friday afternoon filing fun

It's always fun to see what filings roll in around 6 pm eastern on a Friday.

Todays is Wellcare (WCG), which despite making the decisions on bonuses and an increase in base salary on Monday (the 14th), just now got around to filing the paperwork. (emphasis and additions mine)

On February 14, 2011, the Compensation Committee (the “Committee”) of the Board of Directors of WellCare Health Plans, Inc. (the “Company”) determined bonuses under the Company’s annual cash bonus plan for 2010 of $1,015,625 for Alec Cunningham, the Company’s Chief Executive Officer; $546,250 for Thomas L. Tran, the Company’s Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and $320,000 for Scott D. Law, the Company’s Senior Vice President, Health Care Delivery. These bonuses are expected to be paid on March 4, 2011.

The Committee also approved increases to base salary for Mr. Cunningham from $650,000 to $800,000 (note: +23%) and for Mr. Tran from$475,000 to $500,000, each effective as of February 13, 2011. For 2011, Mr. Cunningham’s short-term and long-term incentive targets will remain as 125% and 300%, respectively, but will be applied to his new annual base salary. Mr. Tran’s short-term and long-term incentive targets will remain as 100% and 150%, respectively, but will be applied to his new annual base salary.

a few words about inflation

The basket of goods and services consumed is different for everyone, so inflation is experienced uniquely by all. The person who lives in a lower-cost area and drives into a high-cost one for work might have above-average transportation expenses but below-average housing costs. The retiree might spend less on housing but much more on medical care. College students spend a lot on education.

Here is the “basket” used to compute the Consumer Price Index (CPI):

I see glaring differences between what I personally spend on many of these categories, and I suspect a lot of the population would, too. The CPI is used “adjust incomes, lease payments, retirement benefits, food stamp and school lunch benefits, alimony, and tax brackets.” But the government is keeping the books. So what’s the incentive here? It goes without saying that they stand to benefit most by keeping it as low as possible.

The current commodity environment is undoubtedly inflationary. The rising prices of base metals, food inputs, cotton prices, among others, don’t just affect electronics, food and apparel costs but ripple into other areas as well. The longer high prices persist the more they have the potential to permanently raise structural costs (including wages). It may be a while before these increases show up in the official statistics, though, as the most recent 1.6% year-over-year print indicates. Nonetheless, these increases can profoundly affect consumers without a commensurate increase in the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

Below are year-over-year prices changes (through yesterday) on several basic commodities. Not a pretty picture if these prices are sustained for a length of time. Even grease is up almost 80%. Grease!

To close I’ll mention one of my favorite statistics the BLS publishes, the Special Index called “Purchasing power of the consumer dollar (1967=$1.00)”. That number -- $0.152. Purchasing power clearly erodes over time, even if it doesn’t show up in the statistics in real time.

complacency built, and building

Yesterday, the NYSE saw 365 new 52-week highs and just 9 new lows.

How much longer can this relentless, low volatility run continue? Since the end of September, we have seen only six days where the market has declined by 1% or more (just two of those this year). And the last time the market declined 2% or more was on August 11th -- and it's happened only twice since the end of June last year! That's a long time to go without substantial downside volatility.

Now, it's one thing to see the market climbing but we must consider its context. To do that we juxtapose this against prevailing valuations. On that front, it’s not encouraging. The S&P 500 stands at 18.5x earnings (over 24 cyclically adjusted) and is discounting decade-ahead per annum returns under 5% (1.8% of which is from dividends). Sure, interest rates are low which means stock *should be* worth more, but I don't buy it because investors can revise their return expectations relatively easily (and quickly).

So volatility is low and valuations are elevated, but the market keeps going up?

"It feels safer."

"There is money to be made."

Low volatility to the investor, to borrow from N.N. Taleb, is like the farmer feeding the soon-to-be-Thanksgiving-dinner turkey. Just as the safety appears greatest (based on backward-looking data), the danger is actually at its highest.