Transcript:
Easan Arulanantham:
How long will the bear market last?
Tom Vaughan:
How long will the bear market last? Okay? This this actually came up in one of our client strategy session. So we, we found some information. And this is something I’ve talked about actually, over the over the, you know, this year, especially as the markets come down, you know, some of the history and what happens, it’s really kind of interesting. So let’s take a look at this. We’ve got a little chart here. Here we go. All right. So this is from Marketwatch. It was from an article where they did some research looking back, and what World War Two, so 1946, to now, and this is a little out of date only because, you know, we actually have just had a bear market. And I’ll point that out in a minute. But we have a five to 10% drop at four times since the end of World War Two. So if you think about it, I think it’s about 76 years since the end of World War Two. So more than once a year. So pretty common. Recovery time average is one month. All right, not bad. Still, you know, go through lots of those, we had lots of those last year, at least close to 10 to 20%, which is what we had for most of this year, up until this week, there’s 29 of those. So what’s that about every three years, give or take? four month recovery? Not bad, right? The next one is pretty rare. That’s where we are now 20 to 40%. And we’re just very at the top of that 22%. And there’s now 10, including this one. And the recovery time is 14 months. So just to answer the question, you know, in a brief sense, the average recovery time in a bear market, which would be more than 20%, is 14 months. And so we have a ways to go to kind of get out of this as far as that goes.
And then the very rare downturns, the really big ones, 40% or more, there’s only been three of those 1973 2000 2008. And that has a 58 month recovery. Yeah, so again, that’s good information. But for me, the one thing I focus on the most in my portfolio development is that big downturn, I believe that we should try to ride through pretty much everything else, and have the right stock and bond mixture, maybe move some little target pieces once in a while to try to take advantage of trends that you see happening, rebalancing, you know those types of things. But the problem with these big downturns is that they’re so long for recovery. Again, if I’m 75, and I’m living off of my retirement assets, you know, that 58 month recovery is going to be brutal. Yeah. And I’ve been through it, I’ve had clients, this, they’ve survived through 2008, you know, that type of thing. But that’s why I’m really watching these recession indicators. Because all of those had a recession attached to them, combined with, you know, some pretty serious market downturn, you know, motion. And so that’s, that’s the thing I’m looking at right now, are we in this just kind of standard bear market with a 14 month recovery, then you won’t kind of want to, you know, rebalance and just kind of take advantage of that, because 14 months, isn’t that long? It’s gonna seem longer, believe me, but are we going into this bigger downturn? Is 40% Plus type of thing or we haven’t? Are we going to add a number to that? Is that going to be a four instead of a three? And, you know, the one thing is, is that although the economy is starting to slow down, because of what the Federal Reserve is doing is still pretty hot. And so theoretically, the Fed could push the brake on the economy, hopefully bring inflation down to a certain point, and not kick us into recession. Right. But the markets worrying about that right now, let me tell you, and there’s a big battle of debate going on as to what might happen here. But that’s important to kind of understand the stats of the market, in my opinion.
Easan Arulanantham:
Yeah, where do you put the pandemic kind of downturn, because like, that was such a quick downturn, but the recovery was also so quick.
Tom Vaughan:
Yeah, well, it fits in that there was nine in the nine, you know, 20 to 40%, goes down 35%. And so it was one of those nine, and the recovery was faster than 14 months, but 14 months is the average. So you’re gonna have you know, some at 20 and some at 10. You know, whatever it might be, and the pandemic was kind of unique because it created a response from the government that was so dramatic. And that’s what we’re paying the price for that now, right? I mean, the amount of money that came out and stimulus from the Congress, the Federal Reserve the Treasury, I mean, it was unprecedented, we’d probably be talking about Great Depression, if they hadn’t done it, in my opinion. And so there’s a lot of people worrying about what’s happening right now, if we could run a parallel universe where they didn’t do all of that stimulus, you would be talking about something else, because we got up to what 15 million unemployed people overnight, we’re down to what five now give or take. So we’ve reabsorbed, you know, people back into the workforce at a pretty good clip. There’s, you know, two jobs open for every one person looking. I mean, it’s, it’s a pretty strong scenario altogether. But there is a price to pay for that, too. And that’s what we’re paying now. So, pandemic fits into that. Last one.
This one’s different, because this is more of a potential financial issue. Depends on what the Federal Reserve does. And so there’s so much so much emphasis placed on looking at what the Federal Reserve is saying. And I tell you what, this last meeting, I thought they said some things that didn’t make sense to me, really, for the first time. And also, one of the problems for the Fed Reserve, in my opinion, is over the last 12 months, the market has been saying, Hey, here’s how much rates are going to increase. Here’s what’s going to happen, here’s what’s going to slow down, the market has been much more accurate as a whole than the Fed. When because from their reports, they were saying X, Y and Z the market saying Nope, it’s going to be worse than that, or higher rate increases or whatever it might have been. The markets been right and the Feds been wrong. So the Feds continually trying to catch up. And of course, you know what, you have seven I can’t remember seven or eight, essentially economists, public servants, so to speak, writing the Federal Reserve one of them are important portions of our economy. But the market is made up of this just ginormous, you know, money machine, and lots and lots of money’s being placed into trying to see where things are going. And maybe the markets a little bit better at it than then the Fed. So we’ll see. But anyway, that’s that’s a good question. 14 months is the answer but we really hope we don’t get to that 58 month one. I don’t want to add a number to that three. Let’s keep it at three be my preference, but gotta gotta be aware. All right.