gmail.com
Monday, June 29, 2009
Market Direction
In the past three weeks there have been several indications that the Federal Reserve is reconsidering the extent and perhaps necessity of its extraordinary liquidity provisions to the Treasury market. How far have the chairman and governors pulled back from their quantitative easing policy?
On June 3rd Chairman Bernanke commented in Congressional testimony that Federal deficits cannot continue forever. In fact the deficits can continue, but the Fed’s $300 billion Treasury purchase plan will end unless additional funding is authorized by the Fed Governors. At this past week’s FOMC meeting the board specifically did not authorize further Treasury purchases. The Fed is also letting one of its emergency liquidity programs expire and curtailing two others. None of these developments is an overt change in policy, but they are reassurances that the chairman and the board view these liquidity measures as crisis expedients and not as permanent institutions of monetary and economic policy.
It is easy to forget that the Fed policy of direct support for credit markets was an emergency response to the crisis of confidence that overwhelmed the financial system last fall. Fed purchases of various securities supplied liquidity to non-functioning markets; they were not intended to be permanent. The Fed said as much at the time, though in the ensuing months market focus shifted from the programs themselves to the lack of a clear strategy for absorbing the excess money supply from the economy.
In March the market reaction to the financial crisis was at its peak. Treasury prices had been driven to historical highs by sustained panic buying of US Treasuries. Treasury interest rates and rates on 30-year fixed rate mortgages were at record lows. But even though mortgages rates were extraordinarily low the Fed judged that the reeling economy could not tolerate the surge in interest rates that would occur if Treasury prices began to fall. The governors may have suspected that the Treasury market would begin to drive prices lower and rates higher on its own as conditions normalized
In that context the Fed announced its $300 billion Treasury purchase in the FOMC statement of March 18th. The governors may also have been worried about the impact of the Federal deficit on the bond market whose reaction was then an unknown quantity. But despite the Fed backstop the Treasury market fell relentlessly after March 18 with the 10-year rate rising more than 1.5%. More dangerously the dollar index fell 10% from March 18th to June 6th.
For the currency markets the Fed Treasury program has had one meaning, monetization of the Federal debt.
Judging by the subsequent rise in Treasury rates the Fed governors may have known that the $300 million committed would be insufficient to hold the line on Treasury rates. But that relatively minor amount had a deadly effect on the dollar. The merest suspicion that monetization of US debt was possible sent the dollar into a three month swoon. The inflation that would result from a rapidly falling dollar and the effect of a collapsing dollar on the Treasury market itself could undo much of the economic and rate stabilization that the Fed was striving to achieve.
The Fed concern about the Treasury market was for the economic effect of higher interest rates on the US economy, particularly on the housing market thought by many to be at the heart of the economic collapse. But higher Treasury yields and mortgage rates have not, at least so far, choked whatever positive change in the economy has occurred since March. 30-year fixed mortgages have gained more than a point but the housing market has stabilized; new home and existing home sales in May were both in the center of the range they have exhibited since January.
Personal Consumption Expenditures have revived a bit. They were flat in April and gained 0.3% in May, which was only the third positive month in the past eleven. Non Farm Payrolls were substantially improved in May at -345,000, with the three month moving average (-500,000) having gained almost 200,000 since March (-691,000). Consumer sentiment numbers have moved up steadily since the beginning of the quarter. The economic situation that prompted the Fed quantitative easing has returned to more normal territory.
The Treasury market has also stabilized in the past two weeks. After reaching 4.00% the yield on the 10-year note had declined to 3.54% on the Friday close. The government Treasury auctions, a record $104 billion in the past week alone, have been subscribed at higher rates than normal. The bond markets are not demanding substantially higher rates on American debt, despite the vast continuing supply of US issuance.
The key to the continuance of the Fed Treasury program is the attitude of the credit markets. It is relatively simple. If bond purchasers do not demand higher yields for US debt, then whatever the long term effect of the ballooning US debt and inflation the government will not be forced to pay higher rates. If Treasury prices are not falling the Fed will not have to support the market with further Treasury purchases and the currency markets will not be stampeded away from the dollar by monetization.
Foreign central banks have been unusually critical of the US government’s fiscal and debt policy. The Chinese were so again this week. But what matters are not the banker’s words or their musings about a world reserve currency. What matters is action. As long as the Chinese, Russians, Japanese and private investors continue to buy US Treasuries, the Fed will not have to choose between supporting the US economy and supporting the dollar.
It is a delicate balance but so far the Fed has, with the cooperation of the Treasury markets, kept the pointer right in the middle of the scale. The Fed has managed to mitigate the scare it threw into the currency markets in March with its recent statements and actions.
There are still a huge amount of Treasuries to be sold over the next three months and the economic situation is still dangerous. But the Fed view as reflected in the FOMC statement, no more quantitative easing and a slight though significant withdrawal from the credit markets may be the right and artful balance between keeping down US interest rates and avoiding a dollar panic in the currency markets.
Joseph Trevisani
On June 3rd Chairman Bernanke commented in Congressional testimony that Federal deficits cannot continue forever. In fact the deficits can continue, but the Fed’s $300 billion Treasury purchase plan will end unless additional funding is authorized by the Fed Governors. At this past week’s FOMC meeting the board specifically did not authorize further Treasury purchases. The Fed is also letting one of its emergency liquidity programs expire and curtailing two others. None of these developments is an overt change in policy, but they are reassurances that the chairman and the board view these liquidity measures as crisis expedients and not as permanent institutions of monetary and economic policy.
It is easy to forget that the Fed policy of direct support for credit markets was an emergency response to the crisis of confidence that overwhelmed the financial system last fall. Fed purchases of various securities supplied liquidity to non-functioning markets; they were not intended to be permanent. The Fed said as much at the time, though in the ensuing months market focus shifted from the programs themselves to the lack of a clear strategy for absorbing the excess money supply from the economy.
In March the market reaction to the financial crisis was at its peak. Treasury prices had been driven to historical highs by sustained panic buying of US Treasuries. Treasury interest rates and rates on 30-year fixed rate mortgages were at record lows. But even though mortgages rates were extraordinarily low the Fed judged that the reeling economy could not tolerate the surge in interest rates that would occur if Treasury prices began to fall. The governors may have suspected that the Treasury market would begin to drive prices lower and rates higher on its own as conditions normalized
In that context the Fed announced its $300 billion Treasury purchase in the FOMC statement of March 18th. The governors may also have been worried about the impact of the Federal deficit on the bond market whose reaction was then an unknown quantity. But despite the Fed backstop the Treasury market fell relentlessly after March 18 with the 10-year rate rising more than 1.5%. More dangerously the dollar index fell 10% from March 18th to June 6th.
For the currency markets the Fed Treasury program has had one meaning, monetization of the Federal debt.
Judging by the subsequent rise in Treasury rates the Fed governors may have known that the $300 million committed would be insufficient to hold the line on Treasury rates. But that relatively minor amount had a deadly effect on the dollar. The merest suspicion that monetization of US debt was possible sent the dollar into a three month swoon. The inflation that would result from a rapidly falling dollar and the effect of a collapsing dollar on the Treasury market itself could undo much of the economic and rate stabilization that the Fed was striving to achieve.
The Fed concern about the Treasury market was for the economic effect of higher interest rates on the US economy, particularly on the housing market thought by many to be at the heart of the economic collapse. But higher Treasury yields and mortgage rates have not, at least so far, choked whatever positive change in the economy has occurred since March. 30-year fixed mortgages have gained more than a point but the housing market has stabilized; new home and existing home sales in May were both in the center of the range they have exhibited since January.
Personal Consumption Expenditures have revived a bit. They were flat in April and gained 0.3% in May, which was only the third positive month in the past eleven. Non Farm Payrolls were substantially improved in May at -345,000, with the three month moving average (-500,000) having gained almost 200,000 since March (-691,000). Consumer sentiment numbers have moved up steadily since the beginning of the quarter. The economic situation that prompted the Fed quantitative easing has returned to more normal territory.
The Treasury market has also stabilized in the past two weeks. After reaching 4.00% the yield on the 10-year note had declined to 3.54% on the Friday close. The government Treasury auctions, a record $104 billion in the past week alone, have been subscribed at higher rates than normal. The bond markets are not demanding substantially higher rates on American debt, despite the vast continuing supply of US issuance.
The key to the continuance of the Fed Treasury program is the attitude of the credit markets. It is relatively simple. If bond purchasers do not demand higher yields for US debt, then whatever the long term effect of the ballooning US debt and inflation the government will not be forced to pay higher rates. If Treasury prices are not falling the Fed will not have to support the market with further Treasury purchases and the currency markets will not be stampeded away from the dollar by monetization.
Foreign central banks have been unusually critical of the US government’s fiscal and debt policy. The Chinese were so again this week. But what matters are not the banker’s words or their musings about a world reserve currency. What matters is action. As long as the Chinese, Russians, Japanese and private investors continue to buy US Treasuries, the Fed will not have to choose between supporting the US economy and supporting the dollar.
It is a delicate balance but so far the Fed has, with the cooperation of the Treasury markets, kept the pointer right in the middle of the scale. The Fed has managed to mitigate the scare it threw into the currency markets in March with its recent statements and actions.
There are still a huge amount of Treasuries to be sold over the next three months and the economic situation is still dangerous. But the Fed view as reflected in the FOMC statement, no more quantitative easing and a slight though significant withdrawal from the credit markets may be the right and artful balance between keeping down US interest rates and avoiding a dollar panic in the currency markets.
Joseph Trevisani
How to make a business plan?
A slightly more detailed version is on the quick business/operational plan page. Business planning might appear very complex but in essence it's common sense, and begins with some very simple business start-up principles.
To explore personal direction and change (for example for early planning of self-employment or new business start-up) see the passion-to-profit exercise and template on the teambuilding exercises page.
Planning a new business or business project must at some stage address a few financial details, and challenges and opportunities relating to modern technology, the internet, websites, etc.
However the techniques of how to write strategic business plans (or a strategic marketing plan) remain basically straight-forward.
Business planning and marketing strategy are mostly common-sense and logic, based on cause and effect.
Here are tips, examples, techniques, tools and a process for writing a marketing strategy, business and sales plans, to produce effective results. This free online guide explains how to put together a marketing strategy, basic business plan, and a sales plan, including free templates and examples, such as the Ansoff and Boston matrix tools. New pages are being added soon on advertising, sales promotion, PR (public relations) and press releases, sales enquiry lead generation, advertising copy-writing, internet and website marketing, in the meanwhile see the marketing tips page for free marketing and advertising techniques and advice.
See also the simple notes about starting your own business, which to an extent also apply when you are starting a new business initiative or development inside another organization as a new business development manager, or a similar role.
Here's a free MSExcel profit and loss account template tool for incorporating these factors and financials into a more formal phased business trading plan, which also serves as a business forecasting and reporting tool too.
Towards the end of this article there is also a simple template/framework for a feasibility study or justification report, such as might be required to win funding, authorisation or approval for starting a project, or the continuation of a project or group, in a commercial or voluntary situation.
If you are starting a new business you might also find the tips and information about buying a franchise business to be helpful, since they cover many basic points about choice of business activity and early planning.
how to write strategic marketing plans, business plans and sales plans
People use various terms referring to the business planning process - business plans, business strategy, marketing strategy, strategic business planning, sales planning - they all cover the same basic principles. When faced with business planning or strategy development task it's important to clarify exactly what is required: clarify what needs to be done rather than assume the aim from the description given to it - terms are confused and mean different things to different people. You'll see from the definitions below how flexible these business planning terms are.
Business planning definitions:
a plan - a statement of intent - a calculated intention to organize effort and resource to achieve an outcome - in this context a plan is in written form, comprising explanation, justification and relevant numerical and financial statistical data. In a business context a plan's numerical data - costs and revenues - are normally scheduled over at least one trading year, broken down weekly, monthly quarterly and cumulatively.
A business - an activity or entity, irrespective of size and autonomy, which is engaged in an activity, normally the provision of products and/or services, to produce commercial gain, extending to non-commercial organizations whose aim may or may not be profit (hence why public service sector schools and hospitals are in this context referred to as 'businesses').
Business plan - this is now rightly a very general and flexible term, applicable to the planned activities and aims of any entity, individual group or organization where effort is being converted into results, for example: a small company; a large company; a corner shop; a local window-cleaning business; a regional business; a multi-million pound multi-national corporation; a charity; a school; a hospital; a local council; a government agency or department; a joint-venture; a project within a business or department; a business unit, division, or department within another organization or company, a profit centre or cost centre within an an organization or business; the responsibility of a team or group or an individual. The business entity could also be a proposed start-up, a new business development within an existing organization, a new joint-venture, or any new organizational or business project which aims to convert action into results. The extent to which a business plan includes costs and overheads activities and resources (eg., production, research and development, warehouse, storage, transport, distribution, wastage, shrinkage, head office, training, bad debts, etc) depends on the needs of the business and the purpose of the plan. Large 'executive-level' business plans therefore look rather like a 'predictive profit and loss account', fully itemised down to the 'bottom line'. Business plans written at business unit or departmental level do not generally include financial data outside the department concerned. Most business plans are in effect sales plans or marketing plans or departmental plans, which form the main bias of this guide.
Strategy - originally a military term, in a business planning context strategy/strategic means/pertains to why and how the plan will work, in relation to all factors of influence upon the business entity and activity, particularly including competitors (thus the use of a military combative term), customers and demographics, technology and communications.
Marketing - believed by many to mean the same as advertising or sales promotion, marketing actually means and covers everything from company culture and positioning, through market research, new business/product development, advertising and promotion, PR (public/press relations), and arguably all of the sales functions as well. Marketing is the process by which a business decides what it will sell, to whom, when and how, and then does it.
Marketing plan - logically a plan which details what a business will sell, to whom, when and how, implicitly including the business/marketing strategy. The extent to which financial and commercial numerical data is included depends on the needs of the business. The extent to which this details the sales plan also depends on the needs of the business.
Sales - the transactions between the business and its customers whereby services and/or products are provided in return for payment. Sales (sales department/sales team) also describes the activities and resources that enable this process, and sales also describes the revenues that the business derives from the sales activities.
Sales plan - a plan describing, quantifying and phased over time, how the the sales will be made and to whom. Some organizations interpret this to be the same as a business plan or a marketing plan.
Business strategy - see 'strategy' - it's the same.
Marketing strategy - see 'strategy' - it's the same.
Service contract - a formal document usually drawn up by the supplier by which the trading arrangement is agreed with the customer. See the section on service contracts and trading agreements.
Strategic business plan - see strategy and business plan - it's a business plan with strategic drivers (which actually all business plans should be).
Strategic business planning - developing and writing a strategic business plan.
Philosophy, values, ethics, vision - these are the fundamentals of business planning, and determine the spirit and integrity of the business or organisation - see the guide to how philosophical and ethical factors fit into the planning process, and also the principles and materials relating to corporate responsibility and ethical leadership.
You can see that many of these terms are interchangeable, so it's important to clarify what needs to be planned for rather than assuming or inferring a meaning from the name given to the task.
Other useful and relevant business planning definitions are in the glossary on the sales techniques section; some are also in the financial terms section, and various are among the business and training acronyms section, which could provide some welcome light relief if this business planning gets a little dry (be warned, the acronym section contains some adult content).
When writing a business or operating plan, remember...
The most important driver for almost any business plan (whether it's called a business plan, a sales plan, an operational plan, an organisational plan, marketing plan, marketing strategy, strategic business plan, or other department business plan) is return on investment, or for public services and non-profit organisations, is effective use of investment and resources.
It's crucial also to consider and incorporate corporate social responsibility, ethics, the 'greater good', etc, but for the vast majority of organisations, whether companies, public services, not-for-profit trusts and charities, all organisations need to be financially effective in what they do, otherwise they will cease to function.
Organisations need of course to be ethical and humane, and to have a sound philosophical foundation, but ultimately, to sustain any organised activity, the figures and finances have to add up. I say this because this website is a very strong advocate of ethics and humanity in business (not least because so many organisations still fail to acknowledge and genuinely prioritise these aspects at all), so it's important to emphasise this point:
It's essential to manage ethical and socially responsible aspects as part of the total mix of organisational aims, which necessarily must include the effective use of investment and resources, in whatever way the principle is applied for the particular organisation.
Commonly, when someone starts to write a business plan or operational plan for the first time (and for many people the umpteenth time), they wonder: what is the objective? Often when they ask their manager, the manager has the same doubt. Sometimes even company directors fail to appreciate that return on investment is the main driver for any plan, unless there's a very good reason for there being some other purpose.
The essential planning elements are identifying causes and effects, according to your relevant business drivers. In many good businesses a substantial business planning responsibility extends now to front line customer-facing staff, and the trend is increasing. In this context, the business plan could be called also be called a marketing plan, or a sales plan - it's all the same:
"What you are going to sell to whom, when and how you are going to sell it, how much contribution (gross profit) the sales will produce, what the marketing and/or selling cost will be, and what will be the return on investment."
The same principles and methods actually apply to very large complex multinational organizations - the only differences are that there are other costs - typically fixed overheads - more spreadsheets, more lines and columns on each, more folks crunching the numbers, and a couple of extra angles for the accountants, to tell them what they need to know about cashflow and the balance sheet.
The essentials of business planning, strategic business plans, sales plans and marketing planning - whatever you call it and whatever it means to you - are quite straight-forward.
Before deciding whether to embark on any new venture, or to change an existing one it's vital to understand the market.
'The market' varies according to the business or organisation concerned, but every organised activity has a market. Knowing the market enables you to assess and value and plan how to engage with it.
A common failing of business planning or operational planning outside of the 'business' world, is to plan in isolation, looking inward, when everything seems great because there's no context and nothing to compare it with. Hence why research is critical. And this applies to any type of organisation - not just to businesses.
carry out your market research, including understanding your competitor activity
Your market research should focus on the information you need, to help you to formulate strategy and make business decisions. Market research should be pragmatic and purposeful - a means to an end, and not a means in itself. Market information potentially covers a vast range of data, from global macro-trends and statistics, to very specific and detailed local or technical information, so it's important to decide what is actually relevant and necessary to know. Market information about market and industry trends, values, main corporations, market structure, etc, is important to know for large corporations operating on a national or international basis. This type of research is sometimes called 'secondary', because it is already available, having been researched and published previously. This sort of information is available from the internet, libraries, research companies, trade and national press and publications, professional associations and institutes. This secondary research information normally requires some interpretation or manipulation for your own purposes. However there's no point spending days researching global statistical economic and demographic data if you are developing a strategy for a relatively small or local business. Far more useful would be to carry out your own 'primary' research (ie original research) about the local target market, buying patterns and preferences, local competitors, their prices and service offerings. A lot of useful primary market research can be performed using customer feed-back, surveys, questionnaires and focus groups (obtaining indicators and views through discussion among a few representative people in a controlled discussion situation). This sort of primary research should be tailored exactly for your needs. Primary research requires less manipulation than secondary research, but all types of research need a certain amount of analysis. Be careful when extrapolating or projecting figures to avoid magnifying initial mistakes or wrong assumptions. If the starting point is inaccurate the resulting analysis will not be reliable. For businesses of any size; small, local, global and everything in between, the main elements you need to understand and quantify are:
* customer (and potential customer) numbers, profile and mix
* customer perceptions, needs, preferences, buying patterns, and trends, by sub-sector if necessary
* products and services, mix, values and trends
* demographic issues and trends (especially if dependent on consumer markets)
* future regulatory and legal effects
* prices and values, and customer perceptions in these areas
* distribution and routes to market
* competitor activities, strengths, weaknesses, products, services, prices, sales methods, etc
Primary research is recommended for local and niche services. Keep the subjects simple and the range narrow. If using questionnaires formulate questions that give clear yes or no indicators (ie avoid three and five options in multi-choices which produce lots of uncertain answers) always understand how you will analyse and measure the data produced. Try to convert data to numerical format and manipulate on a spreadsheet. Use focus groups for more detailed work. For large research projects consider using a market research organization because they'll probably do it better than you, even though this is likely to be more costly. If you use any sort of marketing agency ensure you issue a clear brief, and that your aims are clearly understood. Useful frameworks for research are PEST analysis and SWOT analysis.
establish your corporate philosophy and the aims of your business or operation
First establish or confirm the aims of the business, and if you are concerned with a part of a business, establish and validate the aims of your part of the business. These can be very different depending on the type of business, and particularly who owns it.
Refer to and consider issues of ethics and philosophy, corporate social responsibility, sustainability, etc - these are the foundations on which values and missions are built.
Look at the reasons why ethics and corporate responsibility are so important. And see also the fundamental organisational planning stages.
When you have established or confirmed your philosophical and ethical position, state the objectives of the business unit you are planning to develop - your short, medium and long term aims - (typically 'short, medium and long' equate to 1 year, 2-3 years and 3 years plus). In other words, what is the business aiming to do over the next one, three and five years?
Bear in mind that you must reliably ensure the success and viability of the business in the short term or the long term is merely an academic issue. Grand visions need solid foundations. All objectives and aims must be prioritised and as far as possible quantified. If you can't measure it, you can't manage it.
define your 'mission statement'
All businesses need a ‘mission statement'. It announces clearly and succinctly to your staff, shareholders and customers what you are in business to do. Your mission statement may build upon a general ‘service charter' relevant to your industry. You can involve staff in defining and refining the business's mission statement, which helps develop a sense of ownership and responsibility. Producing and announcing the mission statement is also an excellent process for focusing attention on the business's priorities, and particularly the emphasis on customer service. Whole businesses need a mission statement - departments and smaller business units within a bigger business need them too.
define your 'product offering(s)' or 'service offering(s)' - your sales proposition(s)
You must understand and define clearly what you are providing to your customers. This description should normally go beyond your products or services, and critically must include the way you do business, and what business benefits your customers derive from your products and services, and from doing business with you. Develop offerings or propositions for each main area of your business activity - sometimes referred to as 'revenue streams', or 'business streams' - and/or for the sector(s) that you serve. Under normal circumstances competitive advantage is increased the more you can offer things that your competitors cannot. Good research will tell you where the opportunities are to increase your competitive advantage in areas that are of prime interest to your target markets. Develop your service offering to emphasise your strengths, which should normally relate to your business objectives, in turn being influenced by corporate aims and market research. The important process in developing a proposition is translating your view of these services into an offer that means something to your customer. The definition of your service offer must make sense to your customer in terms that are advantageous and beneficial to the customer, not what is technically good, or scientifically sound to you. Think about what your service, and the manner by which you deliver it, means to your customer.
Traditionally, in sales and marketing, this perspective is referred to as translating features into benefits. The easiest way to translate a feature into a benefit is to add the prompt ‘which means that...'. For example, if a strong feature of a business is that it has 24-hour opening, this feature would translate into something like: "We're open 24 hours (the feature) which means that you can get what you need when you need it - day or night." (the benefit). Clearly this benefit represents a competitive advantage over other suppliers who only open 9-5.
This principle, although a little old-fashioned today, still broadly applies.
The important thing is to understand your services and proposition in terms that your customer will recognise as being relevant and beneficial to them.
Most businesses have a very poor understanding of what their customers value most in the relationship, so ensure you discover this in the research stage, and reflect it in your stated product or service proposition(s).
Customers invariably value these benefits higher than all others:
* Making money
* Saving money
* Saving time
If your proposition(s) cannot be seen as leading to any of the above then customers will not be very interested in you.
A service-offer or proposition should be an encapsulation of what you do best, that you do better than your competitors (or that they don't do at all); something that fits with your business objectives, stated in terms that will make your customers think ‘Yes, that means something to me and I think it could be good for my business (and therefore good for me also as a buyer or sponsor).'
This is the first 'brick in the wall' in the process of business planning, sales planning, marketing planning, and thereafter, direct marketing, and particularly sales lead generation.
Write your business plan - include sales, costs of sales, gross margins, and if necessary your business overheads
Business plans come in all shapes and sizes. Pragmatism is essential. Ensure your plan shows what your business needs it to show. Essentially your plan is a spreadsheet of numbers with supporting narrative, explaining how the numbers are to be achieved. A plan should show all the activities and resources in terms of revenues and costs, which together hopefully produce a profit at the end of the trading year. The level of detail and complexity depends on the size and part of the business that the plan concerns. Your business plan, which deals with all aspects of the resource and management of the business (or your part of the business), will include many decisions and factors fed in from the marketing process. It will state sales and profitability targets by activity. In a marketing plan there may also be references to image and reputation, and to public relations. All of these issues require thought and planning if they are to result in improvement, and particularly increasing numbers of customers and revenue growth. You would normally describe and provide financial justification for the means of achieving these things, together with customer satisfaction improvement. Above all a plan needs to be based on actions - cost-effective and profitable cause and effect; inputs required to achieved required outputs, analysed, identified and quantified separately wherever necessary to be able to manage and measure the relevant activities and resources.
quantify the business you seek from each of your market sectors, segments, products and customer groupings, and allocate investment, resources and activities accordingly
These principles apply to a small local business, a department within a business, or a vast whole business. Before attending to the detail of how to achieve your marketing aims you need to quantify clearly what they are. What growth targets does the business have? What customer losses are you projecting? How many new customers do you need, by size and type, by product and service? What sales volumes, revenues and contributions values do you need for each business or revenue stream from each sector? What is your product mix, in terms of customer type, size, sector, volumes, values, contribution, and distribution channel or route to market? What are your projected selling costs and net contributions per service, product, sector? What trends and percentage increase in revenues and contributions, and volumes compared to last year are you projecting? How is your market share per business stream and sector changing, and how does this compare with your overall business aims? What are your fast-growth high-margin opportunities, and what are your mature and low-margin services; how are you treating these different opportunities, and anything else in between? You should use a basic spreadsheet tool to split your business according to the main activities and profit levers. See the simple sales/business planning tool example below.
A useful planning tool in respect of markets and products is the matrix developed by Igor Ansoff:
ansoff product-market matrix
The Ansoff product-market matrix helps to understand and assess marketing or business development strategy. Any business, or part of a business can choose which strategy to employ, or which mix of strategic options to use. This is one simple way of looking at strategic development options:
existing products new products
existing markets market penetration product development
new markets market development diversification
Each of these strategic options holds different opportunities and downsides for different organizations, so what is right for one business won't necessarily be right for another. Think about what option offers the best potential for your own business and market. Think about the strengths of your business and what type of growth strategy your strengths will enable most naturally. Generally beware of diversification - this is, by its nature, unknown territory, and carries the highest risk of failure.
Here are the Ansoff strategies in summary:
Market penetration - Developing your sales of existing products to your existing market(s). This is fine if there is plenty of market share to be had at the expense of your competitors, or if the market is growing fast and large enough for the growth you need. If you already have large market share you need to consider whether investing for further growth in this area would produce diminishing returns from your development activity. It could be that you will increase the profit from this activity more by reducing costs than by actively seeking more market share. Strong market share suggests there are likely to be better returns from extending the range of products/services that you can offer to the market, as in the next option.
Product development - Developing or finding new products to take to your existing market(s). This is an attractive strategy if you have strong market share in a particular market. Such a strategy can be a suitable reason for acquiring another company or product/service capability provided it is relevant to your market and your distribution route. Developing new products does not mean that you have to do this yourself (which is normally very expensive and frequently results in simply re-inventing someone else's wheel) - often there are potential manufacturing partners out there who are looking for their own distribution partner with the sort of market presence that you already have. However if you already have good market share across a wide range of products for your market, this option may be one that produces diminishing returns on your growth investment and activities, and instead you may do better to seek to develop new markets, as in the next strategic option.
Market development - Developing new markets for your existing products. New markets can also mean new sub-sectors within your market - it helps to stay reasonably close to the markets you know and which know you. Moving into completely different markets, even if the product/service fit looks good, holds risks because this will be unknown territory for you, and almost certainly will involve working through new distribution channels, routes or partners. If you have good market share and good product/service range then moving into associated markets or segments is likely to be an attractive strategy.
Diversification - taking new products into new markets. This is high risk - not only do you not know the products, but neither do you know the new market(s), and again this strategic option is likely to entail working through new distribution channels and routes to market. This sort of activity should generally be regarded as additional and supplementary to the core business activity, and should be rolled out carefully through rigorous testing and piloting.
Consider also your existing products and services themselves in terms of their market development opportunity and profit potential. Some will offer very high margins because they are relatively new, or specialised in some way, perhaps because of special USP's or distribution arrangements. Other products and services may be more mature, with little or no competitive advantage, in which case they will produce lower margins. The Boston Matrix is a useful way to understand and assess your different existing product and service opportunities:
boston matrix
The Boston matrix model is a tool for assessing existing and development products in terms of their market potential, and thereby implying strategic action for products and services in each category.
low market share high market share
growing market problem child (rising) star
mature market dog cash cow
Cash cow - The rather crude metaphor is based on the idea of 'milking' the returns from previous investments which established good distribution and market share for the product. Products in this quadrant need maintenance and protection activity, together with good cost management, not growth effort, because there is little or no additional growth available.
Dog - This is any product or service of yours which has low market presence in a mature or stagnant market. There is no point in developing products or services in this quadrant. Many organizations discontinue products/services that they consider fall into this category, in which case consider potential impact on overhead cost recovery. Businesses that have been starved or denied development find themselves with a high or entire proportion of their products or services in this quadrant, which is obviously not very funny at all, except to the competitors.
Problem child - These are products which have a big and growing market potential, but existing low market share, normally because they are new products, or the application has not been spotted and acted upon yet. New business development and project management principles are required here to ensure that these products' potential can be realised and disasters avoided. This is likely to be an area of business that is quite competitive, where the pioneers take the risks in the hope of securing good early distribution arrangements, image, reputation and market share. Gross profit margins are likely to be high, but overheads, in the form of costs of research, development, advertising, market education, and low economies of scale, are normally high, and can cause initial business development in this area to be loss-making until the product moves into the rising star category, which is by no means assured - many problem children products remain as such.
Rising star - Or 'star' products, are those which have good market share in a strong and growing market. As a product moves into this category it is commonly known as a 'rising star'. When a market is strong and still growing, competition is not yet fully established. Demand is strong; saturation or over-supply do not exists, and so pricing is relatively unhindered. This all means that these products produce very good returns and profitability. The market is receptive and educated, which optimises selling efficiencies and margins. Production and manufacturing overheads are established and costs minimised due to high volumes and good economies of scale. These are great products and worthy of continuing investment provided good growth potential continues to exist. When it does not these products are likely to move down to cash cow status, and the company needs to have the next rising stars developing from its problem children.
After considering your business in terms of the Ansoff matrix and Boston matrix (which are thinking aids as much as anything else, not a magic solution in themselves), on a more detailed level, and for many businesses just as significant as the Ansoff-type-options, what is the significance of your major accounts - do they offer better opportunity for growth and development than your ordinary business? Do you have a high quality, specialised offering that delivers better business benefit on a large scale as opposed to small scale? Are your selling costs and investment similar for large and small contracts? If so you might do better concentrating on developing large major accounts business, rather than taking a sophisticated product or service solution to smaller companies which do not appreciate or require it, and cost you just as much to sell to as a large organization.
Customer matrix
This customer matrix model is used by many companies to understand and determine strategies according to customer types.
good products not so good products
good customers develop and find more customers like these - allocate your best resources to these existing customers and to prospective customers matching this profile educate and convert these customers to good products if beneficial to them, failing which, maintain customers via account management
not so good customers invest cautiously to develop and improve relationship, failing which, maintain customers via account management assess feasibility of moving these customers left or up, failing which, withdraw from supplying sensitively
Assessing product type is helped by reference to the Boston matrix model. There is a lot of flexibility as to what constitutes 'good' and 'not so good customers' - use your own criteria. A good way to do this is to devise your own grading system using criteria that mean something to your own situation. Typical criteria are: size, location, relationship, credit-rating and payment terms, is the customer growing (or not), the security of the supply contract, the service and support overhead required, etc. This kind of customer profiling tool and exercise is often overlooked, but it is a critical aspect of marketing and sales development, and of optimising sales effectiveness and business development performance and profitability. Each quadrant requires a different sales approach. The type of customer also implies the type of sales person who should be responsible for managing the relationship. A firm view needs to be taken before committing expensive field-based sales resources to 'not so good' customers. Focus prospect development (identifying and contacting new prospective customers) on the profile which appears in the top left quadrant. Identify prospective new customers who fit this profile, and allocate your business development resources (people and advertising) to this audience.
Consider also What are your competitor weaknesses in terms of sectors, geographical territory and products or services, and how might these factors affect your options? Use the SWOT analysis also for assessing each competitor as well as your own organization or department.
Many organizations issue a marketing budget from the top down (a budget issued by the Centre/HQ/Finance Director), so to speak, in which case, what is your marketing budget and how can you use it to produce the best return on investment, and to help the company best to meet its overall business aims? Use the models described here to assess your best likely returns on marketing investment.
The best way to begin to model and plan your marketing is to have a record of your historical (say last year's) sales results (including selling and advertising costs if appropriate and available) on a spreadsheet. The level of detail is up to you; modern spreadsheets can organize massive amounts of data and make very complex analysis quick easy. Data is vital and will enable you to do most of the analysis you need for marketing planning. In simple terms you can use last year's results as a basis for planning and modelling the next year's sales, and the marketing expenditure and activities required to achieve them.
simple business plan or sales plan tools examples
These templates examples help the planning process. Split and analyse your business or sales according to your main products/services (or revenue streams) according to the profit drivers or 'levers' (variables that you can change which affect profit), eg., quantity or volume, average sales value or price, % gross margin or profit. Add different columns which reflect your own business profit drivers or levers, and to provide the most relevant measures.
quantity total sales value average value % gross margin total sales or gross margin
product 1
product 2
product 3
product 4
totals
Do the same for each important aspect of your business, for example, split by market sector (or segment):
quantity total sales value average value % gross margin total sales or gross margin
sector 1
sector 2
sector 3
sector 4
totals
And, for example, split by distributor (or route to market):
quantity total sales value average value % gross margin total sales or gross margin
distributor 1
distributor 2
distributor 3
distributor 4
totals
These simple split analysis tools are an extremely effective way to plan your sales and business. Construct a working spreadsheet so that the bottom-right cell shows the total sales or gross margin, or profit, whatever you need to measure, and by changing the figures within the split (altering the mix, average prices, quantities, etc) you can carry out 'what if?' analysis to develop the best plans.
If you are a competent working with spreadsheets it is normally possible to assemble all of this data onto a single spreadsheet and then show different analyses by sorting and graphing according to different fields.
When you are happy with the overall totals for the year, convert this into a phased monthly plan, with as many lines and columns as you need and are appropriate for the business. Develop this spreadsheet by showing inputs as well as sales outputs - the quantifiable activity (for example, the numbers of enquiries necessary to produce the planned sales levels) required to produce the planned performance. Large businesses need extensive and multiple page spreadsheets. A business plan needs costs as well as sales, and will show profit as well as revenue and gross margin, but the principle is the same: plan the detailed numbers and values of what the business performance will be, and what inputs are required to achieve it.
Here's a free MSExcel profit and loss account template tool for incorporating these factors and financials into a more formal phased business trading plan, which also serves as a business forecasting and reporting tool too. Adapt it to suit your purposes. This plan example is also available as a PDF, see the Profit and Loss Account (P&L) Small Enterprise Business Plan Example (PDF). The numbers could be anything: ten times less, ten times more, a hundred times more - the principle is the same.
Consider also indirect activities that affect sales and business levels, such as customer service. Identify key performance indicators here too, such as customer complaints response and resolution levels and timescales. Internal lead referral schemes, strategic partnership activity; the performance of other direct sales activities such as sales agencies, distributorships, export activities, licensing, etc. These performance factors won't normally appear on a business plan spreadsheet, but a separate plan should be made for them, otherwise they won't happen.
write your marketing plan or business plan
Your marketing plan is actually a statement, supported by relevant financial data, of how you are going to develop your business. Plans should be based on actions, not masses of historical data. The historical and market information should be sufficient just to explain and justify the opportunities, direction, strategy, and most importantly, the marketing actions, methods and measures - not to tell the story of the past 20 years of your particular industry.
"What you are going to sell to whom, when and how you are going to sell it, how much contribution (gross profit) the sales produce, what the marketing cost will be, and what will be the return on investment."
As stated above it is easiest and best to assemble all of this data onto a spreadsheet, which then allows data to be manipulated through the planning process, and then changed and re-projected when the trading year is under way. The spreadsheet then becomes the basis of your sales and marketing forecasting and results reporting tool.
As well as sales and marketing data, in most types of businesses it is also useful to include measurable aims concerning customer service and satisfaction.
The marketing plan will have costs that relate to a marketing budget in the overall business plan. The marketing plan will also have revenue and gross margin/profitability targets that relate to the turnover and profitability in the overall business plan. This data is essentially numerical, and so needs also some supporting narrative as to how the numbers will be achieved - the actions - but keep the narrative concise; if it extends to more than a half-dozen sheets make sure you put a succinct executive summary on the front.
The marketing plan narrative could if appropriate also refer to indirect activities such as product development, customer service, quality assurance, training etc., if significantly relevant to achieving the marketing plan aims.
Be pragmatic - marketing plans vary enormously depending on the type, size and maturity of business. Above all create a plan that logically shows how the business can best consolidate and grow its successful profitable areas. The marketing plan should be a working and truly useful tool - if it is, then it's probably a good one.
sample business plan, marketing plan or sales plan sample structure and example format/template
Keep the written part of the business plan as concise and brief as possible - most situations and high-ranking executives do not need to see plans that are an inch thick. If you can make your case on a half dozen pages then do so. Particularly if your plan is more than 5-6 pages long, produce an executive summary (easiest to do when you have completed the plan) and insert it at the beginning of the document. If you need to include lots of reference material, examples, charts, evidence, etc, show these as appendices at the back of the document and make sure they are numbered and referenced during the main body of the plan. Each new section should start at the top of a new page. Number the pages. Important plans should be suitably bound. All business plans should be professionally and neatly presented, with no grammar and spelling errors, clearly laid out in an easy to read format (avoid lots of upper-case or fancy fonts or italics as these are all difficult to read). Your business plan contents and structure should be as follows:
Business plans structure
* Title page: Title or heading of the plan and brief description if required, author, date, company/organization if applicable, details of circulation and confidentiality.
* Contents page: A list of contents (basically the sections listed here, starting with the Introduction page) showing page numbers, plus a list of appendices or addendums (added reference material at the back of the document) allowing the reader to find what they need and navigate the document easily, and to refer others to particular items and page numbers when reviewing or querying.
* Introduction page: Introduction and purpose of the plan, terms of reference if applicable (usually for formal and large plans or projects).
* Executive summary page: Optional and usually beneficial, this should normally be no more than a page long (or it's not an executive summary) - the key points of the whole plan including conclusions, recommendations, actions, financial returns on investment, etc., clearly readable in a few minutes.
* Main body of plan: sections and headings as required, see template below.
* Acknowledgments and bibliography/reference sources: if relevant (only required normally for very large formal plans)
* Appendices: appendices or addendums - additional detailed reference material, examples, statistics, spreadsheets, etc., for reference and not central to the main presentation of your plan.
Business plans - main body sections examples template
This sample template is typical for a sales/marketing/new business development business plan. (A business plan for a more complex project such as an international joint-venture, or the formation of a new company including manufacturing plant or other overhead activities would need to include relevant information and financials about the overheads and resources concerned, and the financials would need to show costs and profits more like a fully developed profit and loss account, with cashflow projections, balance sheet, etc.) Where appropriate refer to your position regarding corporate ethics and social responsibility. While these aspects are not mechanisms within the plan, they are crucial reference points.
1. Define your market - sector(s) and segment(s) definitions
2. Quantify your market (overview only) - size, segmentation, relevant statistics, values, numbers (locations, people/users, etc) - make this relevant to you business
3. Explain your market(s) - sector trends, eg., growth, legislation, seasonality, PEST factors where relevant, refer to Ansoff matrix, show the strategic business drivers within sector and segments, purchasing mechanisms, processes, restrictions - what are the factors that determine customers' priorities and needs - this is a logical place to refer to ethics and CSR (corporate social responsibility
4. Explain your existing business - your current business according to sector, products/services, quantities, values, distributor, etc.
5. Analyse your existing customer spread by customer type, values and products/services including major accounts (the 'Pareto Principle' or the '80:20 rule' often applies here, eg., 80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers)
6. Explain your products and services - refer to Boston matrix and especially your strategic propositions (what these propositions will do for your customers) including your USP's and UPB's (see sales training section and acronyms)
7. Explain you routes to market, gatekeepers, influencers and strategic partners - the other organizations/individuals you will work with to develop your market, including 'what's in it for them', commissions, endorsements, accreditations, approvals, licenses, etc.
8. Case studies and track record - the credibility, evidence and proof that your propositions and strategic partnerships work
9. Competitor analysis, eg., SWOT analysis of your own business compared to SWOT analysis of each competitor
10. Sales/marketing/business plan (1 year min) showing sales and margins by product/service stream, mix, values, segment, 'distributor', etc, whatever is relevant, phased monthly, in as much detail as you need. This should be on a spreadsheet, with as many different sheets as necessary to quantify relevant inputs and outputs.
11. List your strategic actions (marketing campaigns, sales activities, advertising, etc) that will deliver the above, with costs and returns. This should be supported with a spreadsheet, showing cost and return on investment for each activity.
Tip: If the business plan concerns an existing activity, use the previous year's sales/business analysis as the basis for the next year's sales/business plan. Adapt as necessary according to your new strategic plans.
Other business planning and marketing issues
Staffing and training implications
Your people are unlikely to have all the skills they need to help you implement a marketing plan. You may not have all the people that you need so you have to consider justifying and obtaining extra. Customer service is acutely sensitive to staffing and training. Are all of your people aware of the aims of the business, its mission statement and your sales propositions? Do they know what their responsibilities are? How will you measure their performance? Many of these issues feed back into the business plan under human resources and training, where budgets need to be available to support the investment in these areas.
Customer service charter
You should formulate a customer service charter, extending both your mission statement and your service offer, so as to inform staff and customers what your standards are. These standards can cover quite detailed aspects of your service, such as how many times the telephone will be permitted to ring until the caller is gets an answer. Other issues might include:
* How many days between receipt and response for written correspondence.
* Complaints procedure and timescales for each stage.
This charter sets customer expectations, so be sure you can meet them. Customers get disappointed particularly when their expectations are not met, and when so many standards can be set at arbitrary levels, think of each one as a promise that you should keep. Business-to-business customers would expect to agree these standards with their suppliers and have them recorded as part of their contracts, or as SLA's (service level agreements). Increasingly, large customers demand SLA's to be tailored to their own specific needs, and the process of developing these understandings and agreements is absolutely crucial to the maintenance and development of large contracts.
Remember an important rule about customer service: It's not so much the failure to meet standards that causes major dissatisfaction among customers - everyone can make a mistake - the biggest cause of upset is the failure of suppliers to inform customers and keep them updated when problems arise. Not being told in advance, not receiving any apology, not getting any explanation why, and not hearing what's going to be done to put things right, are key areas of customer dissatisfaction, and therefore easy areas for suppliers to focus their efforts to achieve and communicate improvements.
A special point of note for businesses that require a strong technical profile among their service staff: these people are often reactive by nature and so not good at taking initiative to identify and anticipate problem areas in customer service. It's therefore helpful to establish suitable mechanisms and responsibility to pick up problems and deal with them - a kind of trouble-shooting capability - which can be separately managed and monitored at a strategic level. Do not assume that technically-oriented staff will be capable of proactively developing customer service solutions and revisions to SLA's - they generally need help in doing so from staff with high creativity, empathy, communications and initiative capabilities.
establish systems to measure customer service and staff performance
These standards and the SLA's established for large customers need to be visible, agreed with customers, absolutely measurable. You must keep measuring your performance against them, and preferably publishing the results, internally and externally. Customer complaints handling is a key element:
Measuring customer complaints is crucial because individual complaints are crucial areas to resolve, and also as a whole, complaints serve as a barometer for the quality and performance of the business. You need to have a scheme which encourages, not discourages, customers to complain, to open the channels as wide as possible. Most businesses are too defensive where complaints are concerned, preferring to minimise their importance, or to seek to justify and excuse them. Wrong. Complaints are the opportunities to turn ordinary service into unbeatable service.
Moreover, time and again surveys suggest that anything up to nine out of ten people do not complain to the provider when they feel dissatisfied - they just keep their dissatisfaction to themselves and the provider never finds out there's a problem, even when the customer chooses to go elsewhere. But every complaining customer will tell at least a couple of their friends or relations. Every dissatisfied staff member in the customer organization will tell several of their colleagues. Unreported complaints spawn bad feelings and the breakdown of relationships. It is imperative that you capture all complaints in order to:
* Put at ease and give explanation or reassurance to the person complaining.
* Reduce the chances of them complaining to someone else.
* Monitor exactly how many dissatisfied customers you have and what the causes are, and that's even more important if you're failing to deliver your mission statement or service offer!
* Take appropriate corrective action to prevent a re-occurrence.
* If appropriate (ie for large customers) review SLA's and take the opportunity to agree new SLA's with the customer.
implications for IT, premises, and reporting systems
Also relating to your business plan are the issues of:
Information Technology - are your computers and communications systems capable of giving you the information and analysis you need? How do you use email - is it helping or hindering your business and the quality of service you give to your customers? What internet presence and processes do you need? How should your voice and data systems work together? What systems need to be available to mobile staff? What customer relationship management (CRM) systems should you have? How should you consider all these issues to see the needs and opportunities? IT and communications systems increasingly offer marketing and competitive advantage to businesses in all sectors - make sure you know hat IT can do for you and for your customers.
Premises - Review your premises and sites in light of your customer service, distribution, and customer relationship requirements. Pay particular attention anywhere in your organization that your customers visit - the impression and service you give here is critical.
Reporting systems - If you can't measure it you can't manage it, and where finance and business performance is concerned this is certainly true. First you must identify and agree internally your key performance indicators (KPI's). Identify every aspect of your service or performance that is important - then you need to be able to measure it and report on it, and where people are involved in performing to certain standards then the standards and the reporting needs to be transparent to them also.
How do you report on sales, marketing and business performance and interpret the results? Who needs to know? Who needs to capture the data?
communications and ongoing customer feedback are essential
Having an open dialogue with your customers is vital. There's a double benefit to your business in ensuring this happens:
* You nip problems in the bud and stay aware of how you're performing.
* Your customers feel better about the service you provide as a result of the communications, or from the fact that the channel is open even if they don't use it - it's human nature.
Try to devise a standard feedback form. It can double as a promotional tool as well if it's made available on a wider scale. The form can carry details of your mission statement, service offer and your customer service charter.
Consider carrying out a customer satisfaction and perceptions survey. There are many ways to do this on a small or large scale, and valuable feedback is always obtained from customer survey exercises.
Tips for starting a small business or self-employment - for non-financial people
Some of us are not naturally inclined towards the sort of detailed financial thinking that is required for traditional detailed business planning. If this is you, you'll possess other valuable capabilities that will be useful in your own enterprise, and you'll maybe find it helpful to use this alternative approach to planning a new enterprise or self-employment. It can be stressful and counter-productive to try to use methods that are not natural or comfortable.
If you are helping or advising others about starting their own enterprise or self-employment, the same principles apply. Not everyone is naturally good at business planning, but everyone who dreams of being self-employed or who wants to start and run their own independent enterprise is capable of doing so, provided they work to their strengths, capabilities and passions.
People running successful enterprises come in all shapes and sizes, from all backgrounds, all ages, with skills, passions, and capabilities in any field you can imagine. Anyone can run their own business or be successful in self-employment given the simple determination to do so. Business and enterprise is not just for stereotypical 'business-types'; the benefits and advantages of being your own boss are available to us all.
Here are some pointers for people considering starting their own new enterprise, or for helping others to do the same.
First, and especially if you are not clear of your own real strengths, or what direction to pursue, focus on using tools to understanding your own personality style and strengths. Then use this knowledge to imagine and realise how your natural capabilities can be used to best effect in defining and providing your own services or running your own enterprise.
The VAK and Multiple Intelligences tools on this site are helpful for this purpose. They assess people's strengths completely differently to traditional IQ or academic evaluations, which are extremely narrow and generally not relevant at all for people who want to be their own boss.
Understanding personality is also useful since personality-type greatly influences the way that a person approaches self-employment or running an enterprise, and what sort of service or business to offer. The Personality Styles page provides a lot of explanation about this.
Many people are conditioned by schools and over-cautious parents to under-estimate their own potential and capabilities, which is a big reason to take a fresh look at what you are good at, and to re-think and understand better the ways that your personality type tends to be successful in life and business.
There are many ways to be successful and independent in life aside from building and running a conventional business and adhering to conventional financial planning methods.
The basic economics of becoming successfully independent in any sort of venture are actually extremely simple, and focusing on the following simple fundamentals (a process really) can help many folk turn your dream or an idea into a successful enterprise or self-employment reality. It's usually easiest to think first of these factors in terms of daily, weekly or monthly numbers and values, and then to extend the figures to give totals for a whole year:
1. What's your product or service? (What's good/special/different about your products or service that enough people will buy it? And importantly is this something that you have a real passion for? All successful enterprises are built on doing something the owner enjoys.)
2. What does it cost to make/buy in/provide the product or service? (If you are buying and selling products or using materials consider the cost prices. If the main resource is your own time then attach a cost to your labour that reflects your available time for the work and the wage you need to draw. Divide your required annual wage by the number of work hours available to you, and this is your notional hourly labour cost.)
3. What price will the product/service sell for? (Ideally small businesses need a healthy profit margin or mark-up - doubling the cost is good if the market will accept it. A mark-up of less than 50% is cause for concern unless you are selling products in relatively high volumes or values. Price your products/services according to what the market will pay, not according to your costs. Take into account your competitors and what they charge and their relative quality. Service businesses that use only the person's time are often very attractive and profitable because there is no added complication of buying and holding stock - hence why window-cleaning, sign-writing, repairs, gardening, decorating, tutoring, writing, therapy, training, coaching and consultancy, etc., are such good businesses for people who prefer a simple approach to self-employment and enterprise. Consider the effect of VAT especially for 'consumer' businesses - ie., selling to the general public - assuming your business is or must be VAT registered. Private consumers of course are more sensitive to VAT than business customers who can generally reclaim VAT should you have to add it to your prices.)
4. Who will buy the product/service? (Identify your customers and market. Do you know this for sure? Test your assumptions: this is a critical part of the proposition and generally benefits from more thought and research to confirm that a big enough market exists for your idea. Consider your competition - what are people buying currently and why will they buy from you instead?)
5. How much/many do you need to sell in a year? And how many customers do you need? (This is a vital part of the proposition to confirm that the gross profit (the difference between costs of bought in products/labour and sales revenues) covers your/their financial needs (including a living wage and other fixed costs of running the enterprise. Again remember the affect of VAT on your selling prices if applicable.)
6. How will people know about the service/product? (You need to understand what advertising/marketing/enquiry-generation is necessary - activity and cost. There is usually a cost for generating new customers, especially in the early stages of a new enterprise. Once the business is established, say after six months to a year, 'word-of-mouth' referrals are for some businesses all that is required to produce new customers - especially those based in a local community, but virtually any new enterprise requires marketing at its launch. See the articles on marketing and selling.)
7. Does all this add up, and better still provide a cash surplus at the end of a year? - if so then it's probably a good business model.
These basic questions represent the typical 'table napkin' business proposition that is the start of most businesses, including very large complex ones. People who dislike and are not fluent in detailed business calculations might find the above process a useful starting point when thinking about how to begin a new enterprise or a venture in self-employment.
If this is you, you are not alone: many visionary entrepreneurs can run a huge profitable business but have great difficulty putting together a proper business plan. Hence many highly successful business leaders rely heavily on their financial directors to take care of the financial details, leaving them free to get on with the business activity that makes best use of their natural skill, be it creativity, selling, service-provision, people-skills, technical skills, or whatever.
Incidentally the above factors are the essential components which make up a basic Profit and Loss Account, which is the primary management tool for a business of any scale and complexity. Here's a free MSExcel profit and loss account template tool for extending these factors and financials into a more formal phased plan, which also serves as a business forecasting and reporting tool too. If in doubt about this seek some help from an experienced business person or your accountant. Adapt it to suit your purposes. The example P&L trading plan is also available as a pdf. The numbers could be anything - ten times less, ten times more, a hundred times more - the principle is the same.
Company types and financial set up - quick guide
When you have confirmed and refined the basic viability of your business idea you can then begin getting to grips with the more detailed aspects of forming the business itself.
This necessarily includes deciding your type of business constitution - the legal format of your company - or 'company type' as it is often described.
Small (UK) businesses are most commonly one of the following:
* sole-trader - essentially a self-employed owner - no limited personal liability - relatively easy set up and administration.
* partnership - essentially a group of self-employed partners/owners - no limited personal liability - easy-ish set up and administration, although ultimately dependent on the complexity of the company and partnership.
* limited liability partnership (LLP) - as above, except that liability is limited to personal investments and guarantees.
* limited company (abbreviated to Ltd after the company name) - liability is limited to the assets of the company - registered with Companies House and legally obliged to publish accounts.
There are less common variations of limited companies, and other business structures and constitutions, for example:
* social enterprise - various structures including , trusts, associations and especially cooperatives - these are not common typical or traditional business structures, but social enterprises are growing in popularity, and will be explained in more detail on this website in due course. Meanwhile here is useful information about cooperatives.
* public limited company (plc) - not appropriate for small companies.
A good accountant can help you decide what is best for your situation. So can the UK Government's Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (was the DTI - Department for Trade and Industry) and related agencies, notably Businesslink.
Incidentally the impossible to remember name 'Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform' (also shortened to BERR, which hardly helps) is a wonderful example of how not to brand a service operation. Who on earth came up with that ridiculous name? DTI - Department for Trade and Industry - was great - nothing wrong with it - it did what it said on the tin, as the saying goes. What are we supposed to infer from the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform?.... what nonsense. We can only guess at what the design agency was paid to devise such daftness, and the government ministers who approved it. BERR my arse. Somebody please start a campaign to bring back the DTI name and stop the ridiculous rebranding of government departments.
To continue..
Essentially sole-trader and partnership companies are very easy to set up and administer, but the owner/partners are personally liable for all business debts and potential claims, so good insurance cover (including professional indemnity and public liability) is essential especially if business liabilities are potentially serious. A limited liability partnership offers protection to partners in terms of personal liabilities, in that liabilities are limited to the extent of personal investment and any other guarantees. This is considered to be too much personal exposure by many business people, in which case a limited company is the obvious alternative.
A limited company exists in its own right - a tricky concept to understand for many people - basically meaning that financial liabilities belong to the company (its shareholders, to the value of their shares in other words) rather than the directors and executives of the business, as would apply in a partnership. Limited companies ultimately offer more flexibility for large complex businesses but can be somewhat over-complicated and administratively heavy if all you want to do is run a local shop or landscape gardening business or modest training or coaching business.
Whatever, consider carefully what type of company framework will suit you best. Once established it can be quite difficult to unravel and change if you get it wrong. Not impossible of course, but a nuisance if you could have got it right first time with a bit of extra thought at the planning stage.
You'll need a business bank account as well. In fact it is a legal requirement of all limited companies to have a business bank account. Shop around. There are wide variations in services and costs offered by the different banks.
You must also understand and organize the tax implications for your type of business.
Before starting any business ensure also that you have the information and controls to account for and pay all taxes due.
Helpfully to learn more about this in the UK, most tax affairs are within the responsibilities of HM Revenue and Customs - until they too change their name to something very silly. That said, the relevance today of HM (Her Majesty's) is a bit puzzling when you stop to think about it and surely due for updating to the modern age. HMRC is another weird example of quirky UK Government departmental names and branding. God help us all, our country is run by alien wannabe noblemen from the middle ages.
VAT (Value Added Tax or your national equivalent) is an issue warranting serious thought if your business is small enough to have a choice in the matter. As at April 2008 the UK limit is £67,000 turnover, above which you must register for VAT. Check the HMRC website for the current position.
Being VAT registered means you must charge VAT on all VAT-rated supplies, which means also that the VAT you receive on payments from your customers must be paid to HM Revenue and Customs. (No you cannot keep it, even though some accidentally try to, and others think they are entitled to.)
Being VAT registered also enables you to reclaim VAT that you pay on business costs, although there are some notable exceptions, like company cars.
Retail and consumer businesses are especially affected by VAT. Private consumers cannot claim back VAT, so the effect of VAT on pricing and margins needs careful thought in planning any consumer business.
Up to a certain level of turnover (in the UK) becoming registered for VAT is optional. If your business turnover is likely to be below the threshold for mandatory VAT registration, you must decide for yourself if the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. The main advantages of VAT registration are:
* your business will be perceived by certain people - especially other businesses - to be larger and more credible (not being registered for VAT indicates immediately that your turnover is below the VAT threshold)
* you will be able to reclaim VAT that you are charged on legitimate allowable business costs
The main disadvantages of being VAT registered are:
* the administrative burden in keeping VAT records and submitting VAT returns (although this has been enormously simplified in recent years so that for small simple businesses it is really not a problem at all)
* risks of getting onto cashflow difficulties if you fail to set funds aside to pay your VAT bills (see the tax tips below)
Information about VAT (and all other tax issues) is at the UK Government HM Revenue and Customs website: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk
VAT is not the only tax of course. Taxes are also due on company profits (not sole-traders or partnerships, whose profits are taxed via personal earnings) and on staff salaries (national insurance). A sole-trader or partnership can employ staff of course, in which case national insurance tax is due on salaries paid to employees, which is different to the tax that employees pay themselves.
Failing to retain funds in a company to pay taxes is a serious problem that's easily avoided with good early planning. Contact your tax office. Inform them of your plans and seek their help. Tax offices are generally extremely helpful, so ask. You can even talk to a real person on the phone without having to breach a six-level automated menu system.
Ideally find a decent accountant too. Preferably one who comes recommended to you. With all the greatest respect to accountants everywhere, accountants are quite commonly very intense people, like solicitors and scientists, very much focused on process, accuracy, rules, etc., which in terms of personality fit can be a little at odds with the style of many entrepreneurs. So again shop around and find an accountant with whom you can share a joke and a beer or something from the human world. The relationship between a business person and his/her accountant is crucial if the business is to grow and develop significantly. Accountants might seem at times to be from another planet, but I can assure you the good ones are bloody magicians when it comes to business development, especially when the figures get really interesting. The statement that one stroke of an accountant's pen is mightier than the world's most successful sales team, is actually true.
For many entrepreneurs, the ideal scenario is to grow your business large enough to support the cost of a really excellent finance director, who can take care of all the detailed legal and financial matters for you, and leave you completely free to concentrate on growing the business - concentrating your efforts and ideas and strategy externally towards markets and customers, and internally towards optimizing innovation and your staff.
See the quick tax tips below, especially for small businesses which might not easily be able to achieve immediate and accurate control of their tax liabilities, which is one of the major early risks for a new successful small business.
tax tips - understanding and accounting for taxes from the start
A significant potential problem area for newly self-employed people, and for new business start-ups, is failing to budget and save for inevitable taxes which arise from your business activities.
N.B. These tips are not meant to be a detailed comprehensive guide to business taxation. This section merely addresses a particular vulnerability of new start-up businesses in failing to set aside sufficient reserves to meet tax liabilities, especially small businesses, and even more especially sole-traders and partnerships and small limited companies, which lack expertise in accounting and consequently might benefit from these simple warnings and tips related to tax liabilities.
In general these issues would normally be managed via a cashflow forecast, together with suitable financial processes to allocate and make payments for all costs and liabilities arising in the course of trading. I recognise however that many small business start-ups do not begin with such attention to financial processes, and it's primarily for those situations that these particular notes are provided.
These notes in no way suggest that this is the normal fully controlled approach to planning and organizing tax liabilities and other cashflow issues within any business of significant scale. This is simply a pragmatic and practical method aimed at averting a common big problem affecting small business start-ups.
While your type of company and business determines precisely which taxes apply to you, broadly taxes are due on sales (for VAT registered businesses in the UK, or your VAT equivalent if outside the UK), and on the profits of your business and your earnings. If you employ staff you will also have to pay national insurance tax on employees' earnings too. Generally sole-traders and partnerships have simpler tax arrangements - for example, profits are typically taxed as personal earnings - as compared with the more complex taxes applicable to limited companies, which also pay taxes on company profits and staff salaries.
Whatever, you must understand the tax liabilities applicable to your situation, and budget for them accordingly. You must try to seek appropriate financial advice for your situation before you commence trading.
Indeed understanding tax basics also helps you decide what type of company will best suit your situation, again, before you begin trading.
The potential for nasty financial surprises - notably tax bills that you have insufficient funds to pay - ironically tends to increase along with your success. This is because bigger sales and profits and earnings inevitably produce bigger tax bills (percentage of tax increases too in the early growth of a business), all of which becomes a very big problem if you've no funds to pay taxes when due.
The risks of getting into difficulties can be greater for the self-employed and small partnerships which perhaps do not have great financial knowledge and experience, than for larger Limited Company start-ups which tend to have more systems and support in financial areas.
Start-ups are especially prone to tax surprises because the first set of tax bills can commonly be delayed, and if you fail to account properly for all taxes due then obviously you increase the chances of spending more than you should do, resulting in not having adequate funds to cover the payments when they are due.
Risks are increased further if you are new to self-employment, previously having been employed and accustomed to receiving a regular salary on which all taxes have already been deducted, in other words 'net' of tax. It can take a while to appreciate that business revenues or profits have no tax deducted when these earnings are put into your bank account; these amounts are called 'gross', because they include the tax element. Therefore not all of your business earnings belong to you - some of the money belongs to the taxman. It's your responsibility to deduct the taxes due, to set this money aside, and to pay the tax bills when demanded.
Additionally, if you are a person who is in the habit of spending everything that you earn, you must be even more careful, since this tendency will increase the risks of your being unable to pay your taxes.
Failing to get on top of the reality of taxes from the very beginning can lead to serious debt and cashflow problems, which is a miserable way to run a business.
So you must anticipate and set aside funds necessary to meet your tax liabilities from the very start of your business, even if you do not initially have a very accurate idea of what taxes will be due, or you lack effective systems to calculate them - many small start-ups are in this position. Nevertheless it is too late to start thinking about tax when the first demands fall due.
If when starting your business you do not have information and systems to identify and account accurately for your tax liabilities, here are two simple quick tax tips to avoid problems with the taxman:
1. You must estimate your tax liabilities and ensure that you set aside funds to cover these liabilities while you are banking your payments received into the business. The easiest way to do this is to identify the taxes applicable to your business, for example VAT and your own personal income tax and national insurance. Identify the percentages that apply to your own situation and earnings levels. You can do this approximately. It does not need to be very precise. Add these percentages together, and then set aside this percentage of all your earnings that you receive into your business. Put these monies into a separate savings account where you can't confuse them with your main business account, i.e., your 'working capital' typically held in a current account.
2. Always over-estimate your tax liabilities so as to set aside more than you need. Having a surplus is not a problem. Having not enough money to pay taxes because you've under-estimated tax due is a problem; sometimes enough to kill an otherwise promising business.
Here's an example to show how quickly and easily you can plan and set aside a contingency to pay your tax bills, even if you've no experience or systems to calculate them precisely. This example is based on a self-employed consultancy-type business, like a training or coaching business, in which there are no significant costs of sales (products or services bought in) or overheads, i.e., revenues are effectively the profits too, since there are minimal costs to offset against profits:
example of estimating and setting aside money to pay taxes
1. In the UK VAT on most products and services is 17.5%. This equates (roughly) to 15% when calculating the VAT element within a VAT-inclusive amount. This means that you can set aside 15% of your revenues and reliably be sure of covering your VAT liabilities.
2. In the UK personal income tax and national insurance combined is roughly 30% of earnings up to about £30,000 (a little over in fact), rising to 49% - call it 50% - of earnings above £30k - roughly.
N.B. Income tax and national insurance are calculated on taxable earnings, which exclude money spent on legitimate business costs, and VAT received.
These figures in the above example are approximate I emphasise again, which is all you need for this purpose, moreover the approximations are on the high side of what the precise liabilities actually are. Accountants call this sort of thinking 'prudent'. It's a pessimistic approach to forecasting liabilities rather than optimistic, which is fundamental to good financial planning and management: if the pessimism is wrong then you end up with a surplus (which is good), but if you are wrong in making optimistic forecasts and estimates (over-ambitious sales, and lower-than-actual costs and liabilities), then you run out of money (which is bad).
Back to the percentages.. Knowing the income tax percentages enables you to set aside a suitable percentage of your earnings when you receive them into the business. Roughly speaking, for earnings up to £30k you need to set aside 30% to cover income tax and national insurance. For earnings over £30k you need to set aside 50% to cover your income tax and national insurance. (Earnings below £30k remain taxable at 30%). Remember you can arrive at these figures based on the VAT exclusive revenues, but to keep matters simpler it is easier to use an adjusted total percentage figure to apply to the total gross earnings. If it's kept very simple and quick you'll be more likely to do it - and/or to communicate the method effectively to your partner if they are responsible for handling the financials, as often happens.
Given this example, if in your first year your gross revenues (banked payments received) are say £50,000, assuming you are VAT registered, then your tax liabilities will be (roughly):
17.5% VAT liabilities equates to 15% of gross sales revenues £7.5k (again we are assuming no significant costs to offset these figures)
30% Income tax/NI on first £30k earnings £9.0k total net earnings are say £42.5k, being £50k less £7.5k VAT, again we are assuming negligible costs to offset against earnings
50% Income tax/NI on remaining £12.5k earnings £6.25k £12.5k of the net £43.5k earnings is taxed at the higher rate, again assuming negligible costs offset against earnings
total tax liabilities = 45.5%, or to be extra prudent call it 50%... £22.75k (£22.75k total tax ÷ £50k gross revenues = 45.5%)
From this example you can see that setting aside 45.5% of earnings (yes it's a lot isn't it - which is why you need to anticipate it and set the money aside) would comfortably cover VAT and income tax liabilities. To be extra safe and simpler in this example you could round it up to 50%. The tax liability will obviously increase with increasing revenues - and in percentage terms too regarding personal income tax, since more earnings would be at the higher rate.
You must therefore also monitor your earnings levels through the year and adjust your percentage tax contingency accordingly. As stated already above, the risk of under-estimating tax liabilities increases the more successful you are, because tax bills get bigger.
In truth you will have some costs to offset against the earnings figures above, but again for the purposes of establishing a very quick principle of saving a fixed percentage as a tax reserve until you know and can control these liabilities more accurately, the above is a very useful simple easy method of initially staying solvent and on top of your tax affairs, which are for many people the most serious source of nasty financial surprises in successful start-up businesses.
The above example is very simple, and is provided mainly for small start-up businesses which might otherwise neglect to provide for tax liabilities. The figures and percentages are not appropriate (but the broad principle of forecasting and providing funds for tax liabilities is) to apply to retail businesses for example, or businesses in which staff are employed, since these businesses carry significant costs of sales and overheads, which should be deducted from revenues before calculating profits and taxes liabilities. Neither does the example take account of the various ways to reduce tax liabilities by reinvesting profits in the business, writing off stock, putting money into pensions, charitable donations, etc.
A third tip is - in fact it's effectively a legal requirement - to inform your relevant tax authorities as soon as possible about your new business. Preferably do this a few weeks before you actually begin trading. That way you can be fully informed of the tax situation - and your best methods of dealing with tax, because there are usually different ways, and sometimes the differences can be worth quite a lot of money.
I do not go into more detail about tax here because it's a very complex subject with wide variations depending on your own situation, for which you should seek relevant information and advice from a qualified accountant and/or the relevant tax authorities.
Template and structure for a feasibility study or project justification report
First, and importantly, you need to clarify/confirm the criteria that need to be fulfilled in order to justify starting or continuing the project or group, in other words, what do the decision-makers need to see in order to approve the project or its continuation?
Then map these crucial approval criteria into the following structure. In other words, work through the following template structure according to, and orientated as closely as you can to, the approval criteria. (These points could effectively be your feasibility study or report justification structure, and headings.)
* past, present and particularly future ('customer') need (for the outputs/results produced by group or project)
* benefits and outcomes achieved to date for what cost/investment
* benefits and outcomes to be produced in the future
* resources, costs, investment, etc., required to produce future required outcomes and benefits (identify capital vs revenue costs, i.e., acquisition of major assets and ongoing overheads)
* alternative methods or ways of satisfying needs, with relative cost/return (return on investment) comparisons (ie., what other ways might there be for satisfying the need if the group or project doesn't happen or ceases?)
* outline strategy and financial plan, including people, aims, philosophy, etc (ideally tuned to meet the authorising power's fulfilment criteria) for proposed start or continuation of project (assuming you have a case, and assuming there is no better alternative)
Keep it simple. Keep to the facts and figures. Provide evidence. Be clear and concise. Refer to the tips about effective writing. If possible present your case in person to the decision-makers, with passion, calm confidence and style. Look at the tips on presentations, and assertiveness.
Tips on finding and working with business planning advisors and consultants
If you need help putting together a business plan, and if you want to get the best from the engagement, it's important to find the right person to work with, and to establish and maintain a good working relationship with them. If you are great big organisation you'll probably not need to work with outsiders, and if you do then you'll probably opt for a great big supplier, however there are significant benefits from working with much smaller suppliers - even single operators - and if you are a small business yourself, then this is probably the best choice anyway: to seek a good single operator, or small partnership of experts. Here are some ideas of what to look for.
You'll be best finding someone who meets as much of this criteria as possible:
* lives close-by you so you can work face-to-face with them and get to know each other properly, and so that their time is efficiently used, instead of being in traffic on their way to and from your place
* is high integrity and very discreet
* is grown-up and got no baggage or emotional triggers - wise and mature - and it needn't be an age thing
* can help you see and decide where and how you want to take the business, rather than tell you where he/she thinks you need to go - a mentor not an instructor
* understands or can immediately relate to your industry sector and type of work
* is experienced working with small family companies, but is also a big picture strategist and visionary (advisors who've only ever worked with big corporations can sometimes be a bit free and easy with relatively small amounts of money - you need someone with a very very practical approach to managing cash-flow, and real business realities, who've worked in situations without the protection of vast corporate bureaucracy and the lack of transparency that this often brings)
* is triple-brained or whole-brained - mostly front-brained - (see the stuff on Benziger) - intuitive-creative, thinking, but also able to be personable and grounded, subject to the point below
* complements your own strengths and fills the gaps and weaknesses in your collective abilities (again see the stuff on Benziger and Jung etc) - ie., if collectively you need hard facts and figures and logic then seek people with these strengths - conversely if you are strong on all this, then seek the creative humanist ethical strengths - he/she must work with you in a balanced team - so that the team has no blind spots, and no subjective biases in style or emphasis
* has two or three referees you can talk to and see evidence of past work (although if you check most of the above it will be a formality)
* doesn't smoke or drink too much
* isn't desperate for the work
As regards finding someone like this, without doubt the most reliable and quickest method is by networking introductions through trusted people. The person you seek might be three or more links away, but if it's a friend or associate of someone trusted, by someone who's trusted, by someone you trust, then probably they'll be right for you. Start by talking to people you know and asking if they know anyone, or if they know anyone who might know anyone - and take it from there.
The chances of finding the right person in the local business listings or directory, out of the blue and from cold, are pretty remote.
Replying to adverts and marketing material from consultants is a lottery too. You'll find someone eventually but you'll need to kiss a lot of frogs first, which takes ages and is not the cleverest way to spend your valuable time.
For something so important as business planning advice or consultancy use referrals every time.
Referrals work not only because you get to find someone trusted, but the person you find has a reasonable assurance that you can be trusted too, you see: good suppliers are just as choosy as good clients. It works both ways.
Be prepared to reward the person in whatever way is appropriate and fair (I'm thinking percentage share of incremental success beyond expectations - perhaps even equity share if the person is really good and you'd value their on-going contribution and help).
Often the best people won't ask for much money up front at all, but from your point of view you will attract a lot more commitment and work beyond the call of normal duty from them if you reward higher than they ask or need.
Good suppliers are immensely motivated by good clients and lots of appreciation, even if they don't want the financial reward.
Good suppliers have usually seen too many ungrateful greedy people taking them for granted and penny pinching, and will tend to sack clients like these without even telling them why, and move on to more deserving enjoyable work with people who are fair and appreciative, which is how you'll be I'm sure.
Finally, when you've found the right person, always continually agree expectations and invite feedback about how the relationship is working, not just how the work is going.
Starting your own business - or starting any new business
These are the simple rules for planning and starting your own business. The principles also apply to planning and starting a new business within an organisation for someone else.
In amongst the distractions and details of new business planning, it is important to keep sight of the basic rules of new business success:
Your successful new business must offer something unique that people want.
Uniqueness is vital because otherwise there is no reason for customers to buy from you.
Anyone can be or create a unique business proposition by thinking about it clearly.
Uniqueness comes in all shapes and sizes - it's chiefly being especially good and different in a particular area, or field or sector.
Uniqueness can be in a product or service, or in a trading method, or in you yourself, or any other aspect of your business which makes what you are offering special and appealing to people.
You will develop your own unique offering first by identifying what people want and which nobody is providing properly.
Second you must ensure that your chosen unique offering is also an extension of your own passion or particular expertise or strength - something you will love and enjoy being the best at - whatever it is.
Every successful business is built on someone's passion.
new business start-ups by older people
If you already have a career behind you, and you wonder if you've got it in you to compete and succeed in the modern world, consider this.
First - you have definitely got it in you to succeed.
Experience and wisdom are fundamental building blocks of success, and will be for you from the moment you start looking at yourself in this way.
The reassuring wisdom that older people generally possess is extremely helpful in forming trusting relationships - with customers, suppliers, partners, colleagues, etc - which are essential for good business.
Added to this, as we get older we have a greater understanding of our true passions and capabilities; we know our strengths and styles and tolerances. This gives older people a very special potency in business. Older people know what they are good at. They play to their strengths. They know which battles they can win, and which to avoid.
Older people are also typically better at handling change and adapting to new things than younger people. This is because older people have had more experience doing just this. Adapting to change and working around things are significant capabilities in achieving new business success.
If you are an older person considering starting a new business, think about the things you can do better than most other people - think about your strengths and use them.
business start-ups for younger people
Younger people can be very successful starting new businesses just as much as older people can be.
The essential principle of playing to your strengths applies, although the implications are different for younger people compared to older people.
Younger people are likely to have lots of fresh ideas. This is an advantage, so avoid people pour cold water on them.
Test your ideas on potential customers, rather than to take advice from those people who are ready with their buckets of water.
Next, get the help you need. It's difficult for young people to know all the answers.
You'll have the ideas and the energy to make things happen, but consider the gaps in your experience, and the things you don't enjoy doing, and seek good quality reliable help for these things.
Getting good help at what you can't do or don't want to do will enable you to put all your energy into what you are good at and what you want to spend your time doing.
Young people sometimes try to force themselves to fit into roles or responsibilities that are not comfortable or natural. This is de-stabilising and stressful. Learn what you love and excel at, and focus on building success from this.
Which brings us back to playing to your strengths.
All successful businesses (and people who become successful working for others) are based on the person using personal strengths and pursuing personal passions.
Success in business is always based on doing something you love and enjoy, which is fundamentally related to your natural strengths and unique personal potential, whatever that is.
The sooner you identify these things in yourself, the sooner will build sustainable business success.
planning business success - in summary
The spreadsheets, mission statements and other elements of new business planing are tools. They enable the business to be properly structured, started and run. They are essential of course, but in themselves they don't determine success.
What determines real business success, is that you bring together the crucial factors of uniqueness and passion.
Uniqueness, so that people will want what you offer.
Passion, so that you will enjoy being and offering your best - as whatever business you choose.
To explore personal direction and change (for example for early planning of self-employment or new business start-up) see the passion-to-profit exercise and template on the teambuilding exercises page.
Planning a new business or business project must at some stage address a few financial details, and challenges and opportunities relating to modern technology, the internet, websites, etc.
However the techniques of how to write strategic business plans (or a strategic marketing plan) remain basically straight-forward.
Business planning and marketing strategy are mostly common-sense and logic, based on cause and effect.
Here are tips, examples, techniques, tools and a process for writing a marketing strategy, business and sales plans, to produce effective results. This free online guide explains how to put together a marketing strategy, basic business plan, and a sales plan, including free templates and examples, such as the Ansoff and Boston matrix tools. New pages are being added soon on advertising, sales promotion, PR (public relations) and press releases, sales enquiry lead generation, advertising copy-writing, internet and website marketing, in the meanwhile see the marketing tips page for free marketing and advertising techniques and advice.
See also the simple notes about starting your own business, which to an extent also apply when you are starting a new business initiative or development inside another organization as a new business development manager, or a similar role.
Here's a free MSExcel profit and loss account template tool for incorporating these factors and financials into a more formal phased business trading plan, which also serves as a business forecasting and reporting tool too.
Towards the end of this article there is also a simple template/framework for a feasibility study or justification report, such as might be required to win funding, authorisation or approval for starting a project, or the continuation of a project or group, in a commercial or voluntary situation.
If you are starting a new business you might also find the tips and information about buying a franchise business to be helpful, since they cover many basic points about choice of business activity and early planning.
how to write strategic marketing plans, business plans and sales plans
People use various terms referring to the business planning process - business plans, business strategy, marketing strategy, strategic business planning, sales planning - they all cover the same basic principles. When faced with business planning or strategy development task it's important to clarify exactly what is required: clarify what needs to be done rather than assume the aim from the description given to it - terms are confused and mean different things to different people. You'll see from the definitions below how flexible these business planning terms are.
Business planning definitions:
a plan - a statement of intent - a calculated intention to organize effort and resource to achieve an outcome - in this context a plan is in written form, comprising explanation, justification and relevant numerical and financial statistical data. In a business context a plan's numerical data - costs and revenues - are normally scheduled over at least one trading year, broken down weekly, monthly quarterly and cumulatively.
A business - an activity or entity, irrespective of size and autonomy, which is engaged in an activity, normally the provision of products and/or services, to produce commercial gain, extending to non-commercial organizations whose aim may or may not be profit (hence why public service sector schools and hospitals are in this context referred to as 'businesses').
Business plan - this is now rightly a very general and flexible term, applicable to the planned activities and aims of any entity, individual group or organization where effort is being converted into results, for example: a small company; a large company; a corner shop; a local window-cleaning business; a regional business; a multi-million pound multi-national corporation; a charity; a school; a hospital; a local council; a government agency or department; a joint-venture; a project within a business or department; a business unit, division, or department within another organization or company, a profit centre or cost centre within an an organization or business; the responsibility of a team or group or an individual. The business entity could also be a proposed start-up, a new business development within an existing organization, a new joint-venture, or any new organizational or business project which aims to convert action into results. The extent to which a business plan includes costs and overheads activities and resources (eg., production, research and development, warehouse, storage, transport, distribution, wastage, shrinkage, head office, training, bad debts, etc) depends on the needs of the business and the purpose of the plan. Large 'executive-level' business plans therefore look rather like a 'predictive profit and loss account', fully itemised down to the 'bottom line'. Business plans written at business unit or departmental level do not generally include financial data outside the department concerned. Most business plans are in effect sales plans or marketing plans or departmental plans, which form the main bias of this guide.
Strategy - originally a military term, in a business planning context strategy/strategic means/pertains to why and how the plan will work, in relation to all factors of influence upon the business entity and activity, particularly including competitors (thus the use of a military combative term), customers and demographics, technology and communications.
Marketing - believed by many to mean the same as advertising or sales promotion, marketing actually means and covers everything from company culture and positioning, through market research, new business/product development, advertising and promotion, PR (public/press relations), and arguably all of the sales functions as well. Marketing is the process by which a business decides what it will sell, to whom, when and how, and then does it.
Marketing plan - logically a plan which details what a business will sell, to whom, when and how, implicitly including the business/marketing strategy. The extent to which financial and commercial numerical data is included depends on the needs of the business. The extent to which this details the sales plan also depends on the needs of the business.
Sales - the transactions between the business and its customers whereby services and/or products are provided in return for payment. Sales (sales department/sales team) also describes the activities and resources that enable this process, and sales also describes the revenues that the business derives from the sales activities.
Sales plan - a plan describing, quantifying and phased over time, how the the sales will be made and to whom. Some organizations interpret this to be the same as a business plan or a marketing plan.
Business strategy - see 'strategy' - it's the same.
Marketing strategy - see 'strategy' - it's the same.
Service contract - a formal document usually drawn up by the supplier by which the trading arrangement is agreed with the customer. See the section on service contracts and trading agreements.
Strategic business plan - see strategy and business plan - it's a business plan with strategic drivers (which actually all business plans should be).
Strategic business planning - developing and writing a strategic business plan.
Philosophy, values, ethics, vision - these are the fundamentals of business planning, and determine the spirit and integrity of the business or organisation - see the guide to how philosophical and ethical factors fit into the planning process, and also the principles and materials relating to corporate responsibility and ethical leadership.
You can see that many of these terms are interchangeable, so it's important to clarify what needs to be planned for rather than assuming or inferring a meaning from the name given to the task.
Other useful and relevant business planning definitions are in the glossary on the sales techniques section; some are also in the financial terms section, and various are among the business and training acronyms section, which could provide some welcome light relief if this business planning gets a little dry (be warned, the acronym section contains some adult content).
When writing a business or operating plan, remember...
The most important driver for almost any business plan (whether it's called a business plan, a sales plan, an operational plan, an organisational plan, marketing plan, marketing strategy, strategic business plan, or other department business plan) is return on investment, or for public services and non-profit organisations, is effective use of investment and resources.
It's crucial also to consider and incorporate corporate social responsibility, ethics, the 'greater good', etc, but for the vast majority of organisations, whether companies, public services, not-for-profit trusts and charities, all organisations need to be financially effective in what they do, otherwise they will cease to function.
Organisations need of course to be ethical and humane, and to have a sound philosophical foundation, but ultimately, to sustain any organised activity, the figures and finances have to add up. I say this because this website is a very strong advocate of ethics and humanity in business (not least because so many organisations still fail to acknowledge and genuinely prioritise these aspects at all), so it's important to emphasise this point:
It's essential to manage ethical and socially responsible aspects as part of the total mix of organisational aims, which necessarily must include the effective use of investment and resources, in whatever way the principle is applied for the particular organisation.
Commonly, when someone starts to write a business plan or operational plan for the first time (and for many people the umpteenth time), they wonder: what is the objective? Often when they ask their manager, the manager has the same doubt. Sometimes even company directors fail to appreciate that return on investment is the main driver for any plan, unless there's a very good reason for there being some other purpose.
The essential planning elements are identifying causes and effects, according to your relevant business drivers. In many good businesses a substantial business planning responsibility extends now to front line customer-facing staff, and the trend is increasing. In this context, the business plan could be called also be called a marketing plan, or a sales plan - it's all the same:
"What you are going to sell to whom, when and how you are going to sell it, how much contribution (gross profit) the sales will produce, what the marketing and/or selling cost will be, and what will be the return on investment."
The same principles and methods actually apply to very large complex multinational organizations - the only differences are that there are other costs - typically fixed overheads - more spreadsheets, more lines and columns on each, more folks crunching the numbers, and a couple of extra angles for the accountants, to tell them what they need to know about cashflow and the balance sheet.
The essentials of business planning, strategic business plans, sales plans and marketing planning - whatever you call it and whatever it means to you - are quite straight-forward.
Before deciding whether to embark on any new venture, or to change an existing one it's vital to understand the market.
'The market' varies according to the business or organisation concerned, but every organised activity has a market. Knowing the market enables you to assess and value and plan how to engage with it.
A common failing of business planning or operational planning outside of the 'business' world, is to plan in isolation, looking inward, when everything seems great because there's no context and nothing to compare it with. Hence why research is critical. And this applies to any type of organisation - not just to businesses.
carry out your market research, including understanding your competitor activity
Your market research should focus on the information you need, to help you to formulate strategy and make business decisions. Market research should be pragmatic and purposeful - a means to an end, and not a means in itself. Market information potentially covers a vast range of data, from global macro-trends and statistics, to very specific and detailed local or technical information, so it's important to decide what is actually relevant and necessary to know. Market information about market and industry trends, values, main corporations, market structure, etc, is important to know for large corporations operating on a national or international basis. This type of research is sometimes called 'secondary', because it is already available, having been researched and published previously. This sort of information is available from the internet, libraries, research companies, trade and national press and publications, professional associations and institutes. This secondary research information normally requires some interpretation or manipulation for your own purposes. However there's no point spending days researching global statistical economic and demographic data if you are developing a strategy for a relatively small or local business. Far more useful would be to carry out your own 'primary' research (ie original research) about the local target market, buying patterns and preferences, local competitors, their prices and service offerings. A lot of useful primary market research can be performed using customer feed-back, surveys, questionnaires and focus groups (obtaining indicators and views through discussion among a few representative people in a controlled discussion situation). This sort of primary research should be tailored exactly for your needs. Primary research requires less manipulation than secondary research, but all types of research need a certain amount of analysis. Be careful when extrapolating or projecting figures to avoid magnifying initial mistakes or wrong assumptions. If the starting point is inaccurate the resulting analysis will not be reliable. For businesses of any size; small, local, global and everything in between, the main elements you need to understand and quantify are:
* customer (and potential customer) numbers, profile and mix
* customer perceptions, needs, preferences, buying patterns, and trends, by sub-sector if necessary
* products and services, mix, values and trends
* demographic issues and trends (especially if dependent on consumer markets)
* future regulatory and legal effects
* prices and values, and customer perceptions in these areas
* distribution and routes to market
* competitor activities, strengths, weaknesses, products, services, prices, sales methods, etc
Primary research is recommended for local and niche services. Keep the subjects simple and the range narrow. If using questionnaires formulate questions that give clear yes or no indicators (ie avoid three and five options in multi-choices which produce lots of uncertain answers) always understand how you will analyse and measure the data produced. Try to convert data to numerical format and manipulate on a spreadsheet. Use focus groups for more detailed work. For large research projects consider using a market research organization because they'll probably do it better than you, even though this is likely to be more costly. If you use any sort of marketing agency ensure you issue a clear brief, and that your aims are clearly understood. Useful frameworks for research are PEST analysis and SWOT analysis.
establish your corporate philosophy and the aims of your business or operation
First establish or confirm the aims of the business, and if you are concerned with a part of a business, establish and validate the aims of your part of the business. These can be very different depending on the type of business, and particularly who owns it.
Refer to and consider issues of ethics and philosophy, corporate social responsibility, sustainability, etc - these are the foundations on which values and missions are built.
Look at the reasons why ethics and corporate responsibility are so important. And see also the fundamental organisational planning stages.
When you have established or confirmed your philosophical and ethical position, state the objectives of the business unit you are planning to develop - your short, medium and long term aims - (typically 'short, medium and long' equate to 1 year, 2-3 years and 3 years plus). In other words, what is the business aiming to do over the next one, three and five years?
Bear in mind that you must reliably ensure the success and viability of the business in the short term or the long term is merely an academic issue. Grand visions need solid foundations. All objectives and aims must be prioritised and as far as possible quantified. If you can't measure it, you can't manage it.
define your 'mission statement'
All businesses need a ‘mission statement'. It announces clearly and succinctly to your staff, shareholders and customers what you are in business to do. Your mission statement may build upon a general ‘service charter' relevant to your industry. You can involve staff in defining and refining the business's mission statement, which helps develop a sense of ownership and responsibility. Producing and announcing the mission statement is also an excellent process for focusing attention on the business's priorities, and particularly the emphasis on customer service. Whole businesses need a mission statement - departments and smaller business units within a bigger business need them too.
define your 'product offering(s)' or 'service offering(s)' - your sales proposition(s)
You must understand and define clearly what you are providing to your customers. This description should normally go beyond your products or services, and critically must include the way you do business, and what business benefits your customers derive from your products and services, and from doing business with you. Develop offerings or propositions for each main area of your business activity - sometimes referred to as 'revenue streams', or 'business streams' - and/or for the sector(s) that you serve. Under normal circumstances competitive advantage is increased the more you can offer things that your competitors cannot. Good research will tell you where the opportunities are to increase your competitive advantage in areas that are of prime interest to your target markets. Develop your service offering to emphasise your strengths, which should normally relate to your business objectives, in turn being influenced by corporate aims and market research. The important process in developing a proposition is translating your view of these services into an offer that means something to your customer. The definition of your service offer must make sense to your customer in terms that are advantageous and beneficial to the customer, not what is technically good, or scientifically sound to you. Think about what your service, and the manner by which you deliver it, means to your customer.
Traditionally, in sales and marketing, this perspective is referred to as translating features into benefits. The easiest way to translate a feature into a benefit is to add the prompt ‘which means that...'. For example, if a strong feature of a business is that it has 24-hour opening, this feature would translate into something like: "We're open 24 hours (the feature) which means that you can get what you need when you need it - day or night." (the benefit). Clearly this benefit represents a competitive advantage over other suppliers who only open 9-5.
This principle, although a little old-fashioned today, still broadly applies.
The important thing is to understand your services and proposition in terms that your customer will recognise as being relevant and beneficial to them.
Most businesses have a very poor understanding of what their customers value most in the relationship, so ensure you discover this in the research stage, and reflect it in your stated product or service proposition(s).
Customers invariably value these benefits higher than all others:
* Making money
* Saving money
* Saving time
If your proposition(s) cannot be seen as leading to any of the above then customers will not be very interested in you.
A service-offer or proposition should be an encapsulation of what you do best, that you do better than your competitors (or that they don't do at all); something that fits with your business objectives, stated in terms that will make your customers think ‘Yes, that means something to me and I think it could be good for my business (and therefore good for me also as a buyer or sponsor).'
This is the first 'brick in the wall' in the process of business planning, sales planning, marketing planning, and thereafter, direct marketing, and particularly sales lead generation.
Write your business plan - include sales, costs of sales, gross margins, and if necessary your business overheads
Business plans come in all shapes and sizes. Pragmatism is essential. Ensure your plan shows what your business needs it to show. Essentially your plan is a spreadsheet of numbers with supporting narrative, explaining how the numbers are to be achieved. A plan should show all the activities and resources in terms of revenues and costs, which together hopefully produce a profit at the end of the trading year. The level of detail and complexity depends on the size and part of the business that the plan concerns. Your business plan, which deals with all aspects of the resource and management of the business (or your part of the business), will include many decisions and factors fed in from the marketing process. It will state sales and profitability targets by activity. In a marketing plan there may also be references to image and reputation, and to public relations. All of these issues require thought and planning if they are to result in improvement, and particularly increasing numbers of customers and revenue growth. You would normally describe and provide financial justification for the means of achieving these things, together with customer satisfaction improvement. Above all a plan needs to be based on actions - cost-effective and profitable cause and effect; inputs required to achieved required outputs, analysed, identified and quantified separately wherever necessary to be able to manage and measure the relevant activities and resources.
quantify the business you seek from each of your market sectors, segments, products and customer groupings, and allocate investment, resources and activities accordingly
These principles apply to a small local business, a department within a business, or a vast whole business. Before attending to the detail of how to achieve your marketing aims you need to quantify clearly what they are. What growth targets does the business have? What customer losses are you projecting? How many new customers do you need, by size and type, by product and service? What sales volumes, revenues and contributions values do you need for each business or revenue stream from each sector? What is your product mix, in terms of customer type, size, sector, volumes, values, contribution, and distribution channel or route to market? What are your projected selling costs and net contributions per service, product, sector? What trends and percentage increase in revenues and contributions, and volumes compared to last year are you projecting? How is your market share per business stream and sector changing, and how does this compare with your overall business aims? What are your fast-growth high-margin opportunities, and what are your mature and low-margin services; how are you treating these different opportunities, and anything else in between? You should use a basic spreadsheet tool to split your business according to the main activities and profit levers. See the simple sales/business planning tool example below.
A useful planning tool in respect of markets and products is the matrix developed by Igor Ansoff:
ansoff product-market matrix
The Ansoff product-market matrix helps to understand and assess marketing or business development strategy. Any business, or part of a business can choose which strategy to employ, or which mix of strategic options to use. This is one simple way of looking at strategic development options:
existing products new products
existing markets market penetration product development
new markets market development diversification
Each of these strategic options holds different opportunities and downsides for different organizations, so what is right for one business won't necessarily be right for another. Think about what option offers the best potential for your own business and market. Think about the strengths of your business and what type of growth strategy your strengths will enable most naturally. Generally beware of diversification - this is, by its nature, unknown territory, and carries the highest risk of failure.
Here are the Ansoff strategies in summary:
Market penetration - Developing your sales of existing products to your existing market(s). This is fine if there is plenty of market share to be had at the expense of your competitors, or if the market is growing fast and large enough for the growth you need. If you already have large market share you need to consider whether investing for further growth in this area would produce diminishing returns from your development activity. It could be that you will increase the profit from this activity more by reducing costs than by actively seeking more market share. Strong market share suggests there are likely to be better returns from extending the range of products/services that you can offer to the market, as in the next option.
Product development - Developing or finding new products to take to your existing market(s). This is an attractive strategy if you have strong market share in a particular market. Such a strategy can be a suitable reason for acquiring another company or product/service capability provided it is relevant to your market and your distribution route. Developing new products does not mean that you have to do this yourself (which is normally very expensive and frequently results in simply re-inventing someone else's wheel) - often there are potential manufacturing partners out there who are looking for their own distribution partner with the sort of market presence that you already have. However if you already have good market share across a wide range of products for your market, this option may be one that produces diminishing returns on your growth investment and activities, and instead you may do better to seek to develop new markets, as in the next strategic option.
Market development - Developing new markets for your existing products. New markets can also mean new sub-sectors within your market - it helps to stay reasonably close to the markets you know and which know you. Moving into completely different markets, even if the product/service fit looks good, holds risks because this will be unknown territory for you, and almost certainly will involve working through new distribution channels, routes or partners. If you have good market share and good product/service range then moving into associated markets or segments is likely to be an attractive strategy.
Diversification - taking new products into new markets. This is high risk - not only do you not know the products, but neither do you know the new market(s), and again this strategic option is likely to entail working through new distribution channels and routes to market. This sort of activity should generally be regarded as additional and supplementary to the core business activity, and should be rolled out carefully through rigorous testing and piloting.
Consider also your existing products and services themselves in terms of their market development opportunity and profit potential. Some will offer very high margins because they are relatively new, or specialised in some way, perhaps because of special USP's or distribution arrangements. Other products and services may be more mature, with little or no competitive advantage, in which case they will produce lower margins. The Boston Matrix is a useful way to understand and assess your different existing product and service opportunities:
boston matrix
The Boston matrix model is a tool for assessing existing and development products in terms of their market potential, and thereby implying strategic action for products and services in each category.
low market share high market share
growing market problem child (rising) star
mature market dog cash cow
Cash cow - The rather crude metaphor is based on the idea of 'milking' the returns from previous investments which established good distribution and market share for the product. Products in this quadrant need maintenance and protection activity, together with good cost management, not growth effort, because there is little or no additional growth available.
Dog - This is any product or service of yours which has low market presence in a mature or stagnant market. There is no point in developing products or services in this quadrant. Many organizations discontinue products/services that they consider fall into this category, in which case consider potential impact on overhead cost recovery. Businesses that have been starved or denied development find themselves with a high or entire proportion of their products or services in this quadrant, which is obviously not very funny at all, except to the competitors.
Problem child - These are products which have a big and growing market potential, but existing low market share, normally because they are new products, or the application has not been spotted and acted upon yet. New business development and project management principles are required here to ensure that these products' potential can be realised and disasters avoided. This is likely to be an area of business that is quite competitive, where the pioneers take the risks in the hope of securing good early distribution arrangements, image, reputation and market share. Gross profit margins are likely to be high, but overheads, in the form of costs of research, development, advertising, market education, and low economies of scale, are normally high, and can cause initial business development in this area to be loss-making until the product moves into the rising star category, which is by no means assured - many problem children products remain as such.
Rising star - Or 'star' products, are those which have good market share in a strong and growing market. As a product moves into this category it is commonly known as a 'rising star'. When a market is strong and still growing, competition is not yet fully established. Demand is strong; saturation or over-supply do not exists, and so pricing is relatively unhindered. This all means that these products produce very good returns and profitability. The market is receptive and educated, which optimises selling efficiencies and margins. Production and manufacturing overheads are established and costs minimised due to high volumes and good economies of scale. These are great products and worthy of continuing investment provided good growth potential continues to exist. When it does not these products are likely to move down to cash cow status, and the company needs to have the next rising stars developing from its problem children.
After considering your business in terms of the Ansoff matrix and Boston matrix (which are thinking aids as much as anything else, not a magic solution in themselves), on a more detailed level, and for many businesses just as significant as the Ansoff-type-options, what is the significance of your major accounts - do they offer better opportunity for growth and development than your ordinary business? Do you have a high quality, specialised offering that delivers better business benefit on a large scale as opposed to small scale? Are your selling costs and investment similar for large and small contracts? If so you might do better concentrating on developing large major accounts business, rather than taking a sophisticated product or service solution to smaller companies which do not appreciate or require it, and cost you just as much to sell to as a large organization.
Customer matrix
This customer matrix model is used by many companies to understand and determine strategies according to customer types.
good products not so good products
good customers develop and find more customers like these - allocate your best resources to these existing customers and to prospective customers matching this profile educate and convert these customers to good products if beneficial to them, failing which, maintain customers via account management
not so good customers invest cautiously to develop and improve relationship, failing which, maintain customers via account management assess feasibility of moving these customers left or up, failing which, withdraw from supplying sensitively
Assessing product type is helped by reference to the Boston matrix model. There is a lot of flexibility as to what constitutes 'good' and 'not so good customers' - use your own criteria. A good way to do this is to devise your own grading system using criteria that mean something to your own situation. Typical criteria are: size, location, relationship, credit-rating and payment terms, is the customer growing (or not), the security of the supply contract, the service and support overhead required, etc. This kind of customer profiling tool and exercise is often overlooked, but it is a critical aspect of marketing and sales development, and of optimising sales effectiveness and business development performance and profitability. Each quadrant requires a different sales approach. The type of customer also implies the type of sales person who should be responsible for managing the relationship. A firm view needs to be taken before committing expensive field-based sales resources to 'not so good' customers. Focus prospect development (identifying and contacting new prospective customers) on the profile which appears in the top left quadrant. Identify prospective new customers who fit this profile, and allocate your business development resources (people and advertising) to this audience.
Consider also What are your competitor weaknesses in terms of sectors, geographical territory and products or services, and how might these factors affect your options? Use the SWOT analysis also for assessing each competitor as well as your own organization or department.
Many organizations issue a marketing budget from the top down (a budget issued by the Centre/HQ/Finance Director), so to speak, in which case, what is your marketing budget and how can you use it to produce the best return on investment, and to help the company best to meet its overall business aims? Use the models described here to assess your best likely returns on marketing investment.
The best way to begin to model and plan your marketing is to have a record of your historical (say last year's) sales results (including selling and advertising costs if appropriate and available) on a spreadsheet. The level of detail is up to you; modern spreadsheets can organize massive amounts of data and make very complex analysis quick easy. Data is vital and will enable you to do most of the analysis you need for marketing planning. In simple terms you can use last year's results as a basis for planning and modelling the next year's sales, and the marketing expenditure and activities required to achieve them.
simple business plan or sales plan tools examples
These templates examples help the planning process. Split and analyse your business or sales according to your main products/services (or revenue streams) according to the profit drivers or 'levers' (variables that you can change which affect profit), eg., quantity or volume, average sales value or price, % gross margin or profit. Add different columns which reflect your own business profit drivers or levers, and to provide the most relevant measures.
quantity total sales value average value % gross margin total sales or gross margin
product 1
product 2
product 3
product 4
totals
Do the same for each important aspect of your business, for example, split by market sector (or segment):
quantity total sales value average value % gross margin total sales or gross margin
sector 1
sector 2
sector 3
sector 4
totals
And, for example, split by distributor (or route to market):
quantity total sales value average value % gross margin total sales or gross margin
distributor 1
distributor 2
distributor 3
distributor 4
totals
These simple split analysis tools are an extremely effective way to plan your sales and business. Construct a working spreadsheet so that the bottom-right cell shows the total sales or gross margin, or profit, whatever you need to measure, and by changing the figures within the split (altering the mix, average prices, quantities, etc) you can carry out 'what if?' analysis to develop the best plans.
If you are a competent working with spreadsheets it is normally possible to assemble all of this data onto a single spreadsheet and then show different analyses by sorting and graphing according to different fields.
When you are happy with the overall totals for the year, convert this into a phased monthly plan, with as many lines and columns as you need and are appropriate for the business. Develop this spreadsheet by showing inputs as well as sales outputs - the quantifiable activity (for example, the numbers of enquiries necessary to produce the planned sales levels) required to produce the planned performance. Large businesses need extensive and multiple page spreadsheets. A business plan needs costs as well as sales, and will show profit as well as revenue and gross margin, but the principle is the same: plan the detailed numbers and values of what the business performance will be, and what inputs are required to achieve it.
Here's a free MSExcel profit and loss account template tool for incorporating these factors and financials into a more formal phased business trading plan, which also serves as a business forecasting and reporting tool too. Adapt it to suit your purposes. This plan example is also available as a PDF, see the Profit and Loss Account (P&L) Small Enterprise Business Plan Example (PDF). The numbers could be anything: ten times less, ten times more, a hundred times more - the principle is the same.
Consider also indirect activities that affect sales and business levels, such as customer service. Identify key performance indicators here too, such as customer complaints response and resolution levels and timescales. Internal lead referral schemes, strategic partnership activity; the performance of other direct sales activities such as sales agencies, distributorships, export activities, licensing, etc. These performance factors won't normally appear on a business plan spreadsheet, but a separate plan should be made for them, otherwise they won't happen.
write your marketing plan or business plan
Your marketing plan is actually a statement, supported by relevant financial data, of how you are going to develop your business. Plans should be based on actions, not masses of historical data. The historical and market information should be sufficient just to explain and justify the opportunities, direction, strategy, and most importantly, the marketing actions, methods and measures - not to tell the story of the past 20 years of your particular industry.
"What you are going to sell to whom, when and how you are going to sell it, how much contribution (gross profit) the sales produce, what the marketing cost will be, and what will be the return on investment."
As stated above it is easiest and best to assemble all of this data onto a spreadsheet, which then allows data to be manipulated through the planning process, and then changed and re-projected when the trading year is under way. The spreadsheet then becomes the basis of your sales and marketing forecasting and results reporting tool.
As well as sales and marketing data, in most types of businesses it is also useful to include measurable aims concerning customer service and satisfaction.
The marketing plan will have costs that relate to a marketing budget in the overall business plan. The marketing plan will also have revenue and gross margin/profitability targets that relate to the turnover and profitability in the overall business plan. This data is essentially numerical, and so needs also some supporting narrative as to how the numbers will be achieved - the actions - but keep the narrative concise; if it extends to more than a half-dozen sheets make sure you put a succinct executive summary on the front.
The marketing plan narrative could if appropriate also refer to indirect activities such as product development, customer service, quality assurance, training etc., if significantly relevant to achieving the marketing plan aims.
Be pragmatic - marketing plans vary enormously depending on the type, size and maturity of business. Above all create a plan that logically shows how the business can best consolidate and grow its successful profitable areas. The marketing plan should be a working and truly useful tool - if it is, then it's probably a good one.
sample business plan, marketing plan or sales plan sample structure and example format/template
Keep the written part of the business plan as concise and brief as possible - most situations and high-ranking executives do not need to see plans that are an inch thick. If you can make your case on a half dozen pages then do so. Particularly if your plan is more than 5-6 pages long, produce an executive summary (easiest to do when you have completed the plan) and insert it at the beginning of the document. If you need to include lots of reference material, examples, charts, evidence, etc, show these as appendices at the back of the document and make sure they are numbered and referenced during the main body of the plan. Each new section should start at the top of a new page. Number the pages. Important plans should be suitably bound. All business plans should be professionally and neatly presented, with no grammar and spelling errors, clearly laid out in an easy to read format (avoid lots of upper-case or fancy fonts or italics as these are all difficult to read). Your business plan contents and structure should be as follows:
Business plans structure
* Title page: Title or heading of the plan and brief description if required, author, date, company/organization if applicable, details of circulation and confidentiality.
* Contents page: A list of contents (basically the sections listed here, starting with the Introduction page) showing page numbers, plus a list of appendices or addendums (added reference material at the back of the document) allowing the reader to find what they need and navigate the document easily, and to refer others to particular items and page numbers when reviewing or querying.
* Introduction page: Introduction and purpose of the plan, terms of reference if applicable (usually for formal and large plans or projects).
* Executive summary page: Optional and usually beneficial, this should normally be no more than a page long (or it's not an executive summary) - the key points of the whole plan including conclusions, recommendations, actions, financial returns on investment, etc., clearly readable in a few minutes.
* Main body of plan: sections and headings as required, see template below.
* Acknowledgments and bibliography/reference sources: if relevant (only required normally for very large formal plans)
* Appendices: appendices or addendums - additional detailed reference material, examples, statistics, spreadsheets, etc., for reference and not central to the main presentation of your plan.
Business plans - main body sections examples template
This sample template is typical for a sales/marketing/new business development business plan. (A business plan for a more complex project such as an international joint-venture, or the formation of a new company including manufacturing plant or other overhead activities would need to include relevant information and financials about the overheads and resources concerned, and the financials would need to show costs and profits more like a fully developed profit and loss account, with cashflow projections, balance sheet, etc.) Where appropriate refer to your position regarding corporate ethics and social responsibility. While these aspects are not mechanisms within the plan, they are crucial reference points.
1. Define your market - sector(s) and segment(s) definitions
2. Quantify your market (overview only) - size, segmentation, relevant statistics, values, numbers (locations, people/users, etc) - make this relevant to you business
3. Explain your market(s) - sector trends, eg., growth, legislation, seasonality, PEST factors where relevant, refer to Ansoff matrix, show the strategic business drivers within sector and segments, purchasing mechanisms, processes, restrictions - what are the factors that determine customers' priorities and needs - this is a logical place to refer to ethics and CSR (corporate social responsibility
4. Explain your existing business - your current business according to sector, products/services, quantities, values, distributor, etc.
5. Analyse your existing customer spread by customer type, values and products/services including major accounts (the 'Pareto Principle' or the '80:20 rule' often applies here, eg., 80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers)
6. Explain your products and services - refer to Boston matrix and especially your strategic propositions (what these propositions will do for your customers) including your USP's and UPB's (see sales training section and acronyms)
7. Explain you routes to market, gatekeepers, influencers and strategic partners - the other organizations/individuals you will work with to develop your market, including 'what's in it for them', commissions, endorsements, accreditations, approvals, licenses, etc.
8. Case studies and track record - the credibility, evidence and proof that your propositions and strategic partnerships work
9. Competitor analysis, eg., SWOT analysis of your own business compared to SWOT analysis of each competitor
10. Sales/marketing/business plan (1 year min) showing sales and margins by product/service stream, mix, values, segment, 'distributor', etc, whatever is relevant, phased monthly, in as much detail as you need. This should be on a spreadsheet, with as many different sheets as necessary to quantify relevant inputs and outputs.
11. List your strategic actions (marketing campaigns, sales activities, advertising, etc) that will deliver the above, with costs and returns. This should be supported with a spreadsheet, showing cost and return on investment for each activity.
Tip: If the business plan concerns an existing activity, use the previous year's sales/business analysis as the basis for the next year's sales/business plan. Adapt as necessary according to your new strategic plans.
Other business planning and marketing issues
Staffing and training implications
Your people are unlikely to have all the skills they need to help you implement a marketing plan. You may not have all the people that you need so you have to consider justifying and obtaining extra. Customer service is acutely sensitive to staffing and training. Are all of your people aware of the aims of the business, its mission statement and your sales propositions? Do they know what their responsibilities are? How will you measure their performance? Many of these issues feed back into the business plan under human resources and training, where budgets need to be available to support the investment in these areas.
Customer service charter
You should formulate a customer service charter, extending both your mission statement and your service offer, so as to inform staff and customers what your standards are. These standards can cover quite detailed aspects of your service, such as how many times the telephone will be permitted to ring until the caller is gets an answer. Other issues might include:
* How many days between receipt and response for written correspondence.
* Complaints procedure and timescales for each stage.
This charter sets customer expectations, so be sure you can meet them. Customers get disappointed particularly when their expectations are not met, and when so many standards can be set at arbitrary levels, think of each one as a promise that you should keep. Business-to-business customers would expect to agree these standards with their suppliers and have them recorded as part of their contracts, or as SLA's (service level agreements). Increasingly, large customers demand SLA's to be tailored to their own specific needs, and the process of developing these understandings and agreements is absolutely crucial to the maintenance and development of large contracts.
Remember an important rule about customer service: It's not so much the failure to meet standards that causes major dissatisfaction among customers - everyone can make a mistake - the biggest cause of upset is the failure of suppliers to inform customers and keep them updated when problems arise. Not being told in advance, not receiving any apology, not getting any explanation why, and not hearing what's going to be done to put things right, are key areas of customer dissatisfaction, and therefore easy areas for suppliers to focus their efforts to achieve and communicate improvements.
A special point of note for businesses that require a strong technical profile among their service staff: these people are often reactive by nature and so not good at taking initiative to identify and anticipate problem areas in customer service. It's therefore helpful to establish suitable mechanisms and responsibility to pick up problems and deal with them - a kind of trouble-shooting capability - which can be separately managed and monitored at a strategic level. Do not assume that technically-oriented staff will be capable of proactively developing customer service solutions and revisions to SLA's - they generally need help in doing so from staff with high creativity, empathy, communications and initiative capabilities.
establish systems to measure customer service and staff performance
These standards and the SLA's established for large customers need to be visible, agreed with customers, absolutely measurable. You must keep measuring your performance against them, and preferably publishing the results, internally and externally. Customer complaints handling is a key element:
Measuring customer complaints is crucial because individual complaints are crucial areas to resolve, and also as a whole, complaints serve as a barometer for the quality and performance of the business. You need to have a scheme which encourages, not discourages, customers to complain, to open the channels as wide as possible. Most businesses are too defensive where complaints are concerned, preferring to minimise their importance, or to seek to justify and excuse them. Wrong. Complaints are the opportunities to turn ordinary service into unbeatable service.
Moreover, time and again surveys suggest that anything up to nine out of ten people do not complain to the provider when they feel dissatisfied - they just keep their dissatisfaction to themselves and the provider never finds out there's a problem, even when the customer chooses to go elsewhere. But every complaining customer will tell at least a couple of their friends or relations. Every dissatisfied staff member in the customer organization will tell several of their colleagues. Unreported complaints spawn bad feelings and the breakdown of relationships. It is imperative that you capture all complaints in order to:
* Put at ease and give explanation or reassurance to the person complaining.
* Reduce the chances of them complaining to someone else.
* Monitor exactly how many dissatisfied customers you have and what the causes are, and that's even more important if you're failing to deliver your mission statement or service offer!
* Take appropriate corrective action to prevent a re-occurrence.
* If appropriate (ie for large customers) review SLA's and take the opportunity to agree new SLA's with the customer.
implications for IT, premises, and reporting systems
Also relating to your business plan are the issues of:
Information Technology - are your computers and communications systems capable of giving you the information and analysis you need? How do you use email - is it helping or hindering your business and the quality of service you give to your customers? What internet presence and processes do you need? How should your voice and data systems work together? What systems need to be available to mobile staff? What customer relationship management (CRM) systems should you have? How should you consider all these issues to see the needs and opportunities? IT and communications systems increasingly offer marketing and competitive advantage to businesses in all sectors - make sure you know hat IT can do for you and for your customers.
Premises - Review your premises and sites in light of your customer service, distribution, and customer relationship requirements. Pay particular attention anywhere in your organization that your customers visit - the impression and service you give here is critical.
Reporting systems - If you can't measure it you can't manage it, and where finance and business performance is concerned this is certainly true. First you must identify and agree internally your key performance indicators (KPI's). Identify every aspect of your service or performance that is important - then you need to be able to measure it and report on it, and where people are involved in performing to certain standards then the standards and the reporting needs to be transparent to them also.
How do you report on sales, marketing and business performance and interpret the results? Who needs to know? Who needs to capture the data?
communications and ongoing customer feedback are essential
Having an open dialogue with your customers is vital. There's a double benefit to your business in ensuring this happens:
* You nip problems in the bud and stay aware of how you're performing.
* Your customers feel better about the service you provide as a result of the communications, or from the fact that the channel is open even if they don't use it - it's human nature.
Try to devise a standard feedback form. It can double as a promotional tool as well if it's made available on a wider scale. The form can carry details of your mission statement, service offer and your customer service charter.
Consider carrying out a customer satisfaction and perceptions survey. There are many ways to do this on a small or large scale, and valuable feedback is always obtained from customer survey exercises.
Tips for starting a small business or self-employment - for non-financial people
Some of us are not naturally inclined towards the sort of detailed financial thinking that is required for traditional detailed business planning. If this is you, you'll possess other valuable capabilities that will be useful in your own enterprise, and you'll maybe find it helpful to use this alternative approach to planning a new enterprise or self-employment. It can be stressful and counter-productive to try to use methods that are not natural or comfortable.
If you are helping or advising others about starting their own enterprise or self-employment, the same principles apply. Not everyone is naturally good at business planning, but everyone who dreams of being self-employed or who wants to start and run their own independent enterprise is capable of doing so, provided they work to their strengths, capabilities and passions.
People running successful enterprises come in all shapes and sizes, from all backgrounds, all ages, with skills, passions, and capabilities in any field you can imagine. Anyone can run their own business or be successful in self-employment given the simple determination to do so. Business and enterprise is not just for stereotypical 'business-types'; the benefits and advantages of being your own boss are available to us all.
Here are some pointers for people considering starting their own new enterprise, or for helping others to do the same.
First, and especially if you are not clear of your own real strengths, or what direction to pursue, focus on using tools to understanding your own personality style and strengths. Then use this knowledge to imagine and realise how your natural capabilities can be used to best effect in defining and providing your own services or running your own enterprise.
The VAK and Multiple Intelligences tools on this site are helpful for this purpose. They assess people's strengths completely differently to traditional IQ or academic evaluations, which are extremely narrow and generally not relevant at all for people who want to be their own boss.
Understanding personality is also useful since personality-type greatly influences the way that a person approaches self-employment or running an enterprise, and what sort of service or business to offer. The Personality Styles page provides a lot of explanation about this.
Many people are conditioned by schools and over-cautious parents to under-estimate their own potential and capabilities, which is a big reason to take a fresh look at what you are good at, and to re-think and understand better the ways that your personality type tends to be successful in life and business.
There are many ways to be successful and independent in life aside from building and running a conventional business and adhering to conventional financial planning methods.
The basic economics of becoming successfully independent in any sort of venture are actually extremely simple, and focusing on the following simple fundamentals (a process really) can help many folk turn your dream or an idea into a successful enterprise or self-employment reality. It's usually easiest to think first of these factors in terms of daily, weekly or monthly numbers and values, and then to extend the figures to give totals for a whole year:
1. What's your product or service? (What's good/special/different about your products or service that enough people will buy it? And importantly is this something that you have a real passion for? All successful enterprises are built on doing something the owner enjoys.)
2. What does it cost to make/buy in/provide the product or service? (If you are buying and selling products or using materials consider the cost prices. If the main resource is your own time then attach a cost to your labour that reflects your available time for the work and the wage you need to draw. Divide your required annual wage by the number of work hours available to you, and this is your notional hourly labour cost.)
3. What price will the product/service sell for? (Ideally small businesses need a healthy profit margin or mark-up - doubling the cost is good if the market will accept it. A mark-up of less than 50% is cause for concern unless you are selling products in relatively high volumes or values. Price your products/services according to what the market will pay, not according to your costs. Take into account your competitors and what they charge and their relative quality. Service businesses that use only the person's time are often very attractive and profitable because there is no added complication of buying and holding stock - hence why window-cleaning, sign-writing, repairs, gardening, decorating, tutoring, writing, therapy, training, coaching and consultancy, etc., are such good businesses for people who prefer a simple approach to self-employment and enterprise. Consider the effect of VAT especially for 'consumer' businesses - ie., selling to the general public - assuming your business is or must be VAT registered. Private consumers of course are more sensitive to VAT than business customers who can generally reclaim VAT should you have to add it to your prices.)
4. Who will buy the product/service? (Identify your customers and market. Do you know this for sure? Test your assumptions: this is a critical part of the proposition and generally benefits from more thought and research to confirm that a big enough market exists for your idea. Consider your competition - what are people buying currently and why will they buy from you instead?)
5. How much/many do you need to sell in a year? And how many customers do you need? (This is a vital part of the proposition to confirm that the gross profit (the difference between costs of bought in products/labour and sales revenues) covers your/their financial needs (including a living wage and other fixed costs of running the enterprise. Again remember the affect of VAT on your selling prices if applicable.)
6. How will people know about the service/product? (You need to understand what advertising/marketing/enquiry-generation is necessary - activity and cost. There is usually a cost for generating new customers, especially in the early stages of a new enterprise. Once the business is established, say after six months to a year, 'word-of-mouth' referrals are for some businesses all that is required to produce new customers - especially those based in a local community, but virtually any new enterprise requires marketing at its launch. See the articles on marketing and selling.)
7. Does all this add up, and better still provide a cash surplus at the end of a year? - if so then it's probably a good business model.
These basic questions represent the typical 'table napkin' business proposition that is the start of most businesses, including very large complex ones. People who dislike and are not fluent in detailed business calculations might find the above process a useful starting point when thinking about how to begin a new enterprise or a venture in self-employment.
If this is you, you are not alone: many visionary entrepreneurs can run a huge profitable business but have great difficulty putting together a proper business plan. Hence many highly successful business leaders rely heavily on their financial directors to take care of the financial details, leaving them free to get on with the business activity that makes best use of their natural skill, be it creativity, selling, service-provision, people-skills, technical skills, or whatever.
Incidentally the above factors are the essential components which make up a basic Profit and Loss Account, which is the primary management tool for a business of any scale and complexity. Here's a free MSExcel profit and loss account template tool for extending these factors and financials into a more formal phased plan, which also serves as a business forecasting and reporting tool too. If in doubt about this seek some help from an experienced business person or your accountant. Adapt it to suit your purposes. The example P&L trading plan is also available as a pdf. The numbers could be anything - ten times less, ten times more, a hundred times more - the principle is the same.
Company types and financial set up - quick guide
When you have confirmed and refined the basic viability of your business idea you can then begin getting to grips with the more detailed aspects of forming the business itself.
This necessarily includes deciding your type of business constitution - the legal format of your company - or 'company type' as it is often described.
Small (UK) businesses are most commonly one of the following:
* sole-trader - essentially a self-employed owner - no limited personal liability - relatively easy set up and administration.
* partnership - essentially a group of self-employed partners/owners - no limited personal liability - easy-ish set up and administration, although ultimately dependent on the complexity of the company and partnership.
* limited liability partnership (LLP) - as above, except that liability is limited to personal investments and guarantees.
* limited company (abbreviated to Ltd after the company name) - liability is limited to the assets of the company - registered with Companies House and legally obliged to publish accounts.
There are less common variations of limited companies, and other business structures and constitutions, for example:
* social enterprise - various structures including , trusts, associations and especially cooperatives - these are not common typical or traditional business structures, but social enterprises are growing in popularity, and will be explained in more detail on this website in due course. Meanwhile here is useful information about cooperatives.
* public limited company (plc) - not appropriate for small companies.
A good accountant can help you decide what is best for your situation. So can the UK Government's Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (was the DTI - Department for Trade and Industry) and related agencies, notably Businesslink.
Incidentally the impossible to remember name 'Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform' (also shortened to BERR, which hardly helps) is a wonderful example of how not to brand a service operation. Who on earth came up with that ridiculous name? DTI - Department for Trade and Industry - was great - nothing wrong with it - it did what it said on the tin, as the saying goes. What are we supposed to infer from the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform?.... what nonsense. We can only guess at what the design agency was paid to devise such daftness, and the government ministers who approved it. BERR my arse. Somebody please start a campaign to bring back the DTI name and stop the ridiculous rebranding of government departments.
To continue..
Essentially sole-trader and partnership companies are very easy to set up and administer, but the owner/partners are personally liable for all business debts and potential claims, so good insurance cover (including professional indemnity and public liability) is essential especially if business liabilities are potentially serious. A limited liability partnership offers protection to partners in terms of personal liabilities, in that liabilities are limited to the extent of personal investment and any other guarantees. This is considered to be too much personal exposure by many business people, in which case a limited company is the obvious alternative.
A limited company exists in its own right - a tricky concept to understand for many people - basically meaning that financial liabilities belong to the company (its shareholders, to the value of their shares in other words) rather than the directors and executives of the business, as would apply in a partnership. Limited companies ultimately offer more flexibility for large complex businesses but can be somewhat over-complicated and administratively heavy if all you want to do is run a local shop or landscape gardening business or modest training or coaching business.
Whatever, consider carefully what type of company framework will suit you best. Once established it can be quite difficult to unravel and change if you get it wrong. Not impossible of course, but a nuisance if you could have got it right first time with a bit of extra thought at the planning stage.
You'll need a business bank account as well. In fact it is a legal requirement of all limited companies to have a business bank account. Shop around. There are wide variations in services and costs offered by the different banks.
You must also understand and organize the tax implications for your type of business.
Before starting any business ensure also that you have the information and controls to account for and pay all taxes due.
Helpfully to learn more about this in the UK, most tax affairs are within the responsibilities of HM Revenue and Customs - until they too change their name to something very silly. That said, the relevance today of HM (Her Majesty's) is a bit puzzling when you stop to think about it and surely due for updating to the modern age. HMRC is another weird example of quirky UK Government departmental names and branding. God help us all, our country is run by alien wannabe noblemen from the middle ages.
VAT (Value Added Tax or your national equivalent) is an issue warranting serious thought if your business is small enough to have a choice in the matter. As at April 2008 the UK limit is £67,000 turnover, above which you must register for VAT. Check the HMRC website for the current position.
Being VAT registered means you must charge VAT on all VAT-rated supplies, which means also that the VAT you receive on payments from your customers must be paid to HM Revenue and Customs. (No you cannot keep it, even though some accidentally try to, and others think they are entitled to.)
Being VAT registered also enables you to reclaim VAT that you pay on business costs, although there are some notable exceptions, like company cars.
Retail and consumer businesses are especially affected by VAT. Private consumers cannot claim back VAT, so the effect of VAT on pricing and margins needs careful thought in planning any consumer business.
Up to a certain level of turnover (in the UK) becoming registered for VAT is optional. If your business turnover is likely to be below the threshold for mandatory VAT registration, you must decide for yourself if the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. The main advantages of VAT registration are:
* your business will be perceived by certain people - especially other businesses - to be larger and more credible (not being registered for VAT indicates immediately that your turnover is below the VAT threshold)
* you will be able to reclaim VAT that you are charged on legitimate allowable business costs
The main disadvantages of being VAT registered are:
* the administrative burden in keeping VAT records and submitting VAT returns (although this has been enormously simplified in recent years so that for small simple businesses it is really not a problem at all)
* risks of getting onto cashflow difficulties if you fail to set funds aside to pay your VAT bills (see the tax tips below)
Information about VAT (and all other tax issues) is at the UK Government HM Revenue and Customs website: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk
VAT is not the only tax of course. Taxes are also due on company profits (not sole-traders or partnerships, whose profits are taxed via personal earnings) and on staff salaries (national insurance). A sole-trader or partnership can employ staff of course, in which case national insurance tax is due on salaries paid to employees, which is different to the tax that employees pay themselves.
Failing to retain funds in a company to pay taxes is a serious problem that's easily avoided with good early planning. Contact your tax office. Inform them of your plans and seek their help. Tax offices are generally extremely helpful, so ask. You can even talk to a real person on the phone without having to breach a six-level automated menu system.
Ideally find a decent accountant too. Preferably one who comes recommended to you. With all the greatest respect to accountants everywhere, accountants are quite commonly very intense people, like solicitors and scientists, very much focused on process, accuracy, rules, etc., which in terms of personality fit can be a little at odds with the style of many entrepreneurs. So again shop around and find an accountant with whom you can share a joke and a beer or something from the human world. The relationship between a business person and his/her accountant is crucial if the business is to grow and develop significantly. Accountants might seem at times to be from another planet, but I can assure you the good ones are bloody magicians when it comes to business development, especially when the figures get really interesting. The statement that one stroke of an accountant's pen is mightier than the world's most successful sales team, is actually true.
For many entrepreneurs, the ideal scenario is to grow your business large enough to support the cost of a really excellent finance director, who can take care of all the detailed legal and financial matters for you, and leave you completely free to concentrate on growing the business - concentrating your efforts and ideas and strategy externally towards markets and customers, and internally towards optimizing innovation and your staff.
See the quick tax tips below, especially for small businesses which might not easily be able to achieve immediate and accurate control of their tax liabilities, which is one of the major early risks for a new successful small business.
tax tips - understanding and accounting for taxes from the start
A significant potential problem area for newly self-employed people, and for new business start-ups, is failing to budget and save for inevitable taxes which arise from your business activities.
N.B. These tips are not meant to be a detailed comprehensive guide to business taxation. This section merely addresses a particular vulnerability of new start-up businesses in failing to set aside sufficient reserves to meet tax liabilities, especially small businesses, and even more especially sole-traders and partnerships and small limited companies, which lack expertise in accounting and consequently might benefit from these simple warnings and tips related to tax liabilities.
In general these issues would normally be managed via a cashflow forecast, together with suitable financial processes to allocate and make payments for all costs and liabilities arising in the course of trading. I recognise however that many small business start-ups do not begin with such attention to financial processes, and it's primarily for those situations that these particular notes are provided.
These notes in no way suggest that this is the normal fully controlled approach to planning and organizing tax liabilities and other cashflow issues within any business of significant scale. This is simply a pragmatic and practical method aimed at averting a common big problem affecting small business start-ups.
While your type of company and business determines precisely which taxes apply to you, broadly taxes are due on sales (for VAT registered businesses in the UK, or your VAT equivalent if outside the UK), and on the profits of your business and your earnings. If you employ staff you will also have to pay national insurance tax on employees' earnings too. Generally sole-traders and partnerships have simpler tax arrangements - for example, profits are typically taxed as personal earnings - as compared with the more complex taxes applicable to limited companies, which also pay taxes on company profits and staff salaries.
Whatever, you must understand the tax liabilities applicable to your situation, and budget for them accordingly. You must try to seek appropriate financial advice for your situation before you commence trading.
Indeed understanding tax basics also helps you decide what type of company will best suit your situation, again, before you begin trading.
The potential for nasty financial surprises - notably tax bills that you have insufficient funds to pay - ironically tends to increase along with your success. This is because bigger sales and profits and earnings inevitably produce bigger tax bills (percentage of tax increases too in the early growth of a business), all of which becomes a very big problem if you've no funds to pay taxes when due.
The risks of getting into difficulties can be greater for the self-employed and small partnerships which perhaps do not have great financial knowledge and experience, than for larger Limited Company start-ups which tend to have more systems and support in financial areas.
Start-ups are especially prone to tax surprises because the first set of tax bills can commonly be delayed, and if you fail to account properly for all taxes due then obviously you increase the chances of spending more than you should do, resulting in not having adequate funds to cover the payments when they are due.
Risks are increased further if you are new to self-employment, previously having been employed and accustomed to receiving a regular salary on which all taxes have already been deducted, in other words 'net' of tax. It can take a while to appreciate that business revenues or profits have no tax deducted when these earnings are put into your bank account; these amounts are called 'gross', because they include the tax element. Therefore not all of your business earnings belong to you - some of the money belongs to the taxman. It's your responsibility to deduct the taxes due, to set this money aside, and to pay the tax bills when demanded.
Additionally, if you are a person who is in the habit of spending everything that you earn, you must be even more careful, since this tendency will increase the risks of your being unable to pay your taxes.
Failing to get on top of the reality of taxes from the very beginning can lead to serious debt and cashflow problems, which is a miserable way to run a business.
So you must anticipate and set aside funds necessary to meet your tax liabilities from the very start of your business, even if you do not initially have a very accurate idea of what taxes will be due, or you lack effective systems to calculate them - many small start-ups are in this position. Nevertheless it is too late to start thinking about tax when the first demands fall due.
If when starting your business you do not have information and systems to identify and account accurately for your tax liabilities, here are two simple quick tax tips to avoid problems with the taxman:
1. You must estimate your tax liabilities and ensure that you set aside funds to cover these liabilities while you are banking your payments received into the business. The easiest way to do this is to identify the taxes applicable to your business, for example VAT and your own personal income tax and national insurance. Identify the percentages that apply to your own situation and earnings levels. You can do this approximately. It does not need to be very precise. Add these percentages together, and then set aside this percentage of all your earnings that you receive into your business. Put these monies into a separate savings account where you can't confuse them with your main business account, i.e., your 'working capital' typically held in a current account.
2. Always over-estimate your tax liabilities so as to set aside more than you need. Having a surplus is not a problem. Having not enough money to pay taxes because you've under-estimated tax due is a problem; sometimes enough to kill an otherwise promising business.
Here's an example to show how quickly and easily you can plan and set aside a contingency to pay your tax bills, even if you've no experience or systems to calculate them precisely. This example is based on a self-employed consultancy-type business, like a training or coaching business, in which there are no significant costs of sales (products or services bought in) or overheads, i.e., revenues are effectively the profits too, since there are minimal costs to offset against profits:
example of estimating and setting aside money to pay taxes
1. In the UK VAT on most products and services is 17.5%. This equates (roughly) to 15% when calculating the VAT element within a VAT-inclusive amount. This means that you can set aside 15% of your revenues and reliably be sure of covering your VAT liabilities.
2. In the UK personal income tax and national insurance combined is roughly 30% of earnings up to about £30,000 (a little over in fact), rising to 49% - call it 50% - of earnings above £30k - roughly.
N.B. Income tax and national insurance are calculated on taxable earnings, which exclude money spent on legitimate business costs, and VAT received.
These figures in the above example are approximate I emphasise again, which is all you need for this purpose, moreover the approximations are on the high side of what the precise liabilities actually are. Accountants call this sort of thinking 'prudent'. It's a pessimistic approach to forecasting liabilities rather than optimistic, which is fundamental to good financial planning and management: if the pessimism is wrong then you end up with a surplus (which is good), but if you are wrong in making optimistic forecasts and estimates (over-ambitious sales, and lower-than-actual costs and liabilities), then you run out of money (which is bad).
Back to the percentages.. Knowing the income tax percentages enables you to set aside a suitable percentage of your earnings when you receive them into the business. Roughly speaking, for earnings up to £30k you need to set aside 30% to cover income tax and national insurance. For earnings over £30k you need to set aside 50% to cover your income tax and national insurance. (Earnings below £30k remain taxable at 30%). Remember you can arrive at these figures based on the VAT exclusive revenues, but to keep matters simpler it is easier to use an adjusted total percentage figure to apply to the total gross earnings. If it's kept very simple and quick you'll be more likely to do it - and/or to communicate the method effectively to your partner if they are responsible for handling the financials, as often happens.
Given this example, if in your first year your gross revenues (banked payments received) are say £50,000, assuming you are VAT registered, then your tax liabilities will be (roughly):
17.5% VAT liabilities equates to 15% of gross sales revenues £7.5k (again we are assuming no significant costs to offset these figures)
30% Income tax/NI on first £30k earnings £9.0k total net earnings are say £42.5k, being £50k less £7.5k VAT, again we are assuming negligible costs to offset against earnings
50% Income tax/NI on remaining £12.5k earnings £6.25k £12.5k of the net £43.5k earnings is taxed at the higher rate, again assuming negligible costs offset against earnings
total tax liabilities = 45.5%, or to be extra prudent call it 50%... £22.75k (£22.75k total tax ÷ £50k gross revenues = 45.5%)
From this example you can see that setting aside 45.5% of earnings (yes it's a lot isn't it - which is why you need to anticipate it and set the money aside) would comfortably cover VAT and income tax liabilities. To be extra safe and simpler in this example you could round it up to 50%. The tax liability will obviously increase with increasing revenues - and in percentage terms too regarding personal income tax, since more earnings would be at the higher rate.
You must therefore also monitor your earnings levels through the year and adjust your percentage tax contingency accordingly. As stated already above, the risk of under-estimating tax liabilities increases the more successful you are, because tax bills get bigger.
In truth you will have some costs to offset against the earnings figures above, but again for the purposes of establishing a very quick principle of saving a fixed percentage as a tax reserve until you know and can control these liabilities more accurately, the above is a very useful simple easy method of initially staying solvent and on top of your tax affairs, which are for many people the most serious source of nasty financial surprises in successful start-up businesses.
The above example is very simple, and is provided mainly for small start-up businesses which might otherwise neglect to provide for tax liabilities. The figures and percentages are not appropriate (but the broad principle of forecasting and providing funds for tax liabilities is) to apply to retail businesses for example, or businesses in which staff are employed, since these businesses carry significant costs of sales and overheads, which should be deducted from revenues before calculating profits and taxes liabilities. Neither does the example take account of the various ways to reduce tax liabilities by reinvesting profits in the business, writing off stock, putting money into pensions, charitable donations, etc.
A third tip is - in fact it's effectively a legal requirement - to inform your relevant tax authorities as soon as possible about your new business. Preferably do this a few weeks before you actually begin trading. That way you can be fully informed of the tax situation - and your best methods of dealing with tax, because there are usually different ways, and sometimes the differences can be worth quite a lot of money.
I do not go into more detail about tax here because it's a very complex subject with wide variations depending on your own situation, for which you should seek relevant information and advice from a qualified accountant and/or the relevant tax authorities.
Template and structure for a feasibility study or project justification report
First, and importantly, you need to clarify/confirm the criteria that need to be fulfilled in order to justify starting or continuing the project or group, in other words, what do the decision-makers need to see in order to approve the project or its continuation?
Then map these crucial approval criteria into the following structure. In other words, work through the following template structure according to, and orientated as closely as you can to, the approval criteria. (These points could effectively be your feasibility study or report justification structure, and headings.)
* past, present and particularly future ('customer') need (for the outputs/results produced by group or project)
* benefits and outcomes achieved to date for what cost/investment
* benefits and outcomes to be produced in the future
* resources, costs, investment, etc., required to produce future required outcomes and benefits (identify capital vs revenue costs, i.e., acquisition of major assets and ongoing overheads)
* alternative methods or ways of satisfying needs, with relative cost/return (return on investment) comparisons (ie., what other ways might there be for satisfying the need if the group or project doesn't happen or ceases?)
* outline strategy and financial plan, including people, aims, philosophy, etc (ideally tuned to meet the authorising power's fulfilment criteria) for proposed start or continuation of project (assuming you have a case, and assuming there is no better alternative)
Keep it simple. Keep to the facts and figures. Provide evidence. Be clear and concise. Refer to the tips about effective writing. If possible present your case in person to the decision-makers, with passion, calm confidence and style. Look at the tips on presentations, and assertiveness.
Tips on finding and working with business planning advisors and consultants
If you need help putting together a business plan, and if you want to get the best from the engagement, it's important to find the right person to work with, and to establish and maintain a good working relationship with them. If you are great big organisation you'll probably not need to work with outsiders, and if you do then you'll probably opt for a great big supplier, however there are significant benefits from working with much smaller suppliers - even single operators - and if you are a small business yourself, then this is probably the best choice anyway: to seek a good single operator, or small partnership of experts. Here are some ideas of what to look for.
You'll be best finding someone who meets as much of this criteria as possible:
* lives close-by you so you can work face-to-face with them and get to know each other properly, and so that their time is efficiently used, instead of being in traffic on their way to and from your place
* is high integrity and very discreet
* is grown-up and got no baggage or emotional triggers - wise and mature - and it needn't be an age thing
* can help you see and decide where and how you want to take the business, rather than tell you where he/she thinks you need to go - a mentor not an instructor
* understands or can immediately relate to your industry sector and type of work
* is experienced working with small family companies, but is also a big picture strategist and visionary (advisors who've only ever worked with big corporations can sometimes be a bit free and easy with relatively small amounts of money - you need someone with a very very practical approach to managing cash-flow, and real business realities, who've worked in situations without the protection of vast corporate bureaucracy and the lack of transparency that this often brings)
* is triple-brained or whole-brained - mostly front-brained - (see the stuff on Benziger) - intuitive-creative, thinking, but also able to be personable and grounded, subject to the point below
* complements your own strengths and fills the gaps and weaknesses in your collective abilities (again see the stuff on Benziger and Jung etc) - ie., if collectively you need hard facts and figures and logic then seek people with these strengths - conversely if you are strong on all this, then seek the creative humanist ethical strengths - he/she must work with you in a balanced team - so that the team has no blind spots, and no subjective biases in style or emphasis
* has two or three referees you can talk to and see evidence of past work (although if you check most of the above it will be a formality)
* doesn't smoke or drink too much
* isn't desperate for the work
As regards finding someone like this, without doubt the most reliable and quickest method is by networking introductions through trusted people. The person you seek might be three or more links away, but if it's a friend or associate of someone trusted, by someone who's trusted, by someone you trust, then probably they'll be right for you. Start by talking to people you know and asking if they know anyone, or if they know anyone who might know anyone - and take it from there.
The chances of finding the right person in the local business listings or directory, out of the blue and from cold, are pretty remote.
Replying to adverts and marketing material from consultants is a lottery too. You'll find someone eventually but you'll need to kiss a lot of frogs first, which takes ages and is not the cleverest way to spend your valuable time.
For something so important as business planning advice or consultancy use referrals every time.
Referrals work not only because you get to find someone trusted, but the person you find has a reasonable assurance that you can be trusted too, you see: good suppliers are just as choosy as good clients. It works both ways.
Be prepared to reward the person in whatever way is appropriate and fair (I'm thinking percentage share of incremental success beyond expectations - perhaps even equity share if the person is really good and you'd value their on-going contribution and help).
Often the best people won't ask for much money up front at all, but from your point of view you will attract a lot more commitment and work beyond the call of normal duty from them if you reward higher than they ask or need.
Good suppliers are immensely motivated by good clients and lots of appreciation, even if they don't want the financial reward.
Good suppliers have usually seen too many ungrateful greedy people taking them for granted and penny pinching, and will tend to sack clients like these without even telling them why, and move on to more deserving enjoyable work with people who are fair and appreciative, which is how you'll be I'm sure.
Finally, when you've found the right person, always continually agree expectations and invite feedback about how the relationship is working, not just how the work is going.
Starting your own business - or starting any new business
These are the simple rules for planning and starting your own business. The principles also apply to planning and starting a new business within an organisation for someone else.
In amongst the distractions and details of new business planning, it is important to keep sight of the basic rules of new business success:
Your successful new business must offer something unique that people want.
Uniqueness is vital because otherwise there is no reason for customers to buy from you.
Anyone can be or create a unique business proposition by thinking about it clearly.
Uniqueness comes in all shapes and sizes - it's chiefly being especially good and different in a particular area, or field or sector.
Uniqueness can be in a product or service, or in a trading method, or in you yourself, or any other aspect of your business which makes what you are offering special and appealing to people.
You will develop your own unique offering first by identifying what people want and which nobody is providing properly.
Second you must ensure that your chosen unique offering is also an extension of your own passion or particular expertise or strength - something you will love and enjoy being the best at - whatever it is.
Every successful business is built on someone's passion.
new business start-ups by older people
If you already have a career behind you, and you wonder if you've got it in you to compete and succeed in the modern world, consider this.
First - you have definitely got it in you to succeed.
Experience and wisdom are fundamental building blocks of success, and will be for you from the moment you start looking at yourself in this way.
The reassuring wisdom that older people generally possess is extremely helpful in forming trusting relationships - with customers, suppliers, partners, colleagues, etc - which are essential for good business.
Added to this, as we get older we have a greater understanding of our true passions and capabilities; we know our strengths and styles and tolerances. This gives older people a very special potency in business. Older people know what they are good at. They play to their strengths. They know which battles they can win, and which to avoid.
Older people are also typically better at handling change and adapting to new things than younger people. This is because older people have had more experience doing just this. Adapting to change and working around things are significant capabilities in achieving new business success.
If you are an older person considering starting a new business, think about the things you can do better than most other people - think about your strengths and use them.
business start-ups for younger people
Younger people can be very successful starting new businesses just as much as older people can be.
The essential principle of playing to your strengths applies, although the implications are different for younger people compared to older people.
Younger people are likely to have lots of fresh ideas. This is an advantage, so avoid people pour cold water on them.
Test your ideas on potential customers, rather than to take advice from those people who are ready with their buckets of water.
Next, get the help you need. It's difficult for young people to know all the answers.
You'll have the ideas and the energy to make things happen, but consider the gaps in your experience, and the things you don't enjoy doing, and seek good quality reliable help for these things.
Getting good help at what you can't do or don't want to do will enable you to put all your energy into what you are good at and what you want to spend your time doing.
Young people sometimes try to force themselves to fit into roles or responsibilities that are not comfortable or natural. This is de-stabilising and stressful. Learn what you love and excel at, and focus on building success from this.
Which brings us back to playing to your strengths.
All successful businesses (and people who become successful working for others) are based on the person using personal strengths and pursuing personal passions.
Success in business is always based on doing something you love and enjoy, which is fundamentally related to your natural strengths and unique personal potential, whatever that is.
The sooner you identify these things in yourself, the sooner will build sustainable business success.
planning business success - in summary
The spreadsheets, mission statements and other elements of new business planing are tools. They enable the business to be properly structured, started and run. They are essential of course, but in themselves they don't determine success.
What determines real business success, is that you bring together the crucial factors of uniqueness and passion.
Uniqueness, so that people will want what you offer.
Passion, so that you will enjoy being and offering your best - as whatever business you choose.
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