bond bubble

YOU Haven’t Missed Out

© Can Stock Photo / rustyphil

The Wall Street Journal recently highlighted “one of the biggest surprises of the US stock market’s relentless rally…how many individual investors have run away from it.” This is from the January 4, 2018 article “Individual Investors Sit it Out.”

The article cites industry sources about where people have been putting their money the last several years. While nearly $1 trillion got pulled out of investment products that target US stocks since 2012, almost the same amount has gone into bond investment products.

Clients, would you trade your results over the past three or five or seven years for bonds with low potential interest and growth?

Our fundamental rules have guided us. Avoid stampedes—and the stampede into the supposed safety of bonds may be one of the biggest in history. Seek the best bargains—interest rates near the lowest levels in four decades1 hardly seemed like a bargain to us.

A strong contrarian streak encourages us to think about doing the opposite of what everybody else seems to be doing. We’ve been buying stocks when others were selling.

We’re focused now on getting the next big thing right. If we seek to avoid stampedes, we need to be careful if the stampede joins us. What we now own may become too popular and get over-priced. A 30% or 40% gain from current levels might put us in risky territory.

By continuously seeking better bargains in other sectors and trimming back holdings that are no longer cheap, we seek to reduce the potential for loss. No guarantees, of course: the next poor year is out there somewhere.

On investment advisory accounts managed through LPL Financial, our revenues are a function of your account value. When you capture an opportunity or avoid a loss, we are better off. This focuses our attention wonderfully.

Clients, if you would like to discuss how this applies to your circumstances, please email us or call.

1Interest rate data from Federal Reserve Economic Data, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FEDFUNDS (as of January 2018.)

The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results.

All investing, including stocks, involves risk including loss of principal. No strategy assures success or protects against loss.

Because of their narrow focus, sector investing will be subject to greater volatility than investing more broadly across many sectors and companies.

Bonds are subject to market and interest rate risk if sold prior to maturity. Bond values will decline as interest rates rise and bonds are subject to availability and change in price.

The Hidden Risk of Bonds

© Can Stock Photo / alexskopje

If I were to tell you that you could buy a bond that would pay out interest of 5% or more per year for the next 30 years, that might sound like a great deal. It’s certainly a great price in today’s interest rate environment—nearly double what 30-year U.S. Treasury bonds pay—and best of all, it lasts for 30 years. Other income may come and go, leaving you scrambling to find replacement investments that may or may not have the same yield, but this hypothetical bond will (one hopes) be around paying you the same rate for three decades. Sounds like a lead pipe cinch, right?

Wrong.

There is a catch. A 5% yield that will not go down for 30 years sounds great in today’s interest rate environment—but it is also guaranteed not to go up for the next 30 years. If interest rates rise and yields go up, your 5% bond will inevitably be left behind. If you try to hold onto your bond, your returns will look pretty pitiful compared to newer bonds that pay more interest and inflation will eat away at your purchasing power. If you try to sell your bond to hop on board higher yield issues, you’ll have to sell at a deep loss—no one will want to pay full price for your 5% bond if they can go out and buy 8% bonds instead. Either way, the damage would be considerable.

In investment terminology, this feature of bonds is known as interest-rate risk. The longer the bond maturity, the higher the risk (which is why longer term bonds pay higher interest.) Not only is it more likely that interest rates will rise at some point during the holding period, the damage will go on for longer before you get your money back at maturity.

We have many reasons to be nervous about holding on to long term bonds, even ones that have performed exceptionally well. For the past eight years, the Federal Reserve’s near-zero interest rate policy has been distorting the bond market, which is why overall bond performance looks so good in retrospect. But we believe that if it is impossible for something to continue, it won’t. Sooner or later the Fed will have to return to a sane interest rate policy, and when it does, long-term bonds are going to suffer badly.

We’ve been in this low interest bubble for so long we’ve forgotten what a realistic bond market looks like. If you find yourself scratching your head at the idea of selling off bonds that seem like a good bet, realize that what looks like a good deal now may not turn out to be so good in a few years. If you have any questions about your holdings, give us a call or email us to talk.

The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results.

Bonds are subject to market and interest rate risk if sold prior to maturity. Bond values will decline as interest rates rise and bonds are subject to availability and change in price.

The Biggest Stampede Ever?

© Can Stock Photo / afhunta

We think it every day. We’ve written it scores of times. We’ve said it thousands of times. We believe it is the most valuable principle we follow: “Avoid stampedes in the market.”

In our view of the world, a stampede has two criteria: large money flows in, and irrational pricing. For example, in the technology boom of the late 1990’s, very large money flows went into technology stocks. Some were new issues that had no business, no earnings, only a plan. Others were real businesses, but priced five or ten times what they would have been in more normal times.

(We usually speak of stampedes rather than bubbles, because ‘stampede’ connotes herd behavior that is an integral part of the process.)

The flight to safety, or money pouring into the supposed safety of fixed income investments, has reached historic levels. The large money flow satisfies one criteria of a stampede. What about the other one, irrational pricing?

The government of Italy recently issued fifty year bonds. A very few years ago, Italy could barely sell bonds due to the well-publicized economic problems of Europe and the systemic flaws of the Euro common currency. Italian bonds, of course, are denominated in euros. So investors in the bonds issued by a country thought to be going broke a few years ago, denominated in a troubled currency that was born only fourteen years ago, will not get their money back for fifty years.

In a sane world, what ridiculously high rate of interest would be required to persuade you to buy these bonds, if you could even be convinced at any price?

How about 2.85% per year? That is where the bonds were issued. It seems every bit as ridiculous as the most over-priced dot-bomb stock of the tech wreck. Both criteria of a stampede have been met, in spades.

We are working hard to understand the threats and opportunities presented by this stampede. We believe it is the key issue in the markets for the years ahead. If you are interested in how your situation might be affected, please write or call.

The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual.

Bonds are subject to market and interest rate risk if sold prior to maturity. Bond values will decline as interest rates rise and bonds are subject to availability and change in price.

International debt securities involves special additional risks. These risks include, but are not limited to, currency risk, geopolitical and regulatory risk, and risk associated with varying settlement standards. These risks are often heightened for investments in emerging markets.

When the Tide Goes Out

© Can Stock Photo Inc. / RobGooch

A lot of money talk uses words that evoke water: liquidity, a wave of buying or selling, money sloshing around. We have described large sums of money going into a particular sector as a tsunami.

The extreme actions taken by central banks around the world, instead of goosing economic activity, have actually caused people to become more cautious, spend less, and save more money. The primary effect has been a huge increase in demand for supposedly safe bonds and other fixed income investments.

In our lifetimes, there have been several investment manias that featured large sums of money pouring into a single sector or type of asset. The real estate boom of the early 2000’s is fresh in our minds. The technology and growth stock boom of the late 1990’s grew into a classic bubble.

The biggest financial tsunami in history is the one we are in right now: the rush into bonds. Bloomberg recently reported on the International Monetary Fund’s concern over the global $152 trillion debt pile. The key for us is to understand how this happened: people and institutions demanded bonds in unprecedented quantities. Interest rates reached extremely low levels as the tsunami of money flooded the fixed income markets.

The market will supply whatever is demanded. Companies that didn’t need money borrowed, simply to lock up financing for years or decades ahead at the most favorable prices in history. Some consumers are taking on mortgage debt at the lowest interest rates ever just because they can. Governments around the world see little cost to borrow, so finance their deficits.

The global debt pile is like a coin with another side. That other side is the unparalleled tsunami of money into bonds and fixed income. Investors who believed they were being prudent have ramped up their holdings in the supposedly safe kinds of investments.

Some say you cannot spot a bubble when it is happening. We disagree. What cannot be known is when the bubble pops. To get back to our water words, we can’t know when the tide will go back out.

We believe that bonds will be punished severely in price when the tide goes out. There will be collateral damage to bond substitutes and other income investments. And other assets may rise in price, as money returns from the bond bubble and goes back into other, now-neglected sectors. Peril and opportunity go together.

This issue is the key to the investment markets for the next few years. We know that opportunities and threats are always present, and you know we’ll be working hard to sort out which is which. If you have questions about how this applies to your situation, please write or call.

The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual.

Bonds are subject to market and interest rate risk if sold prior to maturity. Bond values will decline as interest rates rise and bonds are subject to availability and change in price.

Because of their narrow focus, sector investing will be subject to greater volatility than investing more broadly across many sectors and companies.