Home prices have started to correct as interest rates rose sharply in 2022. However, the real problem for home prices is still coming in 2023 as the standoff between sellers and buyers comes to a head.

However, before we get there, let’s review how we got here.

Since the turn of the century, there have been two housing bubbles, with home prices reaching levels of unaffordability not previously seen in the United States. Such was, of course, due to lax lending policies and artificially low-interest rates luring financially unstable individuals into buying homes they could not afford. Such is easily seen in the chart below, which shows home equity versus mortgage debt. (Home equity is the difference between home prices and the underlying debt.)

The current surge in home prices makes the previous bubble in 2008 look quaint by comparison.

At that previous peak in 2007, the equity in people’s homes was around $15 trillion, while mortgage debt stood at $9 trillion. When the bubble popped, home prices collapsed, flipping homeowner’s equity from positive to negative. Home equity is roughly $30 trillion, while mortgage debts have increased to roughly $12 trillion. That is an incredible spread, unlike anything seen previously.

However, this time, the surge in home prices wasn’t due to a surge in lax underwriting by mortgage companies but rather the infusion of capital directly to households following the COVID-19 pandemic-driven shutdown.

Of course, many young Millennials took that money and jumped into the home-buying frenzy. In many cases, buying sight unseen or willing to pay way over the asking price (thereby inflating home prices.) To wit:

“More and more millennials are sinking huge sums of money into homes they’ve never actually set foot in. While the sharp increase in sight-unseen buying in 2020 was certainly driven by pandemic restrictions, the phenomenon appears to be here to stay, due to the tech-forward nature of millennials and the competitive nature of the housing market.” – Insider Business

Of course, the rush to buy a home, and overpaying for it, led to regret.

“The number-one reason for buyer’s remorse: 30% of respondents said they spent too much money. The second most common regret was rushing the home-buying process, with 30% saying their purchase decision was rushed and 26% indicating they bought too quickly.” – CNBC

Unfortunately, there will be less demand as the massive flood of money into the housing market from Government stimulus reverses.

At The Margin

The problem with much of the mainstream analysis is that it is based on the transactional side of housing. Such only represents what is happening at the “margin.” Rather, the few people actively trying to buy or sell a home impact the data presented monthly.

To understand “housing,” we must analyze the “housing market” as a whole rather than what is happening at the fringes. For this analysis, we can use the data published by the U.S. Census Bureau.

To present some context for the following analysis, we must first have some basis from which to work. Our baseline for this analysis will be the number of total housing units, which, as of Q3-2021, was 143,613,000 units. The chart below shows the historical progression of the number of housing units in the United States compared to the total number of households and an estimate of the total potential households of buyers over the age of 25. For the estimate, we dividend the total active population over the age of 25 by 1.5 to account for single buyers and couples, who tend to make up the majority.

Not surprisingly, there are currently more houses than households to buy. Such is because several homes are vacant for different reasons, second homes, vacation homes, etc. Such is why, as we wrote previously, there is no such thing as a housing shortage. To wit:

“There are three primary issues that lead to changes in the supply of housing:“

1. Prices rise to the point that sellers come into the market.
2. Interest rates rise, pulling buyers out of the market.
3. An economic recession removes buyers due to job loss.

“When those occur, transactions slow down, and inventory rises sharply.”

Not surprisingly, since that article was written in November 2020, just 2-years later, the supply of homes has risen sharply. Such is often a leading indicator of recessionary onsets as well.

Also, sharply rising interest rates pull buyers out of the market.

 Another drag on prices in the new year will continue to be inventory coming to market as existing homeowners also try to sell their homes. More inventory and few buyers will equate to a further price drop in the coming year.

Home Prices To Fall Further

The chart below is the most telling of why home prices will fall further in the coming year. It is a composite index of everything involved in housing activity. It compiles new and existing home sales, permits, and housing starts. The index was rebased to 100 in 1999. The runup in the activity index into 2007 was a function, as noted above, of lax lending policies that led to the collapse in activity in 2008.

Following the collapse in 2008, the Fed dropped rates to zero and launched multiple QE programs as the Government bailed out everything that moved. The increase in housing activity over the next decade was unsurprising, and repeated monetary interventions boosted the wealth effect.

However, the sharp jump in housing activity in 2020 resulted from the direct monetary injections into households.

The reversion in home prices that has begun will likely continue as that excess liquidity continues to leave the economic system. That drain of liquidity, coupled with higher interest rates, and less monetary accommodation, will drag home prices lower. As that occurs, the “home equity” that many new buyers had in their homes will dissipate as homeownership costs continue to rise due to higher rates and inflation.

As home price depreciation gains traction, more homeowners will be dragged into selling to retain what value they had. For many Americans, most of their net worth is tied up in the homesteads. As the value fades, the decision to sell becomes more of a panic rather than a need.

While there isn’t a vast wasteland of bad mortgages sitting on the books, as seen in 2008, that doesn’t negate the risk of further home price declines in the coming year.

Not only are further home price declines possible, but it is also probable they could be deeper than many currently expect.

In early 2017, I warned investors about the “I bought it for the dividend” investment thesis. To wit:

“Company ABC is priced at $20/share and pays $1/share in a dividend each year. The dividend yield is 5%, which is calculated by dividing the $1 cash dividend into the price of the underlying stock.

Here is the important point. You do NOT receive a ‘yield.’

What you DO receive is the $1/share in cash paid out each year.

Yield is simply a mathematical calculation.“

At that time, the article was scoffed at because we were 8-years into an unrelenting bull market where even the most stupid of investments made money.

Unfortunately, the “mean reversion” process has taken hold, which is the point where the investment thesis falls apart.

The Dangers Of “I Bought It For The Dividend”

“I don’t care about the price, I bought it for the yield.”

First of all, let’s clear up something.

In January of 2018, Exxon Mobil, for example, was slated to pay an out an annual dividend of $3.23, and was priced at roughly $80/share setting the yield at 4.03%. With the 10-year Treasury trading at 2.89%, the higher yield was certainly attractive.

Assuming an individual bought 100 shares at $80 in 2018, “income” of $323 annually would be generated.

Not too shabby.

Fast forward to today with Exxon Mobil trading at roughly $40/share with a current dividend of $3.48/share.

Investment Return (-$4000.00 ) + Dividends of $323 (Yr 1) and $343 (Yr 2)  = Net Loss of $3334

That’s not a good investment.

In just a moment, we will come and revisit this example with a better process.

There is another risk, which occurs during “mean reverting” events, that can leave investors stranded, and financially ruined.

Dividend Loss

When things “go wrong,” as they inevitably do, the “dividend” can, and often does, go away.

• Boeing (BA)
• Marriott (MAR)
• Ford (F)
• Delta (DAL)
• Freeport-McMoRan (FCX)
• Darden (DRI)

These companies, and many others, have all recently cut their dividends after a sharp fall in their stock prices.

I previously posted an article discussing the “Fatal Flaws In Your Financial Plan” which, as you can imagine, generated much debate. One of the more interesting rebuttals was the following:

“If a retired person has a portfolio of high-quality dividend growth stocks, the dividends will most likely increase every single year. Even during the stock market crashes of 2002 and 2008, my dividends continued to grow. The total value of the portfolio will indeed fluctuate every year, but that is irrelevant since the retired person is living off his dividends and never selling any shares of stock.

Dividends usually go up even when the stock market goes down.”

This comment is the basis of the “buy and hold” mentality, and many of the most common investing misconceptions.

Let’s start with the notion that “dividends always increase.”

When a recession/market reversion occurs, the “cash dividends” don’t increase, but the “yield” does as prices collapse. However, your INCOME does NOT increase. There is a risk it will decline as companies cut the dividend or eliminate it.

During the 2008 financial crisis, more than 140 companies decreased or eliminated their dividends to shareholders. Yes, many of those companies were major banks; however, leading up to the financial crisis, there were many individuals holding large allocations to banks for the income stream their dividends generated. In hindsight, that was not such a good idea.

But it wasn’t just 2008. It also occurred dot.com bust in 2000. In both periods, while investors lost roughly 50% of their capital, dividends were also cut on average of 12%.

While the current market correction fell almost 30% from its recent peak, what we haven’t seen just yet is the majority of dividend cuts still to come.

Naturally, not EVERY company will cut their dividends. But many did, many will, and in quite a few cases, I would expect dividends to be eliminated entirely to protect cash flows and creditors.

As we warned previously:

“Due to the Federal Reserve’s suppression of interest rates since 2009, investors have piled into dividend yielding equities, regardless of fundamentals, due to the belief ‘there is no alternative.’ The resulting ‘dividend chase’ has pushed valuations of dividend-yielding companies to excessive levels disregarding underlying fundamental weakness. 

As with the ‘Nifty Fifty’ heading into the 1970s, the resulting outcome for investors was less than favorable. These periods are not isolated events. There is a high correlation between declines in asset prices, and the dividends paid out.”

Love Dividends, Love Capital More

I agree investors should own companies that pay dividends (as it is a significant portion of long-term total returns), it is also crucial to understand that companies can, and will, cut dividends during periods of financial stress.

It is a good indicator of the strength of the underlying economy. As noted by Political Calculations recently:

Dividend cuts are one of the better near-real-time indicators of the relative health of the U.S. economy. While they slightly lag behind the actual state of the economy, dividend cuts represent one of the simplest indicators to track.

In just one week, beginning 16 March 2020, the number of dividend cuts being announced by U.S. firms spiked sharply upward, transforming 2020-Q1 from a quarter where U.S. firms were apparently performing more strongly than they had in the year-ago quarter of 2019-Q1 into one that all-but-confirms that the U.S. has swung into economic contraction.

Not surprisingly, the economic collapse, which will occur over the next couple of quarters, will lead to a massive round of dividend cuts. While investors lost 30%, or more in many cases, of their capital, they will lose the reason they were clinging on to these companies in the first place.

You Can’t Handle It

EVERY investor has a point, when prices fall far enough, regardless of the dividend being paid, they WILL capitulate, and sell the position. This point generally comes when dividends have been cut, and capital destruction has been maximized.

While individuals suggest they will remain steadfast to their discipline over the long-term, repeated studies show that few individuals actually do. As noted just recently is “Missing The 10-Best Days:”

“As Dalbar regularly points out, individuals always underperform the benchmark index over time by allowing “behaviors” to interfere with their investment discipline. In other words, investors regularly suffer from the ‘buy high/sell low’ syndrome.”

Behavioral biases, specifically the “herding effect” and “loss aversion,” repeatedly leads to poor investment decision-making. In fact, Dalbar is set to release their Investor Report for 2020, and they were kind enough to send me the following graphic for investor performance through 2019. (Pre-Order The Full Report Here)

These differentials in performance can all be directly traced back to two primary factors:

• Psychology
• Lack of capital

Understanding this, it should come as no surprise during market declines, as losses mount, so does the pressure to “avert further losses” by selling. While it is generally believed dividend-yielding stocks offer protection during bear market declines, we warned previously this time could be different:

“The yield chase has manifested itself also in a massive outperformance of ‘dividend-yielding stocks’ over the broad market index. Investors are taking on excessive credit risk which is driving down yields in bonds, and pushing up valuations in traditionally mature companies to stratospheric levels. During historic market corrections, money has traditionally hidden in these ‘mature dividend yielding’ companies. This time, such rotation may be the equivalent of jumping from the ‘frying pan into the fire.’” 

The chart below is the S&P 500 High Dividend Low Volatility ETF versus the S&P 500 Index. During the recent decline, dividend stocks were neither “safe,” nor “low volatility.” 

But what about previous “bear markets?” Since most ETF’s didn’t exist before 2000, we can look at the “strategy” with a mutual fund like Fidelity’s Dividend Growth Fund (FDGFX)

As you can see, there is little relative “safety” during a market reversion. The pain of a 38%, 56%, or 30%, loss, can be devastating particularly when the prevailing market sentiment is one of a “can’t lose” environment. Furthermore, when it comes to dividend-yielding stocks, the psychology is no different; a 3-5% yield, and a 30-50% loss of capital, are two VERY different issues.

A Better Way To “Invest For The Dividend”

“Buy and hold” investing, even with dividends and dollar-cost-averaging, will not get you to your financial goals. (Click here for a discussion of chart)

So, what’s the better way to invest for dividends? Let’s go back to our example of Exxon Mobil for a moment. (This is for illustrative purposes only and not a recommendation.)

In 2018, Exxon Mobil broke below its 12-month moving average as the overall market begins to deteriorate.

If you had elected to sell on the break of the moving average, your exit price would have been roughly $70/share. (For argument sake, you stayed out of the position even though XOM traded above and below the average over the next few months.)  

Let’s rerun our math from above.

• In 2018, an individual bought 100 shares at $80.
• In 2019, the individual sold 100 shares at $70.

Investment Return (-$1000.00 ) + Dividends of $323 (Yr 1) and $343 (Yr 2)  = Net Loss of $334

Not to bad.

Given the original $8,000 investment has only declined to $7,666, the individual could now buy 200 shares of Exxon Mobil with a dividend of $3.48 and a 9.3% annual yield.

Let’s compare the two strategies.

• Buy And Hold: 100 shares bought at $80 with a current yield of 4.35% 
• Risk Managed: 200 shares bought at $40 with a current yield of 9.3%

Which yield would you rather have in your portfolio?

In the end, we are just human. Despite the best of our intentions, emotional biases inevitably lead to poor investment decision-making. This is why all great investors have strict investment disciplines they follow to reduce the impact of emotions.

I am all for “dividend investment strategies,” in fact, dividends are a primary factor in our equity selection process. However, we also run a risk-managed strategy to ensure we have capital available to buy strong companies when the opportunity presents itself.

The majority of the time, when you hear someone say “I bought it for the dividend,” they are trying to rationalize an investment mistake. However, it is in the rationalization that the “mistake” is compounded over time. One of the most important rules of successful investors is to “cut losers short and let winners run.” 

Unfortunately, the rules are REALLY hard to follow. If they were easy, then everyone would be wealthy from investing. They aren’t because investing without a discipline and strategy has horrid consequences.

“The Federal Reserve is poised to spray trillions of dollars into the U.S. economy once a massive aid package to fight the coronavirus and its aftershocks is signed into law. These actions are unprecedented, going beyond anything it did during the 2008 financial crisis in a sign of the extraordinary challenge facing the nation.” – Bloomberg

Currently, the Federal Reserve is in a fight to offset an economic shock bigger than the financial crisis, and they are engaging every possible monetary tool within their arsenal to achieve that goal. The Fed is no longer just a “last resort” for the financial institutions, but now are the lender for the broader economy.

There is just one problem.

The Fed continues to try and stave off an event that is a necessary part of the economic cycle, a debt revulsion.

John Maynard Keynes contended that:

“A general glut would occur when aggregate demand for goods was insufficient, leading to an economic downturn resulting in losses of potential output due to unnecessarily high unemployment, which results from the defensive (or reactive) decisions of the producers.”

In other words, when there is a lack of demand from consumers due to high unemployment, then the contraction in demand would force producers to take defensive actions to reduce output. Such a confluence of actions would lead to a recession.

On Thursday, initial jobless claims jumped by 3.3 million. This was the single largest jump in claims ever on record. The chart below shows the 4-week average to give a better scale.

This number will be MUCH worse next week as many individuals are slow to file claims, don’t know how, and states are slow to report them.

The importance is that unemployment rates in the U.S. are about to spike to levels not seen since the “Great Depression.” Based on the number of claims being filed, we can estimate that unemployment will jump to 20%, or more, over the next quarter as economic growth slides 8%, or more. (I am probably overly optimistic.)

More importantly, since the economy is 70% driven by consumption, we can approximate the loss in full-time employment by the surge in claims. (As consumption slows, and the recession takes hold, more full-time employees will be terminated.)

This erosion will lead to a sharp deceleration in economic confidence. Confidence is the primary factor of consumptive behaviors, which is why the Federal Reserve acted so quickly to inject liquidity into the financial markets. While the Fed’s actions may prop up financial markets in the short-term, it does little to affect the most significant factor weighing on consumers – their job. 

Another way to analyze confidence data is to look at the consumer expectations index minus the current situation index in the consumer confidence report.

This measure also says a recession is here. The differential between expectations and the current situation, as you can see below, is worse than the last cycle, and only slightly higher than prior to the “dot.com” crash. Recessions start after this indicator bottoms, which has already occurred.

Importantly, bear markets end when the negative deviation reverses back to positive. Currently, we have only just started that reversion process.

While the virus was “the catalyst,” we have discussed previously that a reversion in employment, and a recessionary onset, was inevitable. To wit:

“Notice that CEO confidence leads consumer confidence by a wide margin. This lures bullish investors, and the media, into believing that CEO’s really don’t know what they are doing. Unfortunately, consumer confidence tends to crash as it catches up with what CEO’s were already telling them.

What were CEO’s telling consumers that crushed their confidence?

“I’m sorry, we think you are really great, but I have to let you go.” 

Confidence was high because employment was high, and consumers operate in a microcosm of their own environment.

“[Who is a better measure of economic strength?] Is it the consumer cranking out work hours, raising a family, and trying to make ends meet? Or the CEO of a company who is watching sales, prices, managing inventory, dealing with collections, paying bills, and managing changes to the economic landscape on a daily basis? A quick look at history shows this level of disparity (between consumer and CEO confidence) is not unusual. It happens every time prior to the onset of a recession.

Far From Over

Why is this important?

Hiring, training, and building a workforce is costly. Employment is the single largest expense of any business, but a strong base of employees is essential for the prosperity of a business. Employers do not like terminating employment as it is expensive to hire back and train new employees, and there is a loss of productivity during that process. Therefore, CEOs tend to hang onto employees for as long as possible until bottom-line profitability demands “leaning out the herd.” 

The same process is true coming OUT of a recession. Companies are “lean and mean” and are uncertain about the actual strength of the recovery. Again, given the cost to hire and train employees, they tend to wait as long as possible to be certain of justifying the expense.

Simply, employers are slow to hire and slow to fire. 

While there is much hope that the current “economic shutdown” will end quickly, we are still very early in the infection cycle relative to other countries. Importantly, we are substantially larger than most, and on a GDP basis, the damage will be worse.

What the cycle tells us is that jobless claims, unemployment, and economic growth are going to worsen materially over the next couple of quarters.

“But Lance, once the virus is over everything will bounce back.” 

Maybe not.

The problem with the current economic backdrop, and mounting job losses, is the vast majority of American’s were woefully unprepared for any type of disruption to their income going into recession. As discussed previously:

“The ‘gap’ between the ‘standard of living’ and real disposable incomes is shown below. Beginning in 1990, incomes alone were no longer able to meet the standard of living so consumers turned to debt to fill the ‘gap.’ However, following the ‘financial crisis,’ even the combined levels of income and debt no longer fill the gap. Currently, there is almost a $2654 annual deficit that cannot be filled.”

As job losses mount, a virtual spiral in the economy begins as reductions in spending put further pressures on corporate profitability. Lower profits lead to more unemployment, and lower asset prices until the cycle is complete.

While the virus may end, the disruption to the economy will last much longer, and be much deeper, than analysts currently expect. Moreover, where the economy is going to be hit the hardest, is a place where Federal Reserve actions have the least ability to help – the private sector.

Currently, businesses with fewer than 500-employees comprise almost 60% of all employment. 70% of employment is centered around businesses with 1000-employees, or less. Most of the businesses are not publicly traded, don’t have access to Wall Street, or Federal Reserve’s bailouts.

The problem with the Government’s $2 Trillion fiscal stimulus bill is that while it provides one-time payments to taxpayers, which will do little to extinguish the financial hardships and debt defaults they will face.

Most importantly, as shown below, the majority of businesses will run out of money long before SBA loans, or financial assistance, can be provided. This will lead to higher, and a longer-duration of, unemployment.

One-Percenter

What does this all mean going forward?

The wealth gap is going to explode, demands for government assistance will skyrocket, and revenues coming into the government will plunge as trillions in debt issuance must be absorbed by the Federal Reserve. 

While the top one-percent of the population will exit the recession relatively unscathed, again, it isn’t the one-percent I am talking about.

It’s economic growth. 

As discussed previously, there is a high correlation between debts, deficits, and economic prosperity. To wit:

“The relevance of debt growth versus economic growth is all too evident as shown below. Since 1980, the overall increase in debt has surged to levels that currently usurp the entirety of economic growth. With economic growth rates now at the lowest levels on record, the growth in debt continues to divert more tax dollars away from productive investments into the service of debt and social welfare.”

However, simply looking at Federal debt levels is misleading.

It is the total debt that weighs on the economy.

It now requires nearly $3.00 of debt to create $1 of economic growth. This will rise to more than $5.00 by the end of 2020 as debt surges to offset the collapse in economic growth. Another way to view the impact of debt on the economy is to look at what “debt-free” economic growth would be. 

In other words, without debt, there has been no organic economic growth.

Notice that for the 30-year period from 1952 to 1982, the economic surplus fostered a rising economic growth rate, which averaged roughly 8% during that period. Since then, the economic deficit has only continued to erode economic prosperity.

Given the massive surge in the deficit that will come over the next year, economic growth will begin to run a long-term average of just one-percent. This is going to make it even more difficult for the vast majority of American’s to achieve sufficient levels of prosperity to foster strong growth. (I have estimated the growth of Federal debt, and deficits, through 2021)

The Debt End Game

The massive indulgence in debt has simply created a “credit-induced boom” which has now reached its inevitable conclusion. While the Federal Reserve believed that creating a “wealth effect” by suppressing interest rates to allow cheaper debt creation would repair the economic ills of the “Great Recession,” it only succeeded in creating an even bigger “debt bubble” a decade later.

“This unsustainable credit-sourced boom led to artificially stimulated borrowing, which pushed money into diminishing investment opportunities and widespread mal-investments. In 2007, we clearly saw it play out “real-time” in everything from sub-prime mortgages to derivative instruments, which were only for the purpose of milking the system of every potential penny regardless of the apparent underlying risk.”

In 2019, we saw it again in accelerated stock buybacks, low-quality debt issuance, debt-funded dividends, and speculative investments.

The debt bubble has now burst.

Here is the important point I made previously:

“When credit creation can no longer be sustained, the markets must clear the excesses before the next cycle can begin. It is only then, and must be allowed to happen, can resources be reallocated back towards more efficient uses. This is why all the efforts of Keynesian policies to stimulate growth in the economy have ultimately failed. Those fiscal and monetary policies, from TARP and QE, to tax cuts, only delay the clearing process. Ultimately, that delay only deepens the process when it begins.

The biggest risk in the coming recession is the potential depth of that clearing process.”

This is why the Federal Reserve is throwing the “kitchen sink” at the credit markets to try and forestall the clearing process.

If they are unsuccessful, which is a very real possibility, the U.S. will enter into a “Great Depression” rather than just a “severe recession,” as the system clears trillions in debt.

As I warned previously:

“While we do have the ability to choose our future path, taking action today would require more economic pain and sacrifice than elected politicians are willing to inflict upon their constituents. This is why throughout the entirety of history, every empire collapsed eventually collapsed under the weight of its debt.

Eventually, the opportunity to make tough choices for future prosperity will result in those choices being forced upon us.”

We will find out in a few months just how bad things will be.

But I am sure of one thing.

The Fed can’t fix what’s broken.

While the financial media is salivating over the recent bounce off the lows, here is something to think about.

• Bull markets END when everything is as “good as it can get.”
• Bear markets END when things simply can’t “get any worse.”

We aren’t there yet.

Pippa Stevens via CNBC recently had some advice:

“Panic selling not only locks in losses, but also puts investors at risk for missing the market’s best days.

Looking at data going back to 1930, Bank of America found that if an investor missed the S&P 500′s 10 best days in each  decade, total returns would be just 91%, significantly below the 14,962% return for investors who held steady through the downturns.”

“The firm noted this eye-popping stat while urging investors to ‘avoid panic selling,’ pointing out that the ‘best days generally follow the worst days for stocks.’” 

Think about that for a moment.

“The best days generally follow the worst days.“

The statement is correct, as the S&P 500’s largest percentage gain days, tend to occur in clusters during the worst of times for investors.

Here is another way to look at this through Friday’s close. For an investor trying to catch the markets best 10-days, they wound up losing almost 30% of their portfolio, an astounding -9,254 points over the span of 3 weeks.

The analysis of “missing out on the 10-best days” of the market is steeped in the myth of the benefits of “buy and hold” investing. (Read more: The Definitive Guide For Investing.) Buy and hold, as a strategy works great in a long-term rising bull market. It fails as a strategy during a bear market for one simple reason: Psychology.

I agree investors should never “panic sell,” as such “emotional” decisions are always made at the worst possible times. As Dalbar regularly points out, individuals always underperform the benchmark index over time by allowing “behaviors” to interfere with their investment discipline.

In other words, investors regularly suffer from the “buy high/sell low” syndrome.

Such is why investors should follow an investment discipline or strategy which mitigates volatility to avoid being put into a situation where “panic selling” becomes an issue.

Let me be clear; an investment disciple does NOT ensure your portfolio against losses if the market declines. This is particularly the case when it plummets, as we’ve seen in the last couple of weeks. However, in any event, it will work to minimize the damage to a recoverable state.

The Market Timing Myth

We previously stated, that when the “crash” came, the mainstream media’s response would be: “Well, no one could have seen it coming.” 

Simply always being “bullish,” like Mr. Santolli, is what leads investors into being blindsided by rising risks in the market.

Yes, you can see, and predict, when risks exceed the grasp of rationality.

This brings us to the basic argument from the financial media which is simply you are NOT smart enough to manage your investments, so your only option is to “buy and hold.”

In 2010, Brett Arends wrote an excellent commentary entitled: “The Market Timing Myth” which primarily focused on several points we have made over the years. Brett really hits home with the following statement:

“For years, the investment industry has tried to scare clients into staying fully invested in the stock market at all times, no matter how high stocks go or what’s going on in the economy. ‘You can’t time the market,’ they warn. ‘Studies show that market timing doesn’t work.’

He goes on:

“They’ll cite studies showing that over the long-term investors made most of their money from just a handful of big one-day gains. In other words, if you miss those days, you’ll earn bupkis. And as no one can predict when those few, big jumps are going to occur, it’s best to stay fully invested at all times. So just give them your money… lie back, and think of the efficient market hypothesis. You’ll hear this in broker’s offices everywhere. And it sounds very compelling.

There’s just one problem. It’s hooey.

They’re leaving out more than half the story.

And what they’re not telling you makes a real difference to whether you should invest, when and how.”

The best long-term study relating to this topic was conducted a few years ago by Javier Estrada, a finance professor at the IESE Business School at the University of Navarra in Spain. To find out how important those few “big days” are, he looked at nearly a century’s worth of day-to-day moves on Wall Street and 14 other stock markets around the world, from England to Japan to Australia.

Correctly, the study did find that if you missed the 10-best days of the market, you did indeed give up much of the gains. What he also found is that by missing the 10-worst days, you did remarkably better.

(The blue highlight shows, as of Friday’s close, investors will need a more than 40% return just to get back to even.)

Clearly, avoiding major drawdowns in the market is key to long-term investment success. If I am not spending the bulk of my time making up previous losses in my portfolio, I spend more time compounding my invested dollars towards my long term goals.

Over an investing period of about 40 years, just missing the 10-best days would have cost you about half your capital gains. But successfully avoiding the 10-worst days would have had an even bigger positive impact on your portfolio. Someone who avoided the 10-biggest slumps would have ended up with two and a half times the capital gains of someone who simply stayed in all the time.

As Brett concluded:

“In other words, it’s something of a wash. The cost of being in the market just before a crash, are at least as great as being out of the market just before a big jump, and may be greater. Funny how the finance industry doesn’t bother to tell you that.”

The reason that the finance industry doesn’t tell you the other half of the story is because it is NOT PROFITABLE for them. The finance industry makes money when you are invested – not when you are in cash. Since a vast majority of financial advisors can’t actually successfully manage money, they just tell you to “stay the course.”

However, you DO have options.

A Simple Method

Now, let me clarify. I do not strictly endorse “market timing,” which is specifically being “all-in” or “all-out” of the market at any given time. The problem with market timing is consistency.

You cannot, over the long term, effectively time the market. Being all in, or out, of the market will eventually put you on the wrong side of the “trade,” which will lead to a host of other problems.

However, there are also no great investors in history who employed “buy and hold” as an investment strategy. Even the great Warren Buffett occasionally sells investments. True investors buy when they see the value, and sell when value no longer exists.

While there are many sophisticated methods of handling risk within a portfolio, even using a basic method of price analysis, such as a moving average crossover, can be a valuable tool over the long term holding periods. Will such a method ALWAYS be right? Absolutely not. However, will such a method keep you from losing large amounts of capital? Absolutely.

The chart below shows a simple 12-month moving average crossover study. (via Portfolio Visualizer)

What should be obvious is that using a basic form of price movement analysis can provide a useful identification of periods when portfolio risk should be REDUCED. Importantly, I did not say risk should be eliminated; just reduced. 

Here are the comparative results.

Again, I am not implying, suggesting, or stating that such signals mean going 100% to cash. What I am suggesting is that when “sell signals” are given, that is the time when individuals should perform some basic portfolio risk management such as:

• Trim back winning positions to original portfolio weights: Investment Rule: Let Winners Run
• Sell positions that simply are not working (if the position was not working in a rising market, it likely won’t in a declining market.) Investment Rule: Cut Losers Short
• Hold the cash raised from these activities until the next buying opportunity occurs. Investment Rule: Buy Low

By using some measures, fundamental or technical, to reduce portfolio risk by taking profits as prices/valuations rise, or vice versa, the long-term results of avoiding periods of severe capital loss will outweigh missed short term gains.

Small adjustments can have a significant impact over the long run.

As Brett continues:

Let’s be clear what it doesn’t mean. It still doesn’t mean you should try to ‘time’ the market day to day. Mr. Estrada’s conclusion is that a small number of big days, in both directions, account for most of the stock market’s price performance. Trying to catch the 10-biggest jumps, or avoid the 10-big tumbles, is almost certainly a fool’s errand. Hardly anyone can do this sort of thing successfully. Even most professionals can’t.

But, second, it does mean you that you shouldn’t let scare stories dominate your approach to investing. Don’t let yourself be bullied. Least of all by someone who isn’t telling you the full story.”

There is little point in trying to catch each twist and turn of the market. But that also doesn’t mean you simply have to be passive and let it wash all over you. It may not be possible to “time” the market, but it is possible to reach intelligent conclusions about whether the market offers good value for investors.

There is a clear advantage of providing risk management to portfolios over time. The problem, as I have discussed many times previously, is that most individuals cannot manage their own money because of “short-termism.”

Despite their inherent belief that they are long-term investors, they are consistently swept up in the short-term movements of the market. Of course, with the media and Wall Street pushing the “you are missing it” mantra as the market rises – who can really blame the average investor “panic” buying market tops, and selling out at market bottoms.

Yet, despite two major bear market declines, and working its third, it never ceases to amaze me that investors still believe they can invest their savings into a risk-based market, without suffering the eventual consequences of risk itself.

Despite being a totally unrealistic objective, this “fantasy” leads to excessive speculation in portfolios, which ultimately results in catastrophic losses. Aligning expectations with reality is the key to building a successful portfolio. Implementing a strong investment discipline, and applying risk management, is what leads to the achievement of those expectations.

“Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Sunday downplayed the likelihood of an economic recession as the economy takes a beating from the coronavirus outbreak.

When asked on ABC’s ‘This Week’ if the US was now in an economic recession as some have suggested, Munchin said, ‘I don’t think so.’ ” – CNN

“I just think, in general, I would be very careful to put too much emphasis on what bond rates are doing, what interest rates are doing. Or even in the short, short run, the stock market. I think you have a lot of mood swings here and I don’t think it reflects the fundamentals.” – Larry Kudlow via CNBC

I understand they have to pander to the administration, but this is a stretch to say the least. 

Let’s dig into some facts to determine our real risks.

Even before COVID-19 had infected the planet, economic data, and inflationary pressures were already weakening. This already suggested the decade long economic expansion was “running lean.”

However, the sharp decline in both 5- and 10-year “breakeven inflation rates,” are suggesting economic growth over the next couple of quarters will drop markedly. The last time there was such a sharp drop in inflation expectations at the beginning of the “financial crisis.”

Since then, the markets have been rocked as concerns over the spread of the“COVID-19” virus. The U.S. has shut down sporting events, travel, consumer activities, restaurants, bars, stores, and a host of other economically sensitive inputs. This is on top of the collapse in oil prices, which impacts a very important economic sector of the economy. (The O&G sector either directly or indirectly creates millions of jobs, has some of the highest wages, and is responsible for about 1/4th of all capital expenditures.)

However, this is just in the United States. This is a “global issue,” and the supply chains of the world are tightly interconnected. As we discussed previously:

“Given that U.S. exporters have already been under pressure from the impact of the ‘trade war,’ the current outbreak could lead to further deterioration of exports to and from China, South Korea, and Japan. This is not inconsequential as exports make up about 40% of corporate profits in the U.S.”

Our Economic Output Composite Indicator (EOCI) was already at levels which warned of weak economic growth. Furthermore, as shown below, even the Leading Economic Indicators (LEI) were already suggesting something was amiss long before the virus became “a thing.”

Data as of February 2020.

(The EOCI is comprised of the Fed Regional Surveys, CFNAI, Chicago PMI, NFIB, LEI, and ISM Composites. The indicator is a broad measure of hard and soft data of the U.S. economy)”

One reason we are confident the economic data will worsen near term is the correlation between the index and the annual rate of change of the S&P 500 index.

The financial markets lead the economy by about 6-months as markets begin to “price in” changes to earnings due to the outlook for economic strength. The recent plunge in the S&P 500 has deviated from the current EOCI index reading suggesting the index will decline towards recessionary levels over the next two months.

The Question Isn’t If…

The U.S. economy, along with the bulk of the globe, is already in “recession.”

Let’s start with a bit of historical context. Since the 1800’s, the average length of an economic recession has been 18-months. Some of that length is skewed by a more agricultural-based economy at the beginning, with more modern recessions having been shorter. (We are assuming that March 2020 was the start of a new recession at one-month.)

While the average recession has been somewhat shorter in recent decades, the recessions of 1973, 1991, and 2007 have pushed those long-term averages. The chart below also shows the subsequent decline in asset prices during subsequent recessions.

Given, declines of these magnitudes only occur during recessionary periods, the recent near 30% decline is likely good confirmation a recession has begun. (However, at just one-month, it may be overly optimistic to assume it is over with already. )

Yields Are Screaming: “Recession”

Interest rates are also a very good confirmation of recessionary periods as well. 

Since 2013, I have disagreed the mainstream analysis (including Jeff Gundlach and Bill Gross) that the “bond bull market” was dead. The reality has been substantially different as rates have continued to trend lower, and recently approached our long-term target of ZERO.

“There is an assumption that because interest rates are low, the bond bull market has come to its inevitable conclusion. The problem with this assumption is three-fold:

1. All interest rates are relative. With more than $10-Trillion in debt globally sporting negative interest rates, the assumption that rates in the U.S. are about to spike higher is likely wrong. 
2. The coming budget deficit balloon. Given the lack of fiscal policy controls in Washington, and promises of continued largesse in the future, the budget deficit is set to swell back to $1 Trillion or more in the coming years. 
3. Central Banks will continue to be a buyer of bonds to maintain the current status quo, but will become more aggressive buyers during the next recession. The next QE program by the Fed to offset the next economic recession will likely be $2-4 Trillion, which will push the 10-year yield towards zero.” – August 30, 2016

So, where are we nearly 4-years later?

• 23% of global debt is now supporting negative interest rates. 
• The U.S. deficit has well surpassed $1 Trillion on its way to $2 Trillion.
• Central Banks continue to be a primary buyer of bonds as the Fed’s balance sheet has swelled back to its previous peak and the Fed recently dropped rates to zero and started a $700 billion QE program.

Here is the relevant chart I posted in 2016. At that time rates were hitting lows of 1.6%, which was unthinkable at the time. And, where are rates, today? Approaching zero.

As shown above, over the last sixty years, the yield on the 10 year has approximated real GDP plus inflation (shown in the chart below). Given this historical fact, we can do some basic math to determine what yields are currently predicting for the U.S. economy currently. 

Via Doug Kass:

“Given ZIRP and QE policies around the globe which has pulled an extraordinary amount of sovereign debt into negative territory coupled with secular headwinds to energy prices, I have assumed that the 10 year yield will fall from 1.0x nominal GDP and average about 0.8x nominal GDP. 

According to my pal Peter Boockvar, the 10 year inflation breakeven (in the tips market) stands at 1.41% this morning:

So, let’s solve for what the market expects Real GDP to be (over the next 1-2 years) with this formula:

10 Year Yield (0.744% Actual) = 0.8x (Real GDP + 1.41% Actual (inflation))

The implied U.S. Real GDP of this equation is now negative — at -0.48%. (This compares to the consensus 2020 Real GDP growth forecast of between +1.75% to +2.00%) It also implies that nominal GDP (Real GDP plus Inflation) will be only about +0.93% – substantially below consensus expectations of slightly above 3%.”

It’s markedly worse now as the collapse in oil prices has sent breakeven rates below 1%. 

As we noted in “On The Cusp Of A Bear Market,” the collapse in interest rates, as well as the annual rate of change in rates, is screaming that something “has broken,” economically speaking.

Mnuchin’s suggestion the economy will likely avoid “recession,” is a bit ludicrous. The data suggests an entirely different outcome. However, David Rosenberg recently put some numbers on the impact to the economy from the “economic shutdown” from the virus. To wit:

“The pandemic is a clear ‘black swan’ event. There will be a whole range of knock-on effects. Fully 40 million American workers, or one-third of the private-sector labor force, are directly affected ─ retail, entertainment, events, sports, theme parks, conferences, travel, tourism, restaurants and, of course, energy.

This doesn’t include all the multiplier effects on other industries. It would not surprise me at all if real GDP in Q2 contracts at something close to an 8% annual rate (matching what happened in the fourth quarter of 2008, which was a financial event alone).

The hit to GDP can be expected to be anywhere from $400 billion to $600 billion for the year. But the market was in trouble even before COVID-19 began to spread, with valuations and complacency at cycle highs.”

Given the average recession is 18-months, and given the severity of the economic impact, even this 12-month forecast is likely overly optimistic. However, we are still missing a LOT of data, which will come to light over the next several months. 

The recession will be quite severe.

As David concludes:

“A 35% slump in global financial stocks and a similar plunge in U.S. small-cap equities cannot be wrong on this forecast. And the massive volume of leverage complicates the outlook that much more.”

I know you shouldn’t point and laugh, but you almost have to when Mnuchin and Kudlow have the audacity to suggest this is a temporary negative shock. This a collision of multiple shocks impacting an overly leveraged, overly valued, and overly bullish market simultaneously.

• Coronvirus impact
• Supply chain shutdowns
• Economy wide “closures”
• Consumer confidence collapse.
• Employment shock
• Debt crisis

The problem for the Federal Reserve is this is NOT a “financial crisis,” or a simple “business cycle” recession, that monetary policy can fix. Governments have opted for to “contain the virus” by shutting down the economy. Giving households $1000 checks sounds great, but not if you can’t spend them. Maybe they will opt to pay down debt, but that doesn’t spur economic activity, or improve earnings, in the near term. 

Of course, since stocks price in future earnings growth, and since we have a feel for the impact of the recession coming, we can guesstimate the impact to earnings.

“Profit margins are probably the most mean-reverting series in finance, and if profit margins do not mean-revert, then something has gone badly wrong with capitalism. If high profits do not attract competition, there is something wrong with the system, and it is not functioning properly.” – Jeremy Grantham

The impending recession, and consumption freeze, is going to start the mean-reversion process in both corporate profits and earnings. In the following series of charts, I have projected the potential reversion.

The reversion in GAAP earnings is pretty calculable as swings from peaks to troughs have run on a fairly consistent trend. (The last drop off is the estimate to for a recession)

“Using that historical context, we can project a recession will reduce earnings to roughly $100/share. The resulting decline asset prices to revert valuations to a level of 18x (still high) trailing earnings would suggest a level of $1800 for the S&P 500 index.”

“If our, and Mr. Rosenberg’s, estimates are correct of a 5-8% recessionary drag in the second quarter of 2020, then an average reduction in earnings of 30% is most likely overly optimistic. 

However, here is the math:

• Current Earnings = 132.90
• 30% Reduction = $100 (rounding down for easier math)

At various P/E multiples, we can predict where “fair value” for the market is based on historical assumptions:

• 20x earnings:  Historically high but markets have traded at high valuations for the last decade. 
• 18x earnings: Still historically high.
• 15x earnings: Long-Term Average
• 13x earnings: Undervalued 
• 10x earnings: Extremely undervalued but aligned with secular bear market bottoms.

You can pick your own level where you think P/E’s will account for the global recession but the chart below prices it into the market.”

Unfortunately, both Larry Kudlow, Steve Mnuchin, and the Fed, are still misdiagnosing what ails the economy, and monetary policy is unlikely to change the outcome in the U.S. Furthermore, the lack of economic growth, resulting in lower earnings growth, will eventually lead to a full repricing of assets.

Yes, we are in a recession, it has just started, and we have quite a ways to go before it is over. 

Fade rallies, and reduce risk accordingly. 

“When it comes to investing, it’s a losing proposition to try and be anything better than average.

If there’s no point in trying to beat the market through ‘active’ investing – using mutual funds that managers run, selecting what they hope are market-beating investments – what is the best way to invest? Through “passive” investing, which accepts average market returns ­(this means index funds, which track market benchmarks)” – Forbes

The idea of “passive indexing” sounds harmless enough, buy an “index” and be an “average” investor.

However, it isn’t as simple as that, and we have spilled a lot of ink digging into the relative dangers of it. Last week, investors saw those risks first hand.

The biggest risk to investors is when “passive indexers” turn into “panic sellers.” 

While the “sell-off” over the last couple of weeks was brutal, with the Dow posting some of the biggest declines in its history, as I will explain, it was exacerbated by the “passive indexing revolution.” 

Jim Cramer previously penned (courtesy of Doug Kass) an interesting note on the active vs. passive conflict.

“The answer is that there are two kinds of sellers in this market: hedge fund sellers, who react off of research, and portfolio shufflers, who buy and sell ETFs and index funds.

The former jumps on anything, right or wrong, as long as it is actionable. The latter, the index funds and ETF traders, rarely jump although they may press down harder on a bedraggled ETF, like one that includes the consumer products group.

But there are two kinds of buyers. The opportunistic buyers, and the index buyers. The opportunists think that the downgrades are noise and give them a chance to buy high-quality stocks with the money that comes in over the transom.

The index and ETF buyers? Well, they just buy.”

The dichotomy explains a lot of the bullish action, and isn’t talked about enough.

While Jim wrote this about those “buying” ETF’s, the same is true when they begin to “sell.” 

“The index and ETF sellers? Well, they just sell.”

It is often suggested that individuals who buy “passive indexes,” such as the SPDR S&P 500 Index (SPY), are they themselves “passive investors.” In other words, these individuals are willing to buy an “index” and hold it for an extended period regardless of market volatility.

Reality has been far different.

This was clear last week as the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) saw some of the biggest outflows in its history with the exception of the February 2018 market plunge as Trump announced his “Trade War with China.” 

The problem with individuals and “passive” investing is they are just “active” investors in a different form. They make all the same mistakes that individual stock investors make, such as “buying high and selling low,” but just using a different instrument to do it.

As the markets declined last week, there was a slow realization “this decline” was something more than another “buy the dip” opportunity. Concerns of the impact on the global supply chain, due to “COVID-19,” slowing earnings, economic growth, and a reduction of liquidity from the Federal Reserve, all culminated in a “panicked exit.”

As losses mounted, anxiety rose until individuals began to sell to “avert further losses” by selling.

Yes….it’s that psychology thing.

Individuals refuse to act “rationally” by holding their investments as losses mount.

The behavioral biases of investors are one of the most serious risks arising from ETFs as too much capital is concentrated into too few places. This concentration risk in ETF’s is not the first time this has occurred:

• In the early 70’s it was the “Nifty Fifty” stocks,
• Then Mexican and Argentine bonds a few years after that
• “Portfolio Insurance” was the “thing” in the mid -80’s
• Dot.com anything was a great investment in 1999
• Real estate has been a boom/bust cycle roughly every other decade, but 2007 was a doozy
• Today, it’s ETF’s and Bitcoin

Risk concentration always seems rational at the beginning, and the initial successes of the trends it creates can be self-reinforcing.

Until it goes in the other direction.

While the sell-off last week was large, it was the uniformity of the price moves, which revealed the fallacy “passive investing” as investors headed for the exits all at the same time.

The Apple Problem

Currently, there more than 1750 ETF”s trading in the U.S., with each of those ETF’s owning many of the same underlying companies. For an ETF company to “sell” you product, they need good performance. In a late-stage market cycle driven by momentum, it is not uncommon to find the same “best performing” stocks proliferating a large number of ETF’s.

For example, out of the 1750 ETF’s in the U.S., there are 175, or 10%, which own Apple (AAPL). Given that so many ETF’s own the same company, the problem of “liquidity” is exposed during a market rout. The head of the BOE, Mark Carney, warned about the risk of “disorderly unwinding of portfolios” due to the lack of market liquidity.

“Market adjustments to date have occurred without significant stress. However, the risk of a sharp and disorderly reversal remains given the compressed credit and liquidity risk premia. As a result, market participants need to be mindful of the risks of diminished market liquidity, asset price discontinuities and contagion across asset markets.”

Howard Marks, also noted in ‘“Liquidity:”

“ETF’s have become popular because they’re generally believed to be ‘better than mutual funds,’ in that they’re traded all day. Thus an ETF investor can get in or out anytime during trading hours. But do the investors in ETFs wonder about the source of their liquidity?’”

Let me explain.

There is a statement often made by individuals about the market.

“For every buyer, there is a seller.” 

The belief has always been that if an individual wants to sell, there will always be a buyer available to execute the transaction at any given price.

However, such is not actually the case.

The correct statement is:

“For every buyer, there is a seller….at a specific price.”

In other words, when the selling begins, those wanting to “sell” overrun those willing to “buy,” so prices have to drop until a “buyer” is willing to execute a trade.

The “Apple” problem, using our example above, is that while investors who are long Apple shares directly are trying to find buyers, the 175 ETF’s that also own Apple shares are vying for the same buyers to meet redemption requests.

This surge in selling pressure creates a “liquidity vacuum” between the current price and the price at which a “buyer” is willing to step in. As we saw last week, Apple shares fell faster than the SPDR S&P 500 ETF, of which Apple is one of the largest holdings.

Secondly, the ETF market is not a PASSIVE MARKET. Today, advisors are actively migrating portfolio management to the use of ETF’s for either some, if not all, of the asset allocation equation. Importantly, they are NOT doing it “passively.” The rise of index funds has turned everyone into “asset class pickers,” instead of stock pickers. However, just because individuals are choosing to “buy baskets” of stocks, rather than individual securities, it is not a “passive” choice, but rather “active management” in a different form.  

While “passive indexing” sounds like a winning approach to “pace” the markets during the late stages of an advance, it is worth remembering it will also “pace” just as well during the subsequent decline.

The correction had the “perma-bulls” scrambling to produce commentary as to why markets will continue only to rise. Unfortunately, that is not the way markets actually work over the long-term, and why the basic rules of investing are REALLY hard to follow.

Despite the best of intentions, individual investors are NOT passive even though they are investing in “passive” vehicles. When these market swoons begin, the rush to liquidate entire baskets of stocks accelerate the decline making sell-offs much more violently than what we have seen in the past.

This concentration of risk, lack of liquidity, and a market increasingly driven by “robot trading algorithms,” reversals are no longer a slow and methodical process but rather a stampede with little regard to price, valuation, or fundamental measures as the exit becomes very narrow.

February was just a “sampling” of what will happen to the markets when the next bear market begins.

Are you prepared?

Just recently, the Institutional Investor website published a brilliant piece entitled “Asset Manager B.S. Decoded.”

“The investment chief for one institution-sized single-family fortune decided to put pen to paper, translating these overused phrases, sales jargon, and excuses into plain — and satirical — English.”

A Translation Guide to Asset Manager-Speak

• Now is a good entry point = Sorry, we are in a drawdown
• We have a high Sharpe ratio = We don’t make much money
• We have never lost money = We have never made money
• We have a great backtest = We are going to lose money after we take your money
• We have a proprietary sourcing approach = We invest in whatever our hedge fund friends do
• We are not in crowded positions = We missed all the best-performing stocks
• We are not correlated = We are underperforming while the market keeps going up
• We invest in unique uncorrelated assets = We have an illiquid portfolio which can’t be valued and will suspend soon
• We are soft-closing the fund = We want to raise as much money as we can right now
• We are hard-closing the fund = We are definitely open for you
• We are not responsible for the bad track record at our prior firm = We lost money but are blaming all our ex-colleagues
• We have a bottom-up approach = We have no idea what markets are going to do
• We have a top-down process = We think we know what markets will do but really who does?
• The markets had a temporary mark-to-market loss = Our fundamental analysis was wrong and we don’t know why we lost money
• We don’t believe in stop-loss limits = We have no risk management

Wall Street is a business.

The “business” of any business is to make a profit. Wall Street makes profits by building products to sell you, whether it is the latest “fad investment,” an ETF, or bringing a company public. While Wall Street tells you they are “here to help you grow your money,” three decades of Wall Street shenanigans should tell you differently.

I know you probably don’t believe that, but here is a survey that was done of Wall Street analysts. It is worth noting where “you” rank in terms of their concern, and compensation.

Not surprisingly, you are at the bottom of the list.

While the translation is satirical, it is also more than truthful. Investors are often told what they “want” to hear, but actual actions are always quite different, along with the eventual outcomes.

So, what can you do about it?

You can take actions to curb those emotional biases which lead to eventual impairments of capital. The following actions are the most common mistakes investors repeatedly make, mostly by watching the financial media, and what you can do instead.

1) Refusing To Take A Loss – Until The Loss Takes You.

When you buy a stock it should be with the expectation that it will go up – otherwise, why would you buy it?. If it goes down instead, you’ve made a mistake in your analysis. Either you’re early, or just plain wrong. It amounts to the same thing.

There is no shame in being wrong, only in STAYING wrong.

This goes to the heart of the familiar adage: “let winners run, cut losers short.”

Nothing will eat into your performance more than carrying a bunch of dogs and their attendant fleas, both in terms of actual losses and in dead, or underperforming, money.

2) The Unrealized Loss

From whence came the idiotic notion that a loss “on paper” isn’t a “real” loss until you actually sell the stock? Or that a profit isn’t a profit until the stock is sold and the money is in the bank? Nonsense!

Your portfolio is worth whatever you can sell it for, at the market, right at this moment. No more. No less.

People are reluctant to sell a loser for a variety of reasons. For some, it’s an ego/pride thing, an inability to admit they’ve made a mistake. That is false pride, and it’s faulty thinking. Your refusal to acknowledge a loss doesn’t make it any less real. Hoping and waiting for a loser to come back and save your fragile pride is just plain stupid.

Realize that your loser may NOT come back. And even if it does, a stock that is down 50% has to put up a 100% gain just to get back to even. Losses are a cost of doing business, a part of the game. If you never have losses, then you are not trading properly.

Take your losses ruthlessly, put them out of mind and don’t look back, and turn your attention to your next trade.

3) More Risk

It is often touted the more risk you take, the more money you will make. While that is true, it also means the losses are more severe when the tide turns against you.

In portfolio management, the preservation of capital is paramount to long-term success. If you run out of chips the game is over. Most professionals will allocate no more than 2-5% of their total investment capital to any one position. Money management also pertains to your total investment posture. Even when your analysis is overwhelmingly bullish, it never hurts to have at least some cash on hand, even if it earns nothing in a “ZIRP” world.

This gives you liquid cash to buy opportunities and keeps you from having to liquidate a position at an inopportune time to raise cash for the “Murphy Emergency:”

This is the emergency that always occurs when you have the least amount of cash available – (Murphy’s Law #73)

4) Bottom Feeding Knife Catchers

Unless you are really adept at technical analysis, and understand market cycles, it’s almost always better to let the stock find its bottom on its own, and then start to nibble. Just because a stock is down a lot doesn’t mean it can’t go down further. In fact, a major multi-point drop is often just the beginning of a larger decline. It’s always satisfying to catch an exact low tick, but when it happens, it’s usually by accident. Let stocks and markets bottom and top on their own and limit your efforts to recognizing the fact “soon enough.”

Nobody, and I mean nobody, can consistently nail the bottom or top ticks. 

5) Averaging Down

Don’t do it. For one thing, you shouldn’t even have the opportunity, as a failing investment should have already been sold long ago.

The only time you should average into any investment is when it is working. If you enter a position on a fundamental or technical thesis, and it begins to work as expected, thereby confirming your thesis to be correct, it is generally safe to increase your stake in that position, on the way up.

6) Don’t Fight The Trend

Yes, there are stocks that will go up in bear markets and stocks that will go down in bull markets, but it’s usually not worth the effort to hunt for them. The vast majority of stocks, some 80+%, will go with the market flow. And so should you.

It doesn’t make sense to counter trade the prevailing market trend. Don’t try and short stocks in a strong uptrend and don’t own stocks that are in a strong downtrend. Remember, investors don’t speculate – “The Trend Is Your Friend”

7) A Good Company Is Not Necessarily A Good Stock

There are some great companies that are mediocre stocks, and some mediocre companies that have been great stocks over a short time frame. Try not to confuse the two.

While fundamental analysis will identify great companies, it doesn’t take into account market and investor sentiment. Analyzing price trends, a view of the “herd mentality,” can help in the determination of the “when” to buy a great company that is also a great stock.

8) Technically Trapped

Amateur technicians regularly fall into periods where they tend to favor one or two indicators over all others. No harm in that, so long as the favored indicators are working, and keep on working.

But always be aware of the fact that as market conditions change, so will the efficacy of indicators. Indicators that work well in one type of market may lead you badly astray in another. You have to be aware of what’s working now and what’s not, and be ready to shift when conditions change.

There is no “Holy Grail” indicator that works all the time and in all markets. If you think you’ve found it, get ready to lose money. Instead, take your trading signals from the “accumulation of evidence” among ALL of your indicators, not just one.

9) The Tale Of The Tape

I get a kick out of people who insist that they’re long-term investors, buy a stock, then anxiously ask whether they should bail the first time the stocks drops a point or two. More likely than not, the panic was induced by listening to financial television.

Watching “the tape” can be dangerous. It leads to emotionalism and hasty decisions. Try not to make trading decisions when the market is in session. Do your analysis and make your plan when the market is closed. Turn off the television, get to a quiet place, and then calmly and logically execute your plan.

10) Worried About Taxes

Don’t let tax considerations dictate your decision on whether to sell a stock.  Pay capital gains tax willingly, even joyfully. The only way to avoid paying taxes on a stock trade is to not make any money on the trade.

“If you are paying taxes – you are making money…it’s better than the alternative”

Conclusion

Don’t confuse genius with a bull market. It’s not hard to make money in a roaring bull market. Keeping your gains when the bear comes prowling is the hard part. The market whips all our butts now and then, and that whipping usually comes just when we think we’ve got it all figured out.

Managing risk is the key to survival in the market and ultimately in making money. Focus on managing risk, market cycles and exposure.

The law of change states: Change will occur, and the elements in the environment will adapt or become extinct, and that extinction in and of itself is a consequence of change. 

Therefore, even if you are a long-term investor, you have to modify and adapt to an ever-changing environment otherwise, you will become extinct.

To navigate through this complex world, we suggest investors need to be open-minded, avoid concentrated risks, be sensitive to early warning signs, constantly adapt and always prepare for the worst.” – Tim Hodgson, Thinking Ahead Institute

Investing is not a competition.

It is a game of long-term survival.

Start by turning off the mainstream financial media. You will be a better investor for it.

I hope you found this helpful.

John Mauldin recently penned an interesting piece:

“Ignoring problems rarely solves them. You need to deal with them—not just the effects, but the underlying causes, or else they usually get worse. In the developed world, and especially the US, and even in China, our economic challenges are rapidly approaching that point. Things that would have been easily fixed a decade ago, or even five years ago, will soon be unsolvable by conventional means.

Yes, we did indeed need the Federal Reserve to provide liquidity during the initial crisis. But after that, the Fed kept rates too low for too long, reinforcing the wealth and income disparities and creating new bubbles we will have to deal with in the not-too-distant future.

This wasn’t a ‘beautiful deleveraging’ as you call it. It was the ugly creation of bubbles and misallocation of capital. The Fed shouldn’t have blown these bubbles in the first place.”

John is correct. The problem with low interest rates for so long is they have encouraged the misallocation of capital. We see it everywhere throughout the entirety of the financial system from consumer debt, to subprime auto-loans, to corporate leverage, and speculative greed.

Misallocation Of Capital – Everywhere

Debt, if used for productive purposes, can be beneficial. However, as discussed in The Economy Should Grow Faster Than Debt:

“Since the bulk of the debt issued by the U.S. has been squandered on increases in social welfare programs and debt service, there is a negative return on investment. Therefore, the larger the balance of debt becomes, the more economically destructive it is by diverting an ever-growing amount of dollars away from productive investments to service payments.”

Currently, throughout the entire monetary ecosystem, there is a rising consensus that “debt doesn’t matter” as long as interest rates and inflation remain low. Of course, the ultra-low interest rate policy administered by the Federal Reserve is responsible for the “yield chase,” and the massive surge in debt since the “financial crisis.” 

Yes, current economic growth is good, but not great. Inflation, and interest rates, remain low, which creates an “illusion” that using debt remains opportunistic. However, as stated, rising levels of non-productive debt has negative long-term economic consequences.

Before the deregulation of the financial industry under President Reagan, which led to an explosion in consumer credit issuance, it required just $1.00 of total system-wide debt to create $1.00 of economic growth. Today, it requires $3.97 to create the same $1 of economic growth. This shouldn’t be surprising, given that “debt” detracts from economic growth as the “debt service” diverts income from productive investments and leads to a “diminishing rate of return” for each new dollar of debt.

The irony is that while it appears the economy is growing, akin to the analogy of “boiling a frog,” we accept 2% economic growth as “strong,” whereas such growth rates were previously considered near recessionary.

Another conundrum is that corporations, and financial institutions, appear to be healthier, not to mention wealthier than ever. If such is indeed the case, then why is the Federal Reserve still needing to engage in “emergency monetary measures” to support the financial markets and economy after more than a decade?

As John stated above, the Fed’s actions are only “ignoring the problems” which, combined, is a problem too large for the Federal Reserve to fix.

The Dark Side Of Stock Buybacks

While many argue that “share buybacks” are just a method by which corporations can return cash to shareholders, there is a dark side. In moderation, repurchases can be a beneficial method for a company to deploy capital when no better options are available. (It’s the least best use of cash.)

But, as with everything in life, when taken to “excess” the beneficial effects, can become detrimental.

“The rules now reward management, not for generating revenue, but to drive up the price of the share price, thus making their options and stock grants more valuable.” – John Mauldin

The problem for the Fed was, despite the best of intentions, lowering interest rates to zero did not spark a “bank lending spree” throughout the economy. Instead, the excess liquidity flowed directly back into the financial system, creating a global wealth gap, rather than supporting stronger economic growth.

The most vivid example of this “closed loop” was in corporate share repurchases. Corporations, able to borrow cheaply due to low rates, used debt and cash to repurchase shares to increase earnings per share. This was the easiest route to create “executive wealth,” rather than deploying capital in more risky endeavors. As the Financial Times penned:

“Corporate executives give several reasons for stock buybacks but none of them has close to the explanatory power of this simple truth: Stock-based instruments make up the majority of their pay and in the short-term buybacks drive up stock prices.”

Importantly, as noted by the Securities & Exchange Commission:

“SEC research found that many corporate executives sell significant amounts of their own shares after their companies announce stock buybacks.”

Again, buybacks may not be an issue, but when taken to excess such can have the negative side effects of inflating asset bubbles. As John Authers pointed out:

“For much of the last decade, companies buying their own shares have accounted for all net purchases. The total amount of stock bought back by companies since the 2008 crisis even exceeds the Federal Reserve’s spending on buying bonds over the same period as part of quantitative easing. Both pushed up asset prices.”

“Stock buybacks” are only a short-term benefit. With liquid cash, or worse debt, used for a one-time benefit, there is a long-term negative return on uses of capital for non-productive investments.

All Levered Up

Currently, total corporate debt has surged to $10.1 trillion – its highest level relative to U.S. GDP (47%) since the financial crisis. In just the last two years, corporations have issued another $1.2 trillion of new debt NOT for expansion, but primarily used for share buybacks.

For the last 10-years, the Fed’s “zero interest rate policy” has left investors chasing yield, and corporations were glad to oblige. The end result is the risk premium for owning corporate bonds over U.S. Treasuries is at historic lows, and debt has allowed many “zombie companies” to remain alive.

During the next market reversion, the 10-year rate will fall towards “zero” as money seeks the stability and safety of the U.S Treasury bond. However, corporate bonds will be decimated. When “high yield,” or “junk bonds,” begin to default in large numbers, as they always do in a recession, which is why they are called “junk bonds,” investors will face sharp losses on the one side of their portfolio they “thought” was safe. 

As the credit market falls into crisis, the Fed will have to ramp up additional stimulus to bail out the financial institutions caught long with an exceeding amount of poor-quality debt. As shown below, Treasuries will gain a bid as yields fall to zero, while corporate bonds lose value.

“In just the last 10 years, the triple-B bond market has exploded from $686 billion to $2.5 trillion—an all-time high. To put that in perspective, 50% of the investment-grade bond market now sits on the lowest rung of the quality ladder.

And there’s a reason BBB-rated debt is so plentiful. Ultra-low interest rates have seduced companies to pile into the bond market and corporate debt has surged to heights not seen since the global financial crisis.” –  John Mauldin:

As noted previously, there is a large tranche of BBB bonds on the verge of being downgraded to “junk.” When this occurs, there will be an avalanche of selling as pension, mutual, and hedge fund managers dump bonds simultaneously into what will be an illiquid market.

Pensions Are Broke

But it is NOT just “share buybacks” and debt, which are problems hiding in plain sight.

“Moody’s Investor Service estimated last year that the total pension funding gap in the U.S. is $4.4 trillion. A few months ago, the American Legislative Exchange Council estimated it at nearly $6 trillion.”

With pension funds already wrestling with largely underfunded liabilities, the aging demographics are further complicating funding problems.

The $6 Trillion “Pension Crisis” is just one sharp market downturn away from imploding. As I wrote in “The Next Financial Crisis Will Be The Last:”

“The real crisis comes when there is a ‘run on pensions.’ With a large number of pensioners already eligible for their pension, the next decline in the markets will likely spur the ‘fear’ that benefits will be lost entirely. The combined run on the system, which is grossly underfunded, at a time when asset prices are declining, will cause a debacle of mass proportions. It will require a massive government bailout to resolve it.”

This $6 trillion hit is going to come at a time where the Federal Reserve will already be at “full tilt” monetizing debt to stabilize declining financial markets to keep a “debt crisis” from spreading.

Strike Three, You’re Out

While investors have become extremely complacent over the last decade that Central Banks have gained control of the financial markets, this is likely an illusion. There are numerous catalysts which could pressure a downturn in the equity markets:

• An exogenous geopolitical event
• A credit-related event
• Failure of a major financial institution
• Recession
• Falling profits and earnings
• A loss of confidence by corporations which contacts share buybacks

Whatever the event is, which is currently unexpected and unanticipated, the decline in asset prices will initiate a “chain reaction.”

• Investors will begin to panic as asset prices drop, curtailing economic activity, and further pressuring economic growth.
• The pressure on asset prices and weaker economic growth, which impairs corporate earnings, shifts corporate views from “share repurchases” to “liquidity preservation.” This removes a major support of asset prices.
• As asset prices decline further, and economic growth deteriorates, credit defaults begin triggering a near $5 Trillion corporate bond market problem.
• The bond market decline will pressure asset prices lower, which triggers an aging demographic who fears the loss of pension benefits, sparks the $6 trillion pension problem. 
• As the market continues to cascade lower at this point, the Fed is monetizing nearly 100% of all debt issuance, and has to resort to even more drastic measures to stem selling and defaults. 
• Those actions lead to a further loss of confidence and pressures markets even further. 

The Federal Reserve can not fix this problem, and the next “bear market” will NOT be like that last.

It will be worse.

As John concluded:

Coordinated monetary policy is the problem, not the solution. And while I have little hope for change in that regard, I have no hope that monetary policy will rescue us from the next crisis.

Let me amplify that last line: Not only is there no hope monetary policy will save us from the next crisis, it will help cause the next crisis. The process has already begun.” – John Mauldin

Last week, Mark Hulbert warned of an indicator that hasn’t been this inflated since the “Dot.com” bubble. To wit:

“It’s been more than 25 years since the stock market’s long-term trailing return was as low as it is today. Since the top of the internet bubble in March 2000, the S&P 500 has produced a 1.4% annualized return after adjusting for both dividends and inflation. “

Whoa! How can that be given the market just set a record for the “longest bull market” in U.S. history?

This is a point that is lost on many investors who have only witnessed one half of a full market cycle. It is also the very essence of Warren Buffett’s most basic investment lesson:

“Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.”

Over the last 147-years of market history, there have only been five (5), relatively short periods, in history where the entirety of market “gains” were made. The rest of the time, the market was simply getting back to even.

Where you start your investing journey has everything to do with outcomes. Warren Buffett, for example, launched Berkshire Hathaway when valuations, and markets, were becoming historically undervalued. If Buffett had launched his firm in 2000, or even today, his “fame and fortune” would likely be drastically different.

Timing, as they say, is everything.

It is also worth noting, as shown below, that valuations clearly run in cycles over time. The current evolution of valuations has been extended longer than previous cycles due to 30-years of falling interest rates, massive increases in debt and leverage, unprecedented amounts of artificial stimulus, and government spending.

This was a point I discussed last week:

“There are two important things to consider with respect to the chart below.

1. The shift higher in MEDIAN valuations was a function of falling economic growth and inflationary pressures.
2. Higher prices were facilitated by increasing levels of leverage and debt, which eroded economic growth. “

But with returns low over the last 25-years, future returns should be significantly higher. Right?

Not necessarily. As Mark noted:

“Your conclusion from this sobering factoid depends on whether you see the glass as half-full or half-empty. The ‘half-full’ camp calls attention to what happened to stocks in the years after 1992, when stocks’ trailing two-decade return regressed to the mean — and then some: equities skyrocketed, elevating their trailing 18.5 year inflation-adjusted dividend-adjusted return to 11% annualized.“

I get it.

But I disagree, and here’s why.

Throughout history, there is an undeniable link between valuation and return. More importantly, it is the expansion, or contraction, in valuations which are directly tied to the cycles of the market. When investors are willing to “pay up” for a future stream of cash flows, prices rise. When expectations for future cash flows decline, so do prices.

For those expecting a repeat of the post-1992 period, they are likely to be disappointed. As shown, in 1992, the deviation from the long-term median price/earnings ratio (using Shiller’s CAPE) was just below 0%. This gave investors plenty of room to expand valuations as inflation and interest rates fell, consumer and government debts surged, and the general masses swept into the “Wall Street Casino.” 

Today, valuations are at the second highest level in history. Despite the massive surge in earnings due to tax cuts – inflation and interest rates are low, revenue growth is weak as consumers, government, and corporations are fully leveraged, and households are “all in” the equity pool.

This is an important point which should not be overlooked.

The bullish premise has been that since tax cuts will cause a surge in earnings which we reduce valuations back to their long-term average. However, such is true as long as prices don’t increase during the period earnings are rising. But such as NOT been the case. Currently, the market has continued to “price in” those earnings increases keeping valuations elevated. 

As noted by Mark:

“Unfortunately, the CAPE today is back to within shouting distance of where it stood at the top of the internet bubble. It reached 44.2 then, and is 33.2 today. At no time in U.S. history other than the internet bubble has the CAPE been as high as it is now.”

CAPE Is B.S.

It is not surprising that during periods of valuation expansion that investors eventually come to the conclusion that “this time is different.” The argument goes something like this:

“Sure, the CAPE ratio is elevated but had you sold, you would have missed out on this booming bull market.”

That statement is 100% true.

However, it grossly misunderstands the “value” of “valuations.” 

Valuations are not, and have never been, useful as a market timing indicator. Valuations should not be used as a “buy” or “sell” indicator in a portfolio management process.

What valuations do provide is a very clear understanding of what future expected returns will be over the next 10-20 years. Bill Hester wrote a very good note in this regard in response to critics of Shiller’s CAPE ratio and future annualized returns:

“We feel no particular obligation defend the CAPE ratio. It has a strong long-term relationship to subsequent 10-year market returns. And it’s only one of numerous valuation indicators that we use in our work – many which are considerably more reliable. All of these valuation indicators – particularly when record-high profit margins are accounted for – are sending the same message: The market is steeply overvalued, leaving investors with the prospect of low, single-digit long-term expected returns.“

It is also the same over 20-year periods even on a rolling 20-year real total-return basis.

“Even on a 20-year real total return basis, there was a negative return period. But while the three other periods were not negative after including dividends, when it comes to saving for retirement, a 20-year period of 1% returns isn’t much different from zero.”

There is also a reasonable argument that due to the “speed of movement” in the financial markets, a shortening of business cycles, changes to accounting rules, buyback activity, and increased liquidity, there is a “duration mismatch” between Shiller’s 10-year CAPE and the financial markets currently.

Therefore, in order to compensate for the potential “duration mismatch” of a faster moving market environment, I recalculated the CAPE ratio using a 5-year average as shown in the chart below.

The high correlation between the movements of the CAPE-5 and the S&P 500 index shouldn’t be a surprise. However, notice that prior to 1950 the movements of valuations were more coincident with the overall index as price movement was a primary driver of the valuation metric. As earnings growth began to advance much more quickly post-1950, price movement became less of a dominating factor. Therefore, you can see that the CAPE-5 ratio began to lead overall price changes.

A key “warning” for investors, since 1950, has been a decline in the CAPE-5 ratio which has tended to lead price declines in the overall market. The two most recent declines in the CAPE-5 also correlated with drops in the market in 2015-2016 and the beginning of 2018.

To get a better understanding of where valuations are currently relative to past history, and why this is likely NOT 1992, we can look at the deviation between current valuation levels and the long-term average. 

The importance of deviation is crucial to understand. In order for there to be an “average,” valuations had to be both above and below that “average” over history. These “averages” provide a gravitational pull on valuations over time which is why the further the deviation is away from the “average,” the greater the eventual “mean reversion” will be.

The first chart below is the percentage deviation of the CAPE-5 ratio from its long-term average going back to 1900.

Currently, the 76.15% deviation above the long-term CAPE-5 average of 15.86x earnings puts valuations at levels only witnessed two (2) other times in history – 1929 and 2000. As stated above, while it is hoped “this time will be different,” which were the same words uttered during each of the two previous periods, you can clearly see that the eventual outcomes were much less optimal.

However, as noted, the changes that have occurred Post-WWII in terms of economic prosperity, changes in operational capacity and productivity warrant a look at just the period from 1944-present.

Again, as with the long-term view above, the current deviation is 61.8% above the Post-WWII CAPE-5 average of 17.27x earnings. Such a level of deviation has only been witnessed one other time previously over the last 70 years as we headed into the “Dot.com” peak. Again, as with the long-term view above, the resulting “reversion” was not kind to investors.

Is this a better measure than Shiller’s CAPE-10 ratio?

Maybe, as it adjusts more quickly to a faster moving marketplace. However, I want to reiterate that neither the Shiller’s CAPE-10 ratio or the modified CAPE-5 ratio were ever meant to be “market timing” indicators.

Since valuations determine forward returns, the sole purpose is to denote periods which carry exceptionally high levels of investment risk and resulted in exceptionally poor levels of future returns.

Currently, valuation measures are clearly warning the future market returns are going to be substantially lower than they have been over the past ten years. Therefore, if you are expecting the markets to crank out 10% annualized returns over the next 10 years for you to meet your retirement goals, it is likely that you are going to be very disappointed.

Does that mean you should be all in cash today? Of course, not.

However, it does suggest that a more cautious stance to equity allocations and increased risk management will likely offset much of the next “reversion” when it occurs.

My client’s have only two objectives:

1. Protect investment capital from major market reversions,  and;
2. Meet investment returns anchored to retirement planning projections.

Not paying attention to rising investment risks, or adjusting for lower expected future returns, are detrimental to both of those objectives.

Or, you can just hope it all works out.

For 80% of Americans, it just simply hasn’t been the case.

“The great economist John Maynard Keynes once said: ‘Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.’” – John Coumarianos

The whole idea of “efficient markets” and “random walk” theories play out well on paper, they just never have in actual practice. The reality is investors make repeated emotional mistakes which are ultimately driven by the very volatility they are supposed to withstand.

These emotional mistakes, as I have discussed repeatedly in the past, are the biggest reason for underperformance by investors. These behavioral biases can be broadly defined as Loss Aversion, Narrow Framing, Anchoring, Mental Accounting, Lack of Diversification, Herding, Regret, Media Response, and Optimism.

When prices rise on a consistent basis, investors begin viewing stocks as a “no lose proposition“ which simply deliver high-rates of return over the long-term. The reality has actually been quite different. The chart below shows the real, total return, (inflation and dividends included) versus it’s annualized rate of return using a geometric average.

It took nearly 14-years just to break even and 18-years to generate just a 2.93% compounded annual rate of return since 2000. (If you back out dividends, it was virtually zero.) This is a far cry from the 6-8% annualized return assumptions promised to “buy and hold” investors.

But such a low rate of return should not have been surprising.

What drives stock prices (long-term) is the value of what you pay today for a future share of the company’s earnings in the future. Simply put – “it’s valuations, stupid.”  

Instead of magical lottery tickets that automatically and necessarily reward those who wait, stocks are ownership units of businesses. That’s banal, I know, but everyone seems to forget it. And it means equity returns depend on how much you pay for their future profits, not on how much price volatility you can endure.

Stocks are not so efficiently priced that they are always poised to deliver satisfying returns even over a decade or more, as we’ve just witnessed for 18 years. A glance at future 10-year real returns based on the starting Shiller PE (price relative to past 10 years’ average, inflation-adjusted earnings) in the chart above tells the story. Buying high locks in low returns and vice versa.

Generally, if you pay a lot for profits, you’ll lock in lousy returns for a long time.

While volatility is the short-term price dynamics of “fear” and “greed” at play, in the long-term it is simply valuation. Despite the recent correction, valuations are once again pushing more extreme levels which suggest lower future forward returns.

“With valuations at levels that have historically been coincident with the end, rather than the beginning, of bull markets, the expectation of future returns should be adjusted lower. This expectation is supported in the chart below which compares valuations to forward 10-year market returns.”

“The function of math is pretty simple – the more you pay, the less you get.”

As a long-term investor, we experience short-term price volatility as “opportunity,” and high prices as “risk.” With economic growth to remain weak, and valuation expansion elevated, the risk of high prices has risen sharply.

Nothing But “Net”

This brings me to one of the biggest myths perpetrated by Wall Street on investors. Individuals are often shown some variation of the following chart to support the claim that over the “long-term” the stock market has generated a 10% annualized total return.

The statement is not entirely false. Since 1900, stock market appreciation plus dividends have provided investors with an AVERAGE return of 10% per year. Historically, 4%, or 40% of the total return, came from dividends alone. The other 60% came from capital appreciation that averaged 6% and equated to the long-term growth rate of the economy.

However, there are several fallacies with the notion the markets will compound over the long-term at 10% annually.

1) The market does not return 10% every year. There are many years where market returns have been sharply higher and significantly lower.

2) The analysis does not include the real world effects of inflation, taxes, fees and other expenses that subtract from total returns over the long-term.

3) You don’t have 146 years to invest and save.

The chart below shows what happens to a $1000 investment from 1871 to present including the effects of inflation, taxes, and fees. (Assumptions: I have used a 15% tax rate on years the portfolio advanced in value, CPI as the benchmark for inflation and a 1% annual expense ratio. In reality, all of these assumptions are quite likely on the low side.)

As you can see, there is a dramatic difference in outcomes over the long-term.

From 1871 to present the total nominal return was 9.15% versus just 6.93% on a “real” basis. While the percentages may not seem like much, over such a long period the ending value of the original $1000 investment was lower by millions of dollars.

Importantly, the return that investors receive from the financial markets is more dependent on “WHEN” you begin investing with respect to “valuations” and your personal “life-span”.

Curb Your Expectations

Following on with the point above, with valuations currently at one of the highest levels on record, forward returns are very likely going to be substantially lower for an extended period. Yet, listen to the media, and the majority of the bullish analysts, and they are still suggesting that markets should compound at 8% annually going forward as stated by BofA:

“Based on current valuations, a regression analysis suggests compounded annual returns of 8% over the next 10 years with a 90% confidence interval of 4-12%. While this is below the average returns of 10% over the last 50 years, asset allocation is a zero-sum game. Against a backdrop of slow growth and shrinking liquidity, 8% is compelling in our view. With a 2% dividend yield, we think the S&P 500 will reach 3500 over the next 10 years, implying annual price returns of 6% per year.”

However, there are two main problems with that statement:

1) The Markets Have NEVER Returned 8-10% EVERY SINGLE Year.

Annualized rates of return and real rates of return are VASTLY different things. The destruction of capital during market downturns destroys years of previous capital appreciation. Furthermore, while the markets have indeed AVERAGED an 8% return over the last 117 years, you will NOT LIVE LONG ENOUGH to receive the same.

The chart below shows the real return of capital over time versus what was promised.

The shortfall in REAL returns is a very REAL PROBLEM for people planning their retirement.

2) Net, Net, Net Returns Are Even Worse

Okay, for a moment let’s just assume the Wall Street “world of fantasy” actually does exist and you can somehow achieve a stagnant rate of return over the next 10-years.

As discussed above, the “other” problem with the analysis is that it excludes the effects of fees, taxes, and inflation. Here is another way to look at it. Let’s start with the fantastical idea of 8% annualized rates of return.

8% – Inflation (historically 3%) – Taxes (roughly 1.5%) – Fees (avg. 1%) = 2.5%

Wait? What?

Hold on…it gets worse. Let’s look forward rather than backward.

Let’s assume that you started planning your retirement at the turn of the century (this gives us 15 years plus 15 years forward for a total of 30 years)

Based on current valuation levels future expected returns from stocks will be roughly 2% (which is what it has been for the last 17 years as well – which means the math works.)

Let’s also assume that inflation remains constant at 1.5% and include taxes and fees.

2% – Inflation (1.5%) – Taxes (1.5%) – Fees (1%) = -2.0%

A negative rate of real NET, NET return over the next 15 years is a very real problem. If I just held cash, I would, in theory, be better off.

However, this is why capital preservation and portfolio management is so critically important going forward.

There is no doubt that another major market reversion is coming. The only question is the timing of such an event which will wipe out the majority of the gains accrued during the first half of the current full market cycle. Assuming that you agree with that statement, here is the question:

“If you were offered cash for your portfolio today, would you sell it?”

This is the “dilemma” that all investors face today – including me.

Just something to think about.