Last month’s newsletter provided key thoughts to help us weather the current market correction. The correction is still with us, and I have some additional thoughts and comments to help us ride it out.
First, let’s talk strategy. For the Serious Money Investor there are two correct strategies during a market correction:
Buy Low-Sell High: The first strategy is for the investor who has excess cash available to invest. We all know the investment truism: “buy low and sell high.” Well, the current environment is what buying low looks and feels like. After prices have fallen, the news pundits typically predict even lower prices and bad economic news coming around the bend. Buying low sounds easy but it takes cash and it takes courage and it takes faith in the future. But if you have excess cash this is probably a good time to add to your investments.
Hang on to Your Shares: The second strategy is for the investor who does not have excess cash to add to their investments. This investor needs to hang on to their shares. Remember, when the market corrects the price of your shares decreases but you still own your shares. When the market stops correcting and again heads up you’ll want to still be owning your shares to realize the full gains from the bottom.
Second, let’s talk about the big picture of stock market returns using the lifetime returns of a 62-year-old who retired at the end of 2021.
- In 1960, the S&P500 index closed at 58. In 2021 the index closed at 4766, up over 82x.
- In 1960, the annual dividend of the index was $1.98. At the end of 2021 the annual dividend was $60.40, up over 30x
- In 1960, the Consumer Price Index closed at 30. In 2021 it closed at 279, up 9x.
These lifetime numbers reinforce why a serious money investor will hang to their shares and/or try to add to their shares. The equity market has shown a remarkable ability to not only keep pace with inflation but to beat inflation by about nine-fold. With our current inflationary environment, equities are the play. Let’s keep this in mind even though prices are in a correction phase right now.
Third, let’s get clear about the volatility and the variability of stock market returns over the years. Please look at the chart on the next page, courtesy of DFA (Dimensional Fund Advisors). Here are my key takeaways from this chart:
- The average return over this period is 10%, but in only 6 years did the index come within two percentage points of the average
- There are 69 up years and 25 down years, so the odds are in favor of an up year about 3 out of every 4 years. But the problem is that down years appear, for lack of a better explanation, relatively random
- The best up years exceeded 50% and the worst down years exceeded -40%, so a long-term investor must be able to stomach both the randomness and the excessiveness of down years.
Nick Murray, I believe, said it best:
“The premium [10%] long-term return of equities is simply an efficient market’s way of pricing in their extreme randomness in the short term.”
Hang in there. Every market correction has ended. This one will too. JR
