The next topic in my Top 10 is “Take Risk”. Let’s start out with a simple question. Would you rather bet money at a casino or invest the money in the stock market? I purposefully phrased that question because I often hear the term, “gambling in the stock market.” That’s not true. Gambling is when you have a statistical disadvantage. The definition is “taking a risky action in hopes of a desirable result.” Casinos have the edge which is how they keep the lights on. The stock market offers odds of profitability in your favor yet so many people steer clear of it outside of their retirement plans.
A simple coin flip offers you a 50/50 chance. Over thousands of flips half the results end up as head, half as tails. We might get 5 heads in a row or more at some point, but over time we should see that occur with tails and everything evens out. In the end you should be break even in a 50/50 game if you wager the same amount on the same side each flip. Casinos and many gambling sites claim 50/50 odds in games like roulette, baccarat, and blackjack, but the best odds you typically find in a casino offer you about 49.5% chance of winning. Another way to look at it is the payout %. The highest casino games offer payouts of 99.5% (this would be extremely generous and usually closer to 98% or 99% on the high end. For every dollar you gamble you get 99 cents back. That 0.5%-2% is what Vegas is built on. The casinos know the longer you play, the more advantage they have.
So, if the stock market is a gamble, one would expect similar odds, right? Wrong. Using data from NASDAQ on S&P 500 returns over the past 10 years shows an average daily gain of 0.02%. By doing nothing except buying at the open and selling at the close (ignoring transaction costs) you have become the casino. If you bought 10 years ago and held, you’ve done even better with an 11% average annual return (7/9/14-7/9/24). With odds so far in your favor, why would you wager any money on a card or dice game when you have Mr. Market? Using monthly data from Yahoo Finance and looking at rolling 12 month performance figures of the S&P 500 from Jan 1, 1985 to July 1, 2024 there are 465 periods. Of those 465 periods, 366 of them delivered positive returns. That 79% success with an average annual return of 10%!
Again, why don’t more people take this deal? The reason people shy away is because we remember the catastrophes:1929 (not many of us), 1987, 2001, 1990(arguably), 2008, 2020,2022. Losing money hurts. The old adage “Tis better to have loved and lost than never loved at all” doesn’t apply to money. Anyone who has been rich and gone broke can attest. I truly believe that people would rather not make money than lose money. Having been in this business for some time now, the problem I see is psychological. We tend to get scared and shy away from risk. The market crashes and we sell to hunker down in cash. Then we miss the run-up. But when we run the math it’s a no brainer to stay invested. If history serves the longer you stay invested, the more money you make. This is the opposite of a casino where the odds are in their favor the longer you sit and play.
Using the same monthly data for the S&P 500 going back to Dec 1985 I searched for prolonged pullbacks of at least 20%. I threw 1990 in there because it was close at 15%.
Year | Market High | S&P Val | Market Low | S&P Val | % Loss | New Market | S&P Val | Months to recovery |
1987 | Sep-87 | 329.81 | Nov-87 | 230.3 | -0.30172 | Jul-89 | 346.08 | 22 |
1990 | Jul-90 | 358.02 | Oct-90 | 304 | -0.15089 | Feb-91 | 367.07 | 7 |
2000 | Sep-00 | 1517.68 | Mar-03 | 848.18 | -0.44113 | Sep-07 | 1526.75 | 84 |
2007 | Nov-07 | 1545.79 | Feb-09 | 735.09 | -0.52446 | Mar-13 | 1569.19 | 65 |
2020 | Feb-20 | 3235.66 | Apr-20 | 2498.08 | -0.22795 | Jul-20 | 3271.12 | 5 |
2022 | Mar-22 | 4530.41 | Sep-22 | 3585.62 | -0.20854 | Jul-23 | 4588.96 | 16 |
2000-2013 was brutal. 2000-2010 was referred to as the Lost Decade and it comprised of a crash, rebound, and another crash. These crashes were severe and long. Look at the rest on the list though, especially 2020 when the market sold off due to COVID. Remember how a recession was a sure thing, profits would fall, and the world was going to collapse? The stock market didn’t listen! The market was negatively affected for 5 months…5 months!? The S&P actually ended up being positive for the year. This particular pullback changed my outlook on investing. Many active managers got too conservative and missed the summer rebound that year. My mindset at the time was there was no way large cap tech could support their sky high price to earnings multiples in the midst of a worldwide shut down. They did. Had we just stayed invested things would have been just fine.
Now, there could be another lost decade lurking. What do you do if you don’t have 84 or 65 months to wait it out? Plan your spending and invest for your needs. The person who has all their money in stocks and also has a sizable spending goal is a ticking time bomb. Diversify! Have some money in bonds which were fantastic 2000-2012. Vanguard Total Bond Index was up every on of those years. Using index data from novelinvestor.com we can see the following annual returns based on calendar year:
Year | U.S. Large Caps | U.S. Small Caps | International Stocks | Emerging Markets Stocks | High-Grade Bonds | High-Yield Bonds | 60/40 |
1995 | 37.58% | 30.06% | 11.55% | -5.21% | 18.47% | 20.46% | 17.45% |
1996 | 22.96% | 16.49% | 6.36% | 6.03% | 3.63% | 11.27% | 10.31% |
1997 | 33.36% | 22.36% | 2.06% | -11.59% | 9.65% | 13.27% | 13.74% |
1998 | 28.58% | -2.55% | 20.33% | -25.34% | 8.69% | 2.95% | 10.58% |
1999 | 21.04% | 21.26% | 27.30% | 66.41% | -0.82% | 2.51% | 11.40% |
2000 | -9.10% | -3.02% | -13.96% | -30.61% | 11.63% | -5.12% | -5.05% |
2001 | -11.89% | 2.49% | -21.21% | -2.37% | 8.44% | 4.48% | -5.00% |
2002 | -22.10% | -20.48% | -15.66% | -6.00% | 10.26% | -1.89% | -10.45% |
2003 | 28.68% | 47.25% | 39.17% | 56.28% | 4.10% | 28.15% | 20.13% |
2004 | 10.88% | 18.33% | 20.70% | 25.95% | 4.34% | 10.87% | 8.29% |
2005 | 4.91% | 4.55% | 14.02% | 34.54% | 2.43% | 2.74% | 3.63% |
2006 | 15.79% | 18.37% | 26.86% | 32.55% | 4.33% | 11.77% | 10.48% |
2007 | 5.49% | -1.57% | 11.63% | 39.82% | 6.97% | 2.19% | 2.96% |
2008 | -37.00% | -33.79% | -43.06% | -53.18% | 5.24% | -26.39% | -21.51% |
2009 | 26.46% | 27.17% | 32.46% | 79.02% | 5.93% | 57.51% | 19.79% |
2010 | 15.06% | 26.85% | 8.21% | 19.20% | 6.54% | 15.19% | 9.58% |
2011 | 2.11% | -4.18% | -11.73% | -18.17% | 7.84% | 4.38% | -0.56% |
2012 | 16.00% | 16.35% | 17.90% | 18.63% | 4.21% | 15.58% | 9.81% |
2013 | 32.39% | 38.82% | 23.29% | -2.27% | -2.02% | 7.42% | 16.67% |
2014 | 13.69% | 4.89% | -4.48% | -1.82% | 5.97% | 2.50% | 4.39% |
2015 | 1.38% | -4.41% | -0.39% | -14.60% | 0.55% | -4.64% | -0.53% |
2016 | 11.96% | 21.31% | 1.51% | 11.60% | 2.65% | 17.49% | 7.63% |
2017 | 21.83% | 14.65% | 25.62% | 37.75% | 3.54% | 7.48% | 11.36% |
2018 | -4.38% | -11.01% | -13.36% | -14.25% | 0.01% | -2.27% | -3.98% |
2019 | 31.49% | 25.52% | 22.66% | 18.88% | 8.72% | 14.41% | 15.76% |
2020 | 18.40% | 19.96% | 8.28% | 18.69% | 6.10% | 7.51% | 9.13% |
2021 | 28.71% | 14.82% | 11.78% | -2.22% | -1.54% | 5.36% | 11.81% |
2022 | -18.11% | -20.44% | -14.01% | -19.74% | -13.01% | -11.22% | -9.92% |
2023 | 26.29% | 16.93% | 18.85% | 10.27% | 5.53% | 13.48% | 12.83% |
Average | 12.15% | 10.59% | 7.33% | 9.25% | 4.77% | 7.84% | 6.23% |
St Dev | 18.51% | 18.37% | 18.70% | 29.72% | 5.49% | 14.16% | 9.92% |
Sources:U.S. Large Caps: S&P 500 IndexU.S. Small Caps: Russell 2000 IndexInternational Stocks: MSCI EAFE IndexEmerging Markets: MSCI EM IndexREITs: FTSE NAREIT All Equity IndexHigh-Grade Bonds: Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond IndexHigh-Yield Bonds: BofAML High Yield Index
You see the average returns. The standard deviation is the amount of risk, higher =riskier. From 1995 through 2023 the S&P on average has delivered a 12% average rate of return with a standard deviation of 18.51. Since 2010 the S&P 500 has been the dominant index/asset class. It’s been tough to sell the idea of diversification. The far right column is my own and shows the return of a 60/40 moderate risk portfolio. This would be comprised of 30% S&P 500, 10% Russell 2000, 10% EAFE, 10% Emerging Markets, 30% High Grade Bond, and 10% High Yield. From 1995 through 2023 this portfolio would have 53% of S&P 500’s return with 53% of the risk. Pretty even trade off in reality but a hard one to swallow for the average investor who only is looking at the S&P.
Now running my own numbers using their data from 2000-2012 (the start of the first recession until the year just before the market hit it’s prior high after the second recession) looks like this:
| Average | Best | Worst | St Dev |
S&P 500 | 3.48% | 28.68% | -37.00% | 19.05% |
Russell 2000 | 7.56% | 47.25% | -34.00% | 21.42% |
MSCI EAFE | 5.03% | 39.17% | -43.00% | 24.17% |
MSCI EM Index | 15.05% | 79.02% | -53.00% | 36.32% |
Barclays Agg Bond Index | 6.33% | 11.63% | 2.00% | 2.66% |
BofA ML Hi Yield Index | 9.19% | 57.51% | -26.00% | 19.39% |
60/40 Portfolio | 3.24% | 20.13% | -21.51% | 11.80% |
Now look at our 60/40 portfolio. It’s performance is 93% of the S&P over this time frame with 62% of the risk. These are the statistics that make professional gamblers (Advantage Players, Card counters, and various other pros) salivate! While the S&P has dominated for a decade, it could be akin to flipping heads 10 times in a row. When it starts coming up tails and you’re stuck betting on heads, the law of averages starts to play out. Exhaustive studies have been done on this in regard to investing. It’s called Modern Portfolio Theory and Harry Markowitz won a Nobel Prize for it. MPT basically says that adding an asset class with a low correlation to other assets in a portfolio will reduce risk and potentially increase returns. In plain speak, it says we need to diversify.
Here's how each asset class correlates to the S&P 500:
Correlation with S&P 500 |
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S&P 500 | Russell 2000 | EAFE | EM | Hi Grade | Hi Yield |
1 | 0.86 | 0.82 | 0.47 | 0.17 | 0.67 |
This is why advisors add bonds and Emerging Markets stocks into portfolios. With the majority of assets in Large Cap US stocks (S&P) you need something with low correlation in case the S&P falters. What the math folks do behind the scenes is find out what combinations of portfolios maximize returns for a given level of risk. This is called the efficient frontier. Getting your portfolio on that efficient frontier is what I do. That doesn’t mean you have to throw caution to the wind, just take some risk. Look at the chart below from Young Research & Publishing Co. What it shows is that a portfolio of 100% bonds has a lower return and the same amount of risk as a portfolio of roughly 25% stocks and 75% bonds. Then you see the different combinations of portfolios increasing risk and return as we replace bonds with stocks.
So don’t hunker down in ultra safe assets. Take some risk! It pays over the long run. Just because you are adding some stocks doesn’t mean you are taking an inordinate amount of risk. As the last chart shows, it actually improves both your risk and return metrics. You have the edge when it comes to investing. The math is on your side. It isn’t a casino where the odds are stacked against you. But…don’t be a fool. If you know you need a certain amount, have that sitting in a short term bond fund or high yield money market 2-3 years ahead of your need or make sure you have a saving plan in place to achieve that spending goal. Maybe you want to go on a big trip or buy a new car outright. Money socked away in highly volatile assets may not be there when you need to pay for those things. It’s not an all-or-none decision when it comes to investing. Spread things around and make a plan.
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