Quarterly Market Review: Q2-2018
Click on the link below for a detailed analysis of quarterly performance of the global equity and fixed income markets.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE 2ND QUARTER 2018- QUARTERLY MARKET REVIEW
Park + Elm Investing Principle #3: Resist Chasing Past Performance!
Principle #3 is HERE! If you missed #1 and #2…YOU’RE IN LUCK!
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(Research above shows only 20% of all active mutual funds beat their corresponding index over a 10 year time frame. And of those, only 37% continued over the next 5 years. This is only 205 of 2758 mutual funds that beat their index over a 15 year time frame. It’s nearly impossible to pick the right ones)
Some investors select mutual funds based on past returns. However, funds that have outperformed in the past do not always persist as winners. The most important guideline to remember is: If a fund does not fit into your overall investment strategy, it’s a dangerous choice no matter how it’s performed in the recent past.
Investors have a tendency to weight recent events more heavily than history. It’s nearly impossible for the typical investor to choose a fund that had negative returns in the previous year. Yet that fund, historically, may have proven to be an outperformer in its category. And the largest hurdle is that most investors don’t even think they are chasing performance. Research shows, however, that nearly every mutual fund outperforms individual investors in the fund.
Instead of chasing performance, investors should follow on these 4 rules:
1. Develop an investment strategy and COMMIT to it
Every investor should have a disciplined investing strategy and stick to it, through bull and bear markets. A relationship with a professional financial advisor is the first step to developing this strategy, and it insures that you’ll take the right actions at the right time.
2. Rebalance your portfolio
Rebalancing your portfolio will keep you from buying high and selling low. Investors who chase returns, are adding to a piece of the investment pie that’s already too big. If you rebalance your portfolio once a year, you’ll be insured that you’re adding to the smaller piece of the pie, and inherently buying low and selling high.
3. Remain Invested
Don’t be tempted to pull your investments from the market when it falls. These are the most opportune times to increase long-term returns through rebalancing.
4. Focus on your personal goals
Your personal goals should drive your investing strategy. Keep that in the front of your mind and it will be much easier to remain disciplined.
Remember, past performance alone provides little insight into a fund’s ability to outperform in the future. A more disciplined approach has proven to be the best way to increase-long term performance.
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What You Pay, What You Get: Connecting Price and Expected Returns
STOCK PRICES ARE CHANGING EVERY DAY – AND AS PRICES CHANGE, SO DO EXPECTED RETURNS.
It has been more than 50 years since the idea of stock prices containing all relevant information was put forth. Information might come in the form of data from a company’s financial statements, news about a new product, a change in the regulatory environment, or simply a shift of investors’ tastes and preferences toward owning different investments.
Information is incorporated into security prices through the buying and selling process. While fair prices may
not depend on a certain level of trading, over $400 billion of stocks traded on average each day in the world equity
markets suggests that a great deal of information is incorporated into stock prices.
As investors, we should consider whether we want to use the price we observe or look for a better price. A recent
study from Dimensional Fund Advisors shows that over the 15-year period ending December 2017, only 14%
of investment managers that attempted to outguess the market survived and beat benchmarks.
This study is just one of many conducted over the past 50 years that have documented similar results. With investing, many things are out of our control, but we can make decisions that improve our odds of having a positive investment experience. Looking at these results, attempting to identify a better price than the one we observe in the market may not be accomplishing this objective.
WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THE PRICE
Beyond the challenge of trying to outguess the market, why is price so important? We should first understand
the connection between the price you pay and the return you expect to receive.
Let’s consider an example: Imagine that you want to buy a house and you know for certain the house will be worth $2 million 10 years from now. If you pay $1 million for the house today or you pay $500,000, in which case would you earn a higher return? Obviously paying less, $500,000, would earn you a higher return.
Of course, investing offers few, if any, guarantees, and we can’t know for certain what something will be worth in the future. Given this, investors should think in terms of expected returns and what decisions will lead to an investment with higher expected returns. Holding other factors constant, the lower the price you pay, the higher the expected return, which is why it’s so important to consider a stock’s observed market price. The price paid has a direct connection to the return we expect to receive.
AS PRICES CHANGE, SO DO EXPECTED RETURNS
We also know that, in a changing world, new information becomes available on a regular basis and that new information can affect the price of stocks. Let’s imagine a pharmaceutical company announces a new drug that investors believe will generate substantial revenues for the company. If this news was previously unknown, once it becomes available, it will likely influence the price of the stock. The price will adjust based on new information, and as the price changes, so will the expected return. Changes in stock prices are taking place every day, and as prices change, so do expected returns.
INDEX MANAGEMENT AND MARKET PRICES
Each year on the last Friday in June, the Russell indices go through a process called reconstitution. In this process, certain stocks are added and deleted from the index. The goal of reconstitution is to periodically rebalance the index to account for historical changes in stocks during the prior period. Index providers, such as S&P, Russell, or CRSP, have different processes for adding and deleting stocks, and while each will have some variation, all will establish pre-set points in time to make their adjustments.
To decide which stocks will be added or deleted, the index provider may look at the market price of a stock to determine what is a small cap vs. large cap stock or what is a value vs. growth stock. It is only during these pre-set dates of reconstitution that index providers might consider market prices. On all other days between the reconstitution dates, changes in the prices of stocks are not being incorporated by the index. And since there is a direct relation between the price of a stock and expected return of a stock, indices are considering differences in expected returns only at infrequent intervals during the year. It not only seems logical that we may want to consider changes in market prices more frequently, the failure to do so can have a direct impact on the expected return of the index.
Again, this is why we believe using market prices is so important. The price we see gives us information about what we expect to receive. If you want to have an investment approach that targets higher expected returns every day, you need to ensure the approach incorporates changes in price every day. Otherwise, investors may not be getting what they think they are paying for.
Investing for Retirement Principle #2: Don’t Try to Outguess the Market!
Principle #2 is HERE!
Download our Ebook Here to get all 10 principles!!
The market’s pricing power works against mutual fund managers who try to outsmart other participants through stock picking or market timing. As evidence, only 17% of US equity mutual funds have survived and outperformed their benchmarks over the past 15 years. Even so, traditional investment approaches strive to beat the market by taking advantage of pricing “mistakes” and attempting to predict the future. Too often, these approaches prove costly and futile. Predictions go awry and managers may hold the wrong securities at the wrong time, missing the strong returns that markets can provide. Meanwhile, capital-based economies thrive—not because markets fail but because they succeed.
What if the typical investor decided not to bet their life savings on tips and hunches? We know from our first piece in this series, that trying to guess the most underpriced stocks is betting against 98.6 Million other investors each day; and that equity prices are fair and efficient. We also know that markets throughout the world have a history of rewarding investors for supplied capital. Instead of guessing, we should lean on academics and science to guide the way to designing a portfolio that delivers what the markets offer. A financial plan based on the science of investing frees you to focus on what matters – diversification, lowering costs, and discipline.
Many of the greatest advancements in Finance have come from academia and research. Academic research has identified the sources of investment returns historically, and applying academic insights to practical strategies can help investors benefit from what the capital markets have to offer.
There is a different way to invest. We should think about why we invest, what we know from research, and apply proven scientific methods of expected returns to our portfolio design. We focus on gaining insights about markets and returns from academic research, reducing expenses, rebalancing, and taking on an acceptable amount of risk based on scientific dimensions of expected returns. Let markets work for you by taking advantage of sensible, well-diversified, low-cost portfolios backed by decades of research and practical experience.
INTERESTED IN THE REST OF THE INVESTING PRINCIPLES? DOWNLOAD OUR EBOOK HERE!
Park + Elm Investment Advisers, LLC is a Registered Investment Advisor offering Investment Advisory Services. The custodian for our client’s funds is The Charles Schwab Corporation. Park + Elm Investment Advisers, LLC is not affiliated with The Charles Schwab Corporation. We are registered with the Indiana Secretary of State Securities Division and additional information about us can be found on our ADV at http://www.adviserinfo.sec.gov/. The information in the brochure has not been approved, verified, or otherwise endorsed by the SEC or by any state securities authority. The brochure is for informational purposes only. It is not to be construed as tax, legal, or investment advice.
The Impact of Inflation
JUNE 2018
WHEN THE PRICES OF GOODS AND SERVICES INCREASE OVER TIME, CONSUMERS CAN BUY FEWER OF THEM WITH EVERY DOLLAR THEY HAVE SAVED.
This erosion of the real purchasing power of wealth is called inflation. Inflation is an important element of investing. In many cases, the reason for saving today is to support future spending. Therefore, keeping pace with inflation is a crucial goal for many investors. To help understand inflation’s impact on purchasing power, consider the following illustration of the effects of inflation over time. In 1916, nine cents would buy a quart of milk. Fifty years later, nine cents would only buy a small glass of milk. And more than 100 years later, nine cents would only buy about seven tablespoons of milk. How can investors potentially prevent this loss of purchasing power from inflation over time?
Exhibit 1: Your Money Today Will Likely Buy Less Tomorrow
In US dollars. Source for 1916 and 1966: Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970/US Department of Commerce. Source for 2017: US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Economic Statistics, Consumer Price Index—US City Average Price Data.
INVESTING FOR THE LONG TERM AND OTHER “TIPS”
As the value of a dollar declines over time, investing can help grow wealth and preserve purchasing power. Investors should know that over the long haul stocks have historically outpaced inflation, but there have also been short-term stretches where this has not been the case. For example, during the 17-year period from 1966–1982, the return of the S&P 500 Index was 6.8% before inflation, but after adjusting for inflation it was 0%. Additionally, if we look at the period from 2000–2009, the so-called “lost decade,” the return of the S&P 500 Index dropped from –0.9% before inflation to –3.4% after inflation.
Despite some periods where stocks have failed to outpace inflation, one dollar invested in the S&P 500 Index in 1926, after accounting for inflation, would have grown to more than $500 of purchasing power at the end of 2017 and would have significantly outpaced inflation over the long run. The story for US Treasury bills (T-bills), however, is quite different. In many periods, T-bills were unable to keep pace with inflation, and an investor would have experienced an erosion of purchasing power. After adjusting for inflation, one dollar invested in T-bills in 1926 would have grown to only $1.51 at the end of 2017.
Exhibit 2: Growth of $1, 1926–2017
S&P and Dow Jones data © 2018 Dow Jones Indices LLC, a division of S&P Global. All rights reserved. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Actual returns may be lower. Inflation is measured as changes in the US Consumer Price Index.
While stocks are more volatile than T-bills, they have also been more likely to outpace inflation over long periods. The lesson here is that volatility is not the only type of risk that should concern investors. Ultimately, many investors may need to have some of their allocation in growth investments that outpace inflation to maintain their standard of living and grow their wealth.
One additional tool available to investors who are concerned about both stock market volatility and inflation are Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS). TIPS are guaranteed by the US Treasury and as such are considered by the marketplace to have low risk of default. The Treasury issues TIPS with a variety of maturities, and these securities are easily bought and sold. Unlike traditional Treasury securities such as T-bills, TIPS are indexed to inflation to protect investors from an erosion in purchasing power. As inflation (measured by the consumer price index) rises, so does the par value of TIPS, while the interest rate remains fixed. This means that if inflation unexpectedly rises, the purchasing power of any principal invested in TIPS should also increase.[1] Although they may not offer the long-term growth opportunities that stocks do, their structure makes TIPS an effective risk management tool for investors who are concerned with managing uncertainty around future purchasing power.
CONCLUSION
Inflation is an important consideration for many long-term investors. By combining the right mix of growth and risk management assets, investors may be able to blunt the effects of inflation and grow their wealth over time. Remember, however, that inflation is only one consideration among many that investors must contend with when building a portfolio for the future. The right mix of assets for any investor will depend upon that investor’s unique goals and needs. A financial advisor can help investors weigh the impact of inflation and other important considerations when preparing and investing for the future.
[1]. Market prices incorporate market participants’ expectations about the future. Therefore, market participants’ expectations about future inflation should be incorporated into current prices. These expectations are referred to as expected inflation. Unexpected inflation refers to unexpected changes in inflation that deviate from prior market expectations. Unexpected inflation should be considered a primary driver of inflation risk.
Park + Elm Investing Principle #1: Embrace Market Pricing
This is just #1!
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Many investors believe that there may be a way to predict when to buy and sell securities, and it’s possible that pricing errors occur in financial markets. But it’s clear that investors have a very difficult time consistently exploiting these errors. Over the last five years…
- About 60% of actively managed large cap US equity funds have failed to beat the S&P 500
- 77% of mid cap funds have failed to beat the S&P 400
- Two-thirds of the small cap manager universe have failed to outperform the S&P Small Cap 600 Index.
- Across the thirteen fixed income fund categories, all but one experienced at least a 70% rate of underperformance over five years.
…and the underperformance rate increases over longer periods of time. Most investors have investment time horizons much broader than 5 years, so trying to anticipate market movements over decades adds extreme anxiety and undue risk, while drastically increasing management expenses. Although the promise of above-market returns is alluring, investors must face the reality that as a group, US-based active managers do not consistently deliver on this promise, and they charge significantly higher fees for this underperformance.
Consider the assumption that the price of a security reflects all available information, and the intense competition among market participants drives prices to fair value. This type of strong belief in markets frees us to think and act differently about investing. When you try to outwit the market, you compete with the collective knowledge of millions of investors. By harnessing the Market’s power, you can put their knowledge to work in your portfolio.
Markets throughout the world have a history of rewarding investors for the capital they supply, and persistent differences in average portfolio returns are explained by differences in average risk. Attempting to time the market creates periods of time when investors are out of the market. This lack of participation can prove very costly to long-term returns. At Park and Elm, we embrace the market, and put investors in a position to capture returns from market growth over time, by pinpointing an acceptable level of risk, for an acceptable long-term return. There are periods of good and bad in the stock market, but it is by far the BEST investment option we have. Understanding that the price of a stock is driven to fair value by the intense competition of companies and investors, allows us to focus on controlling risk, lowering fees and diversifying into the broader markets.
INTERESTED IN THE REST OF THE INVESTING PRINCIPLES? DOWNLOAD OUR EBOOK HERE!
Today’s Video: Doing Better with Global Diversification
Over long periods of time, investors can benefit from consistent exposure in their portfolios to both U.S. and non-U.S. equities – large and small; value and growth. Check out this short video with Dimensional’s Joel Hefner explaining how diversifying globally and emphasizing the dimensions of higher expected returns can improve the chances of having a successful investment experience.
This is why Park + Elm is focused on designing globally diversified portfolios, minimizing investment costs and keeping our client’s risk tolerance at the forefront of our investment philosophy. Check out the examples in the video…
Video of the day: Tuning Out the Noise!
As an investor, it’s hard to stay focused on what really matters, and block out the constant noise. We believe the right financial advisor can get you closer to tuning it out! Check out the short video below to see why a more peaceful investment experience can be achieved!
Quarterly Market Review – 1st Quarter 2018
Click on the link below for a detailed analysis of quarterly performance of the global equity and fixed income markets.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE 1ST QUARTER 2018- QUARTERLY MARKET REVIEW
Video of the day – Dimensional on Volatility
Check out this short piece from Dimensional Fund Advisors explaining why investors should view market declines as part of the nature of investing.