The past week has been a very turbulent, and nerve-wracking, time for investors. Stock markets around the world have been rocked by massive losses. In just the seven trading sessions, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (#DJIA) has fallen about 850 points, or 5%. By comparison, the S&P 500 has fallen 5.2%, the UK FTSE a slightly better 4.8% while the German DAX has dropped a whopping 6.9%. These are significant losses in only seven trading days.
Today was a microcosm of the past few weeks as the major averages were whipsawed all day long. At one point, the #DJIA was down 2.8%, before finishing down 1%. Similarly, the Dow Jones Transportation Average (#DJTA) was also down 2.8% before actually ending the day 18 points higher. The S&P 500 dropped 3% before winding up down only 0.9%. Investors who panicked today and sold at the bottom will likely regret that when the market inevitably recovers and they find themselves sitting in cash on the sidelines, missing the large gains.
So what are the reasons for the big declines and the crazy volatility? They include (just to name a few): a growing economic malaise in Europe, concerns about a continued economic slowdown in China, fears on an expanding Ebola outbreak, continued trouble in the Middle East thanks to ISIS and other terrorists, plunging oil prices thanks to the dollar surging in value against most other currencies and horrible policy decisions within OPEC. You could probably add concerns over social unrest in Hong Kong. Don’t forget natural disasters like cyclones, hurricanes and typhoons that are growing in frequency and magnitude. And that doesn’t even count worries about economic slowdown in this country, anticipation about future rate increases by the Federal Reserve and uncertainty about the upcoming mid-term elections. Phew, did I miss anything?
Given all the ills that I enumerated above, we should all dump everything, build a bomb shelter and stick all of our money under our mattress, right? WRONG!! Succumbing to fear, acquiescing to panic and abandoning your financial plan is exactly the opposite of what you should be doing.
First of all, in my opinion, you shouldn’t be investing any money that needs to be spent in the next two years. So if we take that as a given, and if we assume (yes, I know what happens when we assume, but that’s the only way I can continue this narrative) that the money you have invested is for some future purpose (of at least five years), than weekly volatility is really irrelevant. In fact, it is normal and present opportunities.
Let’s put things in perspective. On October 9, 2007, almost exactly seven years ago, the #DJIA was 14,164.53. From there it proceeded to go down for the next year and a half, finally hitting bottom on March 9, 2009 at 6,547.05, for a loss of 53.8%. From that low, the market hurtled forward for the next five and a half years, erasing all of those losses before peaking on September 19 at 17,279.74, a gain of 163.9%! Today the #DJIA closed at 16,141.74, which means we’ve fallen 6.6% from the high. Is that really so bad? In the grand scheme of things is that likely to derail your future plans?
The truth about the stock market is that it goes up and it goes down. And after a prolonged period of going up, with only a few very short down periods, we were due for a correction of sorts. Now, I don’t know either the depth or duration of this correction, but I’m confident it won’t be nearly as bad as 2008/2009. Global economic conditions are MUCH better today, even with all of our problems, than they were back then. So relax, have a nice glass of wine (or whatever your drinking pleasure is), take stock of your portfolio and look at your “wish list” of stocks that you’d like to buy. Perhaps now is the tie to use some discretionary cash to pick up one or two of them on the cheap. Then sit back, wait for the rebound and congratulate yourself for remaining calm and sticking with your plan.
Full disclosure: I purchased one new position last week, and another one this afternoon, totaling about $600,000. So I’m putting my money where my mouth is. I’m very confident those will be very opportunistic and profitable purchases, creating solid profits for me and my clients for years to come.