Market Volatility

mikermeals

New Member
Location
Chicago
Stay the course!

I put more money to work on Friday…another scary day. Here is a good message from the CEO of Vanguard. I highly recommend Vanguard as they have many options and site is very easy to navigate. I have been using since the 1980’s.

Hi, I’m Tim Buckley, Vanguard’s CEO.

These are challenging times as the world prepares for, and responds to, the coronavirus outbreak.

Like you, we’ve watched the rising numbers of those infected by the virus with concern and wish a swift and full recovery for those who are ill. We applaud the worldwide efforts to prevent further infections and tragic deaths.

There is still much we don’t know about this epidemic. The health risk is real and the short-term business impact has been significant. The economic consequences, however, are unlikely to be long term. We’re seeing the markets plummet one day and bounce back the next, as investors process that uncertainty.
At Vanguard, we’re known for counseling investors to “stay the course” in good times and bad, which means keeping a long-term perspective and focusing on the parts of investing you can control, such as diversification, balance, and cost.

Now “stay the course” is an easy commitment when markets are calm and steadily moving upward, as they have for more than a decade.
It’s much harder to stay disciplined in today’s environment as markets fluctuate and the near-term future is uncertain. We preach diversification so you can weather these tough times and stay invested.

In my 30 years in the business, I’ve seen many market storms. Re-pricings are inevitable, sometimes violent, but never predictable. Panic and rash action aren’t your ally. Those who cash out find it impossible to know when to get back in. Indeed, investors that deviate from their long-term plans typically regret it later.
The coronavirus epidemic itself was not something we could predict, but we constantly prepare for unexpected bouts of volatility.

Our experienced investment teams know how to navigate difficult markets. Our active managers often find long-term growth opportunities as markets sell off. Our index managers ensure proper liquidity as many wise advice strategies rebalance into the downturn—selling bonds and buying equities.

Vanguard investors have proven time and again they know how to stay calm in a market downturn. But for those who are weathering their first bout of market volatility or could just use a friendly reminder, let me offer three quick points.

First, we stand by our mantra—“stay the course”

An investment plan established during calmer times should not be abandoned in the midst of a market downturn. Let the benefits of diversification play out.
I know how difficult it is to see hard-earned savings diminish, but don’t be tempted to time the markets. It’s a losing strategy. Our studies have shown that chasing returns has historically destroyed 1.5% a year versus staying the course.

Second, we are here to help. Whether you’re new to investing or a seasoned financial advisor, Vanguard is here to support you.

Our websites are constantly refreshed with our latest thinking on the markets and economy. And our experts offer practical advice on how to put this perspective to work in your portfolios. For more specific requests, our crew are ready to assist you.

Don’t feel like you need to go it alone. Our mission is to help you succeed, so reach out if we can be of help.

And, finally, thank you.

Thank you for entrusting us with your financial success. It’s a tremendous responsibility that we take very seriously.

Amidst the uncertain world around us, I am confident that these tough times will pass and we will emerge stronger than before. Valuations were high, the markets have repriced, but your long-term growth prospects remain sound.
 

actually if you look at morningstars investor figures on their funds vs the funds returns , the investor returns show poor investor behavior as a group . so that contradicts his " vanguard investors know how to remain calm statement ........they exhibit the same poor investor behavior in volatile times all the other fund families get .
 
Since it is said the virus issue is driving the market down and there will be no vaccine to address it for at least one year possibly 18 months what if anything will halt the fall. We are not yet feeling the long term ramifications of people changing their spending behavior. Regardless of your take on what is going on the economic future of the economies all over the world is going to suffer and how long will it be once they go in to recovery mode for the markets to respond?
 

Since it is said the virus issue is driving the market down and there will be no vaccine to address it for at least one year possibly 18 months what if anything will halt the fall. We are not yet feeling the long term ramifications of people changing their spending behavior. Regardless of your take on what is going on the economic future of the economies all over the world is going to suffer and how long will it be once they go in to recovery mode for the markets to respond?
You nailed it. I think it will be a year or so before the market gets back to were it was at the end of February.

You have to feel for investors in stocks like the cruse lines and air lines to name two. It is also hurting utility stocks which are not that much effected.
 
You nailed it. I think it will be a year or so before the market gets back to were it was at the end of February.

You have to feel for investors in stocks like the cruse lines and air lines to name two. It is also hurting utility stocks which are not that much effected.
Wait and see what it does to insurers , manufacturers who need parts from China ,,, hotels , restaurants ....there are so many businesses linked to travel and tourism ....
 
This has been a roller coaster ride but not unexpected. I hated dealing with Vanguard. Their system for taking distributions was cumbersome, the way they separated accounts was cumbersome. I finally got tired of it (plus couldn't imagine my son having to deal with it after I pass) so I transferred my account to Schwab. I find Schwab's site is much more user friendly and offers several ways to view accounts and research potential investments. Schwab also offers fee free trades on several funds and ETFs, not just Schwab funds. I intend to ride out this storm like I have others in the past, especially since I don't need to take distributions (except my RMD).
 
If people would have stayed the course between 2008-2010, their IRA’s would have been hit hard. I belong to an investment club of 22 members, which about half of us are millionaires or multimillionaires.

Two of them did not heed the warnings that were being given during that time and they had to go back to working for a living. It was a shame and I felt really terrible for the fellow because he was a close friend of mine.

During that period of time, as I watched the price of oil rise and hitting nearly $200 a barrel, I knew there was no way the economy could sustain those prices, plus all the talk about investment bankers buying high risk bundled mortgages. I was worried. One of the gentleman in our group was a genius with investing, much like mathjak. He kept telling us to move our money into safety nets, so after listening to him for 6 straight months, I did. Thank the Lord, I did.

With this flu thing, I decided to again pull my money out of the markets at 28,700. Larry Kudlow thinks investors should be buying on the dips. I was always taught never to buy any stocks on the way down. It only makes sense that if China cannot ship goods, prices will probably rise and as inventories are depleted, then what? I posted before that China stated that they expect utility of their factories to drop by -4%.

I would like to see the markets rise 3% before I get back in. Right now, there is about 6-800 billion dollars sitting on the sidelines waiting to come back into the markets, according to CNBC, but we need some good news. My worry is will China start cashing in their bonds as their manufacturing declines? That would probably drive the bond markets down even lower than they are now.

I am glad that my wife’s and my trust funds are managed by professionals. For the little that we pay per year, year over year, they have done very well for us. Well, all years except 2010. They missed the mark.
 
I'm not even looking at my IRAs for awhile. They're supposedly diversified and I'm not educated enough in investing to know what changes to make ...I'm not sure the experts do at this point. When the stronger cruise and other travel stocks go really low, I may use some liquid assets to buy because people will travel again.
 
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You nailed it. I think it will be a year or so before the market gets back to were it was at the end of February.

You have to feel for investors in stocks like the cruse lines and air lines to name two. It is also hurting utility stocks which are not that much effected.
I can’t talk for the cruise lines, but I keep or try to keep close contact with my former employer, United Airlines. They have decided to cut back on flights overseas, mostly Asia, but other countries as well. In doing that, they will be freezing hiring and maybe even do some laying off. This is all to save money. They have stated that total income will be down, but their profit margin will still be strong.
 
BTW, I hold several shares of United (UAL). UAL 52-week high was $96, now it’s at $52. I told my wife that I would really like to buy a bunch of shares at this price, but the stock is still sinking. What do you think?
 
This has been a roller coaster ride but not unexpected. I hated dealing with Vanguard. Their system for taking distributions was cumbersome, the way they separated accounts was cumbersome. I finally got tired of it (plus couldn't imagine my son having to deal with it after I pass) so I transferred my account to Schwab. I find Schwab's site is much more user friendly and offers several ways to view accounts and research potential investments. Schwab also offers fee free trades on several funds and ETFs, not just Schwab funds. I intend to ride out this storm like I have others in the past, especially since I don't need to take distributions (except my RMD).
One eyed Diva: Did you read that TIM BUCKLEY is the CEO of Vangard? THE CEO! How many times in a lifetime to you get to be in audience with the CEO? He is reading everything you are writing. This is an INCREDIBLE opportunity!
 
BTW, I hold several shares of United (UAL). UAL 52-week high was $96, now it’s at $52. I told my wife that I would really like to buy a bunch of shares at this price, but the stock is still sinking. What do you think?
If you are in for the long run I would buy shares, but not all at once ...some now and some each month. You know the company .

Good luck.
 
actually if you look at morningstars investor figures on their funds vs the funds returns , the investor returns show poor investor behavior as a group . so that contradicts his " vanguard investors know how to remain calm statement ........they exhibit the same poor investor behavior in volatile times all the other fund families get .
Human nature is that most investors buy high and sell low
 
the most money is made by investors buying high and selling higher .

the trend is your friend .

there are lots of things we hear and learn about markets that while they look and sound true they play out false.

we all know the saying buy low sell high. great idea but rarely can anyone really do it consistently.

why?

there is another saying " objects in motion stay in motion , until they hit something .

falling prices tend to feed on themselves and go lower until they don't. know one knows what low is because we all thought low in 2008-2009 was when the market fell 1000 points.

well that momentum turned into 5000 and 6000 points. people lost their shirt trying to buy low.

a better saying is buy high and sell higher. when that trend is already moving up that upward momentum may be the better time to buy .
 
Since it is said the virus issue is driving the market down and there will be no vaccine to address it for at least one year possibly 18 months what if anything will halt the fall. We are not yet feeling the long term ramifications of people changing their spending behavior. Regardless of your take on what is going on the economic future of the economies all over the world is going to suffer and how long will it be once they go in to recovery mode for the markets to respond?
ignorance can be bliss at times ha ha .

there are times i say to my wife i am not going to watch the market for a few days .... but every damn tv station announces the big drops in the news ....
That is the best time to buy..."when there is blood in the streets"!
 
Times like this are why it's best to have a year's worth of living expenses in cash...more if you can. If I did not have that cushion, I would be very concerned about retiring in a few months. But our debt load is low (one car loan at 0.9% which will be paid off in a year), and knowing I can live for 12-15 months without touching IRA's, mutual funds, etc. lets me sleep easy.
 
Times like this are why it's best to have a year's worth of living expenses in cash...more if you can. If I did not have that cushion, I would be very concerned about retiring in a few months. But our debt load is low (one car loan at 0.9% which will be paid off in a year), and knowing I can live for 12-15 months without touching IRA's, mutual funds, etc. lets me sleep easy.
while mentally we think cash buffers add some mythical benefit , they really don't . they are only a mental thing .

in fact looking at the 119 30 year retirement cycles we had to date 50/50 and 100% equities had almost the same success rate .

the reason is without the weight of cash and bonds the up years are so much higher that even with the drops you still tend to have a higher balance .

mentally most of us don't want high equity positions in retirement , but financially there is no real down side ..

cash buffers are a mirage .

as famed researcher michael kitces points out

Executive Summary
As baby boomers continue into their retirement transition, two portfolio-based strategies are increasingly popular to generate retirement income: the systematic withdrawal strategy, and the bucket strategy. While the former is still the most common approach, the latter has become increasingly popular lately, viewed in part as a strategy to help work around difficult and volatile market environments. Yet while the two strategies approach portfolio construction very differently, the reality is that bucket strategies actually produce asset allocations almost exactly the same as systematic withdrawal strategies; their often-purported differences amount to little more than a mirage! Nonetheless, bucket strategies might actually still be a superior strategy, not because of the differences in portfolio construction, but due to the ways that the client psychologically connects with and understands the strategy!


https://www.kitces.com/blog/are-retirement-bucket-strategies-an-asset-allocation-mirage/

Executive Summary
Cash reserve strategies that hold aside several years of spending to avoid liquidations during bear markets are a popular way to manage withdrawals for retirees. In theory, the strategy is presumed to enhance risk-adjusted returns by allowing retirees to spend down their cash during market declines and then replenish it after the recovery. Yet recent research in the Journal of Financial Planning reveals that the strategy actually results in more harm than good; while in some scenarios the cash reserves effectively allow the retiree to “time” the market by avoiding an untimely liquidation, more often the retiree simply ends out with less money due to the ongoing return drag of a significant portfolio position in cash. As a result, the superior strategy for those who want to alter their asset allocation through market volatility (the effective result of spending down cash in declines and replenishing it later) appears to be simply tactically altering asset allocation directly, without the adverse impact of a cash return drag. Nonetheless, this still fails to account for the psychological benefits the client enjoys by having a clearly identifiable cash reserve to manage spending through volatility – even though the reality is that it results in less retirement income, not more. Does that mean cash reserve strategies are still superior for their psychological benefits alone, even if they’re not an effective way to time the market? Or do total return strategies simply need to find a better way to communicate their benefits and value?

https://www.kitces.com/blog/researc...s-dont-work-unless-youre-a-good-market-timer/

FOR THE RECORD I DO USE A CASH BUFFER , it just feels more comfortable to me even though financially there is no real benefit
 
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I lost a bunch during that Financial Crisis of 2008....when most of the Advisors were touting "Stay the Course". It took at least a couple of years to recover those losses. When this Corona Virus news started becoming the hot topic in the news, I got concerned about the global economy being impacted as this disease progresses. When the markets began to tank in late February, I moved the bulk of my holdings into bonds and the money market....leaving just enough in the IRA to keep the monthly checks coming for the next 5 or 6 months. I figure I lost about 6 or 7%, but there is the real possibility of the markets dropping 20%, or more if there isn't a solution found to this disease in the very near future. I'd rather play "chicken" than have to go through that 2008 mess again...I'm too old to endure that stress again.

If schools start closing, store shelves start emptying, the travel and entertainment industries start seeing massive declines, companies start shutting down due to lack of supplies, etc.,.......and on, and on...this could become a brutal year for investors.
 
the advisers were right . if you did nothing , you would have had 3 to 4x the amount assuming you were in broad based funds and not individual stocks which may never come back ...

poor investor behavior in down turns loses money for investors , not markets...

if this is long term money and even at 65 you have money you wont eat with for 20 to 30 years , then temporary short term drops should be irrelevant . if you are worried about long term money then one should not be much in equities because poor behavior in down turns will hurt you every time.

getting out is easy ...getting back in is the hard part ....there really are very few market influencing up days .. most of the time the biggest are still when everyone thinks it is a suckers rally and nothing changed yet as far as we see .

usually by the time you get back in , you gained nothing in the pocess or to add insult to injury you get in higher than you baled out .


University of Michigan Professor H. Nejat Seyhun analyzed 7,802 trading days for the 31 years from 1963 to 1993 and concluded that just 90 days generated 95% of all the years’ market gains — an average of just three days per year.

miss those days and you hurt your growth bad . not missing them is easy , stay invested .

that does not mean you can't shift to a all weather portfolio in times like this ... heck something with 25% long term treasuries up 40% over the one year , 25% gold , up 30% over the one year , 25% total market fund up 7.80% over the one year , 25% short term treasuries , 6% over the one year , would still provide growth as things fall .

you would have still been invested , still making money , and fully protected .
 
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If schools start closing, store shelves start emptying, the travel and entertainment industries start seeing massive declines, companies start shutting down due to lack of supplies, etc.,.......and on, and on...this could become a brutal year for investors.

These things are already starting to happen. Stores are running out of toilet paper, paper towels, disinfectants, etc. At work, I've had to cancel several of my co-worker's travel arrangements because of canceled meetings. We went over our pandemic plan at all the different levels. We are in for a rough ride, I'm afraid.

A couple of weeks ago when I first starting hearing about the market being affected by the corona virus concerns, I decided to pull out of the market in my 401k and put everything in a fund guaranteed not to go down. I have worked hard to reach my investment goal, and I didn't want this epidemic to take half of it. I'm glad I did and sleep better at night because of it. We'll see when things start normalizing again.
 


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