Investors might have been panicked by the recent market falls driven by the US/China trade wars, Brexit and gloomy economic forecasts. As usual, the UK market is led by the US markets. The S&P 500 is down 5% since the 26th July even though there was a slight bounce upwards yesterday. There can be few readers portfolios which have not suffered some impact because there were few stocks that did not fall.
Now I am an inveterate trend follower so how did I react to the falls? I did nothing because a few days is too short a period to determine whether it is a short-term panic or a real change in the trend. I am not convinced that we have moved from optimism about shares, to a real bear market. I’ll wait and see whether a trend develops because responding to short term share price fluctuations can be an expensive mistake.
One big faller this morning was Burford Capital (BUR) – down 60% at the time of writing. This is a litigation funding business that has come under attack for alleged dubious accounting by Muddy Waters in a report published this morning. I do not hold the stock and made some somewhat negative comments on their revenue recognition on June 12th – see https://www.sharesoc.org/blog/corporate-governance/paying-illegal-dividends-burford-capital-woodford-patient-capital-trust-and-zero-carbon-objective/. You can see Carson Block of Muddy Waters describing some of the issues in a video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEBV6rXbqJ8 or you can read the full report here: https://tinyurl.com/y6arozr9 .
I have read the report and I think it makes some valid points. The company issued a statement this morning calling it a “shorting attack” which it undoubtedly is, i.e. Muddy Waters have taken a position that might motivate them to exaggerate as shorters invariably do. For example they say Burford is a fund that “invests in an illiquid and esoteric asset class” and suggests they are using a “mark to market” accounting model of “Enron fame”. But they highlight the fact that the CFO is the wife of the founder/CEO which I find somewhat surprising, and the long service of all the directors which is not good corporate governance.
I remain skeptical of the accounting treatment of litigation funding by this company and others. Burford is of course one of the big investments made by Neil Woodford which will not enhance his reputation for prudence.
The author has no position, long or short in Burford Capital.
Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )
