Take the Long View, Ignore the Scary Headlines

Written by Rob Copeland | 31 March 2023

You've probably been seeing lots of scary headlines lately: the failure of a few banks and the possibility that others will follow suit. A looming recession. The possibility that artificial intelligence threatens the future of humanity.

The only thing that's clear in all of this is that these headlines are getting a lot of clicks. A widespread run on banks? With the crisis being contained to a few institutions, that seems less and less likely. Recession? Investors and business leaders have been predicting a recession since early last year and it hasn't happened yet. If it does, there are indications that it may be mild and brief. As for our A.I. overlords, expert opinion is very divided, and you and I worrying about such a scenario won't accomplish anything.

The media, including social media, loves scary topics because they attract far more eyeballs than benign ones. But many investors do more than just click on the articles. Frightened that their wealth is at risk, they often react by selling. Some have recently pulled all their money out of bank stocks, or even the entire market. But what's interesting is that amid all of 2023's scary headlines, the stock market's up almost 6%.

Scary headlines can be accompanied by bad stretches in the market or good ones. But investors who react to each instance of bad news by buying and selling probably won't make much money over time, and may end up losing money.

The more active you are in the market, the more decisions you have to get right. You have to get out of a stock or of the market at the right time—a hard task because you don't know if the stocks you're dumping will take off the day after you sell. You have to get back in at the right time and, again, hope that the market doesn't tank as soon as you rejoin it. And if you're reacting to the day-in-day-our news flow, you have to be right again and again and again. The odds of accomplishing that, and of earning a positive return over the long term, are very low.

The key to successful investing is using a long-term lens. Research from investment firm Dimensional Fund Advisors has found that the likelihood of an S&P 500 investor losing money declines as period of the investment grows. It found that over one-day periods, the index declines 46%. Over a year, it declines just 26% of the time, and over 10 years, that number falls to 6%. There are always ups and downs within the long term, but the pattern—that the stock market rewards you if you're patient—plays out with remarkable consistency.

Some investors use a five-year lens. Others a 10-year lens. The right timeframe will depend on your personal factors, including the number of year until your retirement or other goals. This doesn't mean that investors should ignore their portfolio for five or 10 years. There will always be opportunities along the way to fine-tune your investment mix in order to position for the best possible return with the least amount of risk. For instance, bond yields have strengthened significantly in recent months, which may give you an opportunity to lower overall portfolio risk while earning a good return.

It can be hard to be patient and take a long-term view when scary headlines are swirling. It can feel good simply to take action—any action! But in five or 20 years, you'll thank your past self for thinking long-term. Don't hesitate to contact us if you'd like an investment portfolio review.

Improving Bond Yields and the Case for Rebalancing  

Written by Rob Copeland | 28 February 2023

Owning bonds hasn't been very attractive for the past few years, and 2022 was the low point. A cross-section of bonds, as represented by the Bloomberg Aggregate Bond Index, registered a 15% loss in 2022. And with interest rates low for much of last year, bonds provided very little if anything in the way of yield.

Things look a lot different this year. Yields on all types of fixed income are way up, thanks to the Federal Reserve's campaign of raising interest rates to fight inflation. And while the bond market as a whole is flat, fixed income is once again looking like it belongs in investment portfolios.

Bonds' traditional role in an investment portfolio has been to balance the risk of stocks, which historically have been more volatile than bonds. Stocks, meanwhile, are supposed to provide more long-term growth than bonds. However, bonds prior to this year yielded so little, and performed so badly, that they did nearly nothing to mitigate portfolios' risk.

As a result, many investors gave up on bonds and piled into stocks, causing once-balanced portfolios to become lopsided—and riskier—in favor of equities. Now is a good time to take a fresh look at your portfolio, and to make sure you have enough diversification to get good long-term returns without undue risk.

It might be tempting to stay overweighted to stocks. After all, the S&P 500 index of stocks returned 27% in 2021, 16% in 2020 and 29% in 2019. Those years were anomalies however: The S&P's annual return has averaged less than 10% over the past 20 years. And as we saw last year, when the S&P fell 19%, stocks can be very volatile.

Could bonds have more bad years? Of course; no investment is guaranteed to make money. But positive yields mean better overall returns. Safe, short-term treasuries are yielding as much as 5% right now; many corporate and muni bonds yield even more. Even one-year CDs are yielding more than 4%.

In deciding on a mix of investments, it's important to use your goals as your guide. If retiring comfortably requires an 8% return over the next 15 or 20 years, there's no need to take the kind of stock-heavy risk needed to earn a 15% return. The point of investing isn't to bet the farm on gaudy returns. It's to help you achieve real-life goals on your individual timeline, without the risk of blowing up your portfolio. With fixed-income investments looking better than they have in years, this is a very good time for a portfolio checkup. If you agree, don't hesitate to call us.

How to Get Back into the Market  

Written by Rob Copeland | 31 January 2023

Last year was a tough one for investors, with stocks and bonds both experiencing bear markets. Now, with markets off to a promising start in 2023, many investors are focused on figuring out which stocks could be winners, when to buy, and even whether the January rally is a head fake.

But before making investment decisions, I recommend that investors step back, take a breath, and think longer-term. First of all, the exact timing of when you get into the market is far less important than staying invested for the long term. You might have your doubts about whether the market will be higher three months from now, but you're likely a lot more confident that it will be higher in five years.

The important thing is that you have money in the market so that you benefit from long-term market appreciation. If you're sitting in cash for prolonged periods, you're a spectator, not an investor. You might be on the sidelines because you're just too nervous to get in to the market after 2022's volatility. Moving money into the market gradually helps many investors overcome this kind of paralysis: If stocks go way up in the next month, you'll have made money. If they go down, you'll have limited your losses.

Of all my clients, those that have gotten the best investment results over the years have been the most patient ones. Rather than reacting to every one of the market's short-term ups and downs, they basically trust that over time, good companies are going to grow and make money, and that they as investors will ultimately benefit.

Now for what to invest in. The first step in figuring that out is to, again, pull back. This time you need to re-identify your goals and objectives, whether that's for the next one year or the next five, 10 or 20 years. A one-year goal might be buying a house or a car; a 20-year goal might be a comfortable retirement.

Once you know your goals, an experienced investment advisor can help you develop a mix of investments that gives you the best chance to achieve them with the least amount of risk. To populate your portfolio, your advisor can then recommend specific stocks, bonds and other investments that have the most favorable prices, business outlooks and other qualities.

If you've mostly stayed in the market throughout the past year-plus or longer, this may be good time to make sure your investments still match your tolerance for risk, your goals and your time horizon. It's likely that some of these factors have changed at least somewhat since the start of the Covid era.

Finally, to ensure that you end up with the best investment portfolio, it's advisable to work with a veteran investment advisor, one who has experience navigating through prolonged bear and bull markets. Younger advisors, no matter how credentialed and intelligent, don't have the irreplaceable perspective that comes with having spent time in the trenches. If you'd like to create a customized investment portfolio, or review your current one, please don't hesitate to get in touch.

Five Predictions for 2023

Written by Rob Copeland | 27 December 2022

This past year has been one to forget—a bear market for stocks, the worst year ever for bonds, and raging inflation and rising interest rates to top it off. Will 2023 be better? While no one can predict the future, I think it's likely that things will improve at least a little bit. Here are my five predictions for 2023.

1. Interest rates will level out. The Fed moved its benchmark fed funds rate, which impacts rates on mortgages, business loans and more, from next to nothing to more than 4%. And it did so in a hurry, squeezing two years' worth of rate increases into one year. The reason for the Fed's urgency was four-decade-high inflation, as the Consumer Price Index peaked at an annualized 9.1% in June. There are signs that the Fed's strong medicine is working-- by November, inflation was running at 7.1%. After several consecutive rate hikes of .75%, the central bank's final rate increase of 2022 was half a percentage point. It's likely the hikes aren't over, though. The Fed may raise them as much as another percentage point total in the first half of the year. Then I believe it will stop—or, if higher interest rates slow the economy too much, could even begin lowering rates.

2. Inflation will keep falling. The rate of price increases could dip beneath 4% in 2023. That's still far above the Fed's stated target of 2%, but the process of taming inflation has always been as slow as turning an oil tanker out at sea. I don't have any doubt that the central bank will achieve its inflation goal eventually; its rate increases have been too aggressive for that not to happen. Another factor that will help push inflation down: supply chains that are steadily recovering from their Covid-era slowdowns. Recovering supply chains are one reason lumber prices, for example, have fallen far from their record highs of 2020 and 2021.

3. Home prices will drop. Low-interest mortgage loans and strained supply sent the price of homes nationwide up an astonishing 41% between the second quarter of 2020 and the third quarter of 2022. Higher interest rates figure to weigh on demand, helping to lower prices. If large-scale layoffs, like those we've seenAmazon, Meta and Twitter, continue into 2023, that could help drive demand down too. But the price decreases might not be steep enough to bring significant relief to homebuyers. Housing construction has lagged demand for a decade, and millennials are in their prime homebuying years.

4. Investors will flock to bonds. Demand for fixed income should increase in 2023 as investors realize that rising interest rates have resulted in the most attractive bond yields in years. Bonds have yielded next to nothing in recent years, leading investors to rely more and more on stocks in their portfolios. The Fed's war on inflation has changed things though. The benchmark 10-year Treasury bond's yield shot from just 1.5% at the end of 2021 to 3.75% at the end of 2022. Investors will also be lured back to bonds by the potential for price appreciation. Sooner or later, the Fed will begin to lower interest rates, and when that happens, lower yielding bonds will come into circulation. That will make higher-yield bonds more attractive by comparison and prompt their prices to rise on the secondary market.

5. A bull market will begin. I think the stock market will turn into a bull market sometime in 2023. The S&P 500 stock index partially recovered from its low point, when it was down 25% in anticipation of a recession, and spent November and December trading in a range between about 3,070 and 4,000. Once the market feels comfortable that inflation and interest rates are heading in the right direction, buying will increase and the S&P will rise in a sustainable way. Stocks might not finish the year in positive territory, but I believe they'll end the year with good momentum heading into 2024. One reason I'm optimistic about stocks is that they've already priced in a recession. If one occurs, it won't catch the market by surprise. If a recession doesn't occur, the lower prices should lend momentum to the eventual market

Past performance is no guarantee of future results, markets can go up and down and not all investments are right for you and your individual circumstances. Please schedule an individual meeting to discuss your risk tolerances, time horizon, and what strategy might work best for you going forward.