market cycles

Raphael, Donatello, da Vinci… Markelangelo?
photo shows paint jars and brushes on a painted surface

by Mark Leibman, President

When you mow a lawn, or paint a wall, or run a race, every bit of effort moves you closer to the end. There is only progress. You see tangible, visible results: grass clippings pile up, or the paint covers more of the wall, or the finish line gets closer. 

Long-term investing is different. On nearly half of all days, the broad market averages go backward. This has also happened over whole years, about one out of four historically.  

When we paint a wall, there are no forces moving with us and wiping away one stroke of paint for every four we make! 

So in this respect, investing is more like creative work. An artist who paints might have to add layers over their earlier work to create the effect they want. They might even use a palette knife to—yep—remove paint and clear a space for something different. 

Maybe investing and creating both require a long view, guided by a vision of what might be. Both pursuits require the patience to work at it even when results come only in fits and starts. No guarantees in either arena, but we don’t know which ideas will pan out without the pursuit.

I’m no artist, but that sure is what investing feels like. 

A lap with the mower provides its own immediate feedback. When we make an investment, the early results could be positive or negative, and it may feel like a coin toss. Only as the months and years roll by do we see the fruits of our work. Some backward movement, sure, but we expect to see progress across the process. 

We cannot do this work for just anyone. It takes people who have perspective, the ability to take that long view, to have faith that we are on the right track even when temporary setbacks engulf us.

Fortunately, here at 228 Main we have the best clients in the world. We are grateful for you. 

If you would like to talk about progress toward your goals (or anything else), please email us or call. 

All investing includes risk including loss of principal.

Want content like this in your inbox each week? Leave your email here.

Play the audio version of this article below:

Raphael, Donatello, da Vinci… Markelangelo? – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

This text is available at https://228main.com/.

Raphael, Donatello, da Vinci… Markelangelo?
photo shows paint jars and brushes on a painted surface

When you mow a lawn, or paint a wall, or run a race, every bit of effort moves you closer to the end. There is only progress. You see tangible, visible results: grass clippings pile up, or the paint covers more of the wall, or the finish line gets closer. 

Long-term investing is different. On nearly half of all days, the broad market averages go backward. This has also happened over whole years, about one out of four historically.  

When we paint a wall, there are no forces moving with us and wiping away one stroke of paint for every four we make! 

So in this respect, investing is more like creative work. An artist who paints might have to add layers over their earlier work to create the effect they want. They might even use a palette knife to—yep—remove paint and clear a space for something different. 

Maybe investing and creating both require a long view, guided by a vision of what might be. Both pursuits require the patience to work at it even when results come only in fits and starts. No guarantees in either arena, but we don’t know which ideas will pan out without the pursuit.

I’m no artist, but that sure is what investing feels like. 

A lap with the mower provides its own immediate feedback. When we make an investment, the early results could be positive or negative, and it may feel like a coin toss. Only as the months and years roll by do we see the fruits of our work. Some backward movement, sure, but we expect to see progress across the process. 

We cannot do this work for just anyone. It takes people who have perspective, the ability to take that long view, to have faith that we are on the right track even when temporary setbacks engulf us.

Fortunately, here at 228 Main we have the best clients in the world. We are grateful for you. 

If you would like to talk about progress toward your goals (or anything else), please email us or call. 

All investing includes risk including loss of principal.

Want content like this in your inbox each week? Leave your email here.

Play the audio version of this article below:

Raphael, Donatello, da Vinci… Markelangelo? – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

This text is available at https://228main.com/.

Don’t Look Down

© Can Stock Photo / edan

Many of you may remember the classic Warner Brothers roadrunner cartoons. Wile E. Coyote continually schemes to catch the roadrunner only for his plans to backfire. Often he winds up sailing haplessly over the edge of a cliff, hovering in midair. Only once his predicament finally dawns on him does he plummet to the canyon floor below.

Sometimes he falls almost immediately. Other times he may remain hanging in the air, oblivious, for an extended time before gravity kicks in. You know as soon as he goes off the cliff that he is in for a fall. You can probably even figure out what will happen as soon as he puts his plan together. But sometimes his physics-defying act winds up dragging things out.

The market, much like the cartoon coyote, does not obey the laws of physics. Sometimes it seems obvious that something may be due for a big market move. A company may seem like it is absolutely set to take off, or due for a fall. But no matter how obvious it seems that a price is unsustainably high (or low), the market can stubbornly defy gravity for a long time before reality finally sets in.

Sometimes a prediction may pan out quickly. Sometimes they may pan out later, or not at all. We have enough experience to come to terms with this and take the long view. We do not believe in trying to time the market: we cannot claim to know what will happen in the market, and we certainly cannot claim to know exactly when.

We think we may be able to make a pretty good guess about what will happen—eventually. But we would rather stick to our core investment principles than try to predict the immediate actions of a market that sometimes seems to have more in common with slapstick cartoons than the real world.

Clients, if you have any questions or concerns, please email or give us a 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.

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

Gradually And Then Suddenly

canstockphoto11234988.jpg

In the novel The Sun Also Rises, author Ernest Hemingway gives us an insight into an interesting mechanism. One character asks another how his bankruptcy happened. The reply? “Two ways. Gradually and then suddenly.”

It seems to us that many things in the economy and markets happen the same two ways. Prices rise slowly at first, then gain momentum. Or a market stalls and declines slowly for a time, then falls swiftly. Or business activity, at the bottom of a recession, begins to tick higher, almost imperceptibly, until it takes off.

And in our own affairs, we see the same situation. We talked recently with a client in her middle 70’s, who noted she now had higher income than at any point in her working years. Compounding builds wealth only gradually for a long time, then (it seems) suddenly.

(People who are liquidating investment balances with overly large withdrawals see the same thing, in reverse. Balances decline gradually, then suddenly.)

An important part of our work is helping people visualize those inflection points for trends that are nearly imperceptible at first. When we first begin to save a small amount each payday, it is hard to see the fortune that might emerge over time. And when markets seem to be just slogging through the mud month after month, positive changes are tough to imagine. Our role is to help people see how this works.

The same mechanism applies to our work in researching investments. For example, there are sectors that have done well in recent years, with abundant liquidity in a period with easy monetary policy. But we have seen this movie before: liquidity dries up gradually, then suddenly. This specific issue is on our radar.

The challenge is that investment prices and economic indicators have a lot of volatility in the normal course of events, most of it meaningless. Most years, the major stock market indices rise about half of all days and fall about half of all days. Not everything is a trend happening gradually at first, then suddenly. Some of it is just noise. We work hard to sort it out.

Clients, if you would like to talk about this or anything else, please email us 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. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results.

The economic forecasts set forth in this material may not develop as predicted and there can be no guarantee that strategies promoted will be successful.

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

About Those Good Old Days

© Can Stock Photo / Chuckee

A client recently expressed a desire to return to the good old days, when we didn’t have all this turmoil and trouble. Wouldn’t we all like that?

But we human beings have some quirks. One of them is the universal sense that, back in the misty past, things were normal, or stable. This idea may not stand up to scrutiny.

If we confine our study just to the economy and markets, the history we’ve lived through has this to say:

1. In the early 1970’s, a mania centering on big blue chip stocks hit the market. It was thought that you could just buy them at any price, and own them forever while they went up and up—“one decision stocks” they were called. Prices ballooned to extremely high levels. The major stock market averages peaked, then sold off more than 50%1.

2. The 1970’s also saw a pair of Arab oil embargoes that resulted in spiking gasoline prices, shortages, gas stations out of gas, and rationing. Over the course of the decade, inflation rose, eventually going over 10%. Unemployment went over 10% in the mid-decade recession2.

3. The early 1980’s began with back-to-back recessions, 15% mortgage interest rates, and inflation at unprecedented levels. The unemployment rate went over 10% again. Long term bonds declined in price as interest rates rose. A mania in oil stocks that began in the 70’s ended badly early in the decade3. The biggest one-day plunge in the Dow Jones Industrial Average ever—22% in a single day—happened in 19871.

4. The 1990’s began with the cleanup from the savings and loan crisis. The Federal deposit guarantee fund had gone broke, along with thousands of financial institutions. The value of housing, which began to fall nationwide in the late 1980’s, didn’t recover until 19924. The bond market suffered its first annual loss in seventy years in 1994.

5. Clients, most of you remember the bursting of the tech bubble in 2000, the attacks on 9/11, and the so-called Great Recession of 2008-2009. You already know the fine points; it was not good fun for investors.

6. The current decade, free of recessions so far, has had a lot of ups and downs. The downgrading of US Treasury debt and the recurring Greek financial crisis were two of the main events. The zero-interest-rate policy of the Federal Reserve distorted prices in some sectors of the investment markets, some observers believe.

The resilience of the equity markets over these many decades is astonishing to us. We had all these challenges and issues, and somehow the country came out on the other side, every time. We suspect this general trend will continue. The problems of today will give way to solutions– and new problems–tomorrow. That seems to be how it works.

In the meantime, financial strategies that have worked through the decades may be the best way to approach the future. There will be winners and losers in every change and challenge. We may not be able to get back to those mythical good old days, but we can make the most of what we have to work with.

Clients, if you wish to discuss this, or your situation, please email or call.

1S&P Dow Jones Indices, https://us.spindices.com/indices/equity/dow-jones-industrial-average

2Federal Reserve Economic Data, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Unemployment and Inflation

3Federal Reserve Economic Data, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Oil Prices

4Federal Reserve Economic Data, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Housing Prices

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 indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly.

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

Stock investing involves risk including loss of principal.

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 Dow Jones Industrial Average is comprised of 30 stocks that are major factors in their industries and widely held by individuals and institutional investors.

Fear and Greed

© Can Stock Photo / Andreus

Two of the primary emotions affecting the stock market, it is said, are fear and greed.

Facts and figures are prominent in our work of assessing and ranking various investment opportunities. But in the day to day action of any market, buyers and sellers and their motivations have an oversize impact.

In our view, fear has dominated most of the last eight years in the US stock market. Many investors sold out after the double drubbings beginning in 2000 and in 2007. Money flows from retail investors, reflecting withdrawals from the market in most recent years, seem to confirm it.

Anecdotally, we also noticed burgeoning interest in strategies that hoped to avoid exposure to the stock market yet still make money. Commodities, derivatives, factor investing, bonds at low interest rates and other fads drew in a lot of money. This, we believe, reflected fear of the stock market.

For much of the market rise since 2009, it was said to be ‘the most hated rally in history’ because so many people missed out.

Knowing Warren Buffett’s famous dictum, “Be greedy when others are fearful, and fearful when others are greedy,” we stayed the course through the downturn. None of us hated this rally, did we?

Now the market sits at all-time highs. This probably makes sense when earnings are high and rising, and interest rates remain fairly low. But we are on the lookout for signs that greed has become the dominant force in the market. When others become greedy, perhaps we need to become fearful.

We are also doing other things, as well. You may have noticed winning positions getting trimmed back, and potential new bargains (we hope!) being added to portfolios. Owning bargains is no guarantee against loss, but we believe it helps. We are also nibbling at other markets in other lands, ones that have lagged and may be at low levels.

Our new portfolio design, accommodating layers of cash and more moderate investments as well as our traditional research-driven core layer, is another way to attempt to mitigate future downside.

The markets go up and down. We cannot build wealth over the long haul without facing that, and living with it. If you would like to talk about your portfolio or situation in detail, please call or email us.

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

Stock investing involves risk including loss of principal.

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 investing involves special risks such as currency fluctuation and political instability and may not be suitable for all investors. These risks are often heightened for investments in emerging markets.

Stealthy is the Bull

© Can Stock Photo / KarSol

The broad stock market indicators like the Dow Jones Average and the S&P 500 Stock Index reached a low point in March 2009, near the end of the financial crisis. Looking back a year or four years or seven years later, hindsight showed that the crisis was potentially a great buying opportunity.

Many investors missed out on the multi-year rise, however. (Or should they be called former investors?) In real time, nobody ever knows what will happen next, particularly in the short term. And rising markets, or ‘bull markets’ as they are known, seem to have many disguises.

After a rebound begins from a long decline, inevitably some pundits label the rise with an overly colorful phrase, “dead cat bounce.” The implication is that, while there might be a bounce, it certainly won’t go very high or last very long—the market is going nowhere.

Next comes the idea that if buying has produced a slight turnaround, it is just “short-covering.” This means that speculators who profited from the drop are now booking their profits, reversing their positions. Supposedly, there are no ‘real’ buyers.

When the market persists in the upward trend, the next excuse might be that “the market got oversold.” Therefore a temporary bounce is to be expected, before the market slumps again.

Then when the next slump fails to show, pessimists start saying things like, “We can’t know we are in a new uptrend unless the market reaches new all-time highs.” Or “It has gone up too far, too fast.”

When you take a step back and look at the big picture, those poor pessimists never could get back into the stock market. They had one rationale after another to doubt the recovery; meanwhile the market went up and up.

Do not worry about the bears, however: they have a new story. “The market is too expensive.”

Fortunately, we don’t buy the whole market anyway—we seek the bargains. You can read about our current strategies in this article. If you would like to talk about your portfolio or 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. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is comprised of 30 stocks that are major factors in their industries and widely held by individuals and institutional investors.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index is a capitalization weighted index of 500 stocks designed to measure performance of the broad domestic economy through changes in the aggregate market value of 500 stocks representing all major industries.

Investing involves risk including loss of principal. No strategy assures success or protects against loss.