Tag Archives: Stock Market

How the Market Keeps Winning While the Headlines Keep Warning

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Dear Mr. Market:

You sure know how to keep us guessing.

“The bubble is about to pop”, right? After years of the constant drumbeat about an “inevitable” recession, the market is sitting near record highs again. But for those paying attention, the mood under the surface feels different. The leadership baton is being transferred …not toward the headline-making names that powered the last leg of the bull run, but toward the quiet, defensive corners of the market: utilities, healthcare, and consumer staples. The kinds of stocks you buy when growth gets wobbly and investors start seeking shelter.

And yet, despite the sector rotation, the broader indexes remain firm. It’s almost as if you’re daring us to overthink it.

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The Broken Clock Investor: Always Warning, Rarely Winning

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Dear Mr. Market:

One of our favorite recurring themes here at Dear Mr. Market is what we like to call the “Broken Clock Club” — the group of perma-bears, doomcasters, and media pundits who reliably forecast financial catastrophe year after year. Like a broken clock, they’re eventually right… but for all the wrong reasons and far too late to be of any use to investors.

Let’s rewind to December 2023. Headlines were ablaze with bold predictions of economic calamity. Chief among them was the infamous economist Harry Dent, who warned of a 1929-style market crash hitting in early 2024. (click here to review that article that grabbed a lot of nervous eyeballs back then). Dent’s call wasn’t exactly an outlier; it echoed a chorus of dire predictions centered on Fed policy, inflation hangovers, geopolitical instability, commercial real estate defaults, and consumer weakness.

Yet here we are, approaching mid-2025, with the S&P 500 not only above its December 2023 levels, but clawing its way back and approaching highs throughout the first half of this year. What gives?

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Bulls, Bears, and Ballots: Election Years & the Stock Market

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Dear Mr. Market:

If you’re watching an NBA basketball game and you have one player to take a final shot to win the game, who do you choose? Like him or not the guy who has scored the second most points in the history of basketball is LeBron James and he has made 50.5% of all shots he’s ever taken. Let’s switch sports to much worse odds, like baseball, where the average hitter is around .250 for a batting average. Even the best the game has ever seen was the great Ty Cobb who hit .366 for his career. Speaking of winning or losing, the mecca of odds making is in Las Vegas of course, and if you’re ever interested in losing money, just know that on average you can come out with a winning blackjack hand only 42.4% of the time.

New year, fresh canvas, but pretty much the same problems….So what are the odds of the market going up, down, or sideways in 2024?

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100 Reasons Why Your Financial Advisor Should Not Use Mutual Funds

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Dear Mr. Market:

The stock market is made up of thousands of choices and one easy way to gain exposure to it is via mutual funds. While we don’t want to broad brush the topic, we’re going to get right into it and explain 100 reasons why you or your financial advisor should not be using mutual funds versus ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds).

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Fed up

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Dear Mr. Market:

The past two months in the stock market have been treacherous and truly tested the average investor’s nerves. Most of us are close to being “fed up” with the headlines, inflation, political division and ensuing market volatility. Before we get into the headline of the day, let’s quickly touch on the operative word, “Fed” and how completely wrong the Federal Reserve has been at just about every turn. The following timeline comes from The Kobeissi Letter, an industry leading commentary on the global capital markets:

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Bull Market Respite or Bear Market Rally?

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Dear Mr. Market:

Let’s first remind our readers again of who this “Mr. Market” character is. Our investment blog and star personality is in reference to Benjamin Graham’s metaphor in his book “The Intelligent Investor,” where he personifies the stock market as Mr. Market, an emotional and erratic character. Over the past few decades, rarely have we seen such unprecedented market action but also a total tug of war between emotions, volatility, politics, and who will win ; the bulls or the bears. If you’re in the camp of being scared, confused, or frustrated…you are definitely not alone.

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Thanksgiving Thoughts

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Dear Mr. Market:

Aside from extending our warmest wishes to you for a Happy Thanksgiving, we want to remind you that there is something else happening this time of year. We’re entering the strongest part of the year for the stock market as well as one that historically has the best chance to surprise everyone to the upside now that the midterm elections have passed.

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Permanent Portfolio Review

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Dear Mr. Market:

Simple allocation ?

In a year where the stock market has provided zero safe places to hide…you may have changed, the markets certainly have, but one thing has not; the Permanent Portfolio.

We’ve reviewed the Permanent Portfolio before but believe it’s time to check in and provide an update on how it’s doing relative to the broad markets now as well as chime in on whether the strategy still has merit going forward. For some quick background, our first original review was written in June of 2013 (click here to see that). Most recently we revisited the topic with an update in November of 2020 (click here) as we climbed out of one of the wildest years in world history amidst a global pandemic.

If you didn’t hit the embedded article links above, the Permanent Portfolio is pretty simple at face value. The Permanent Portfolio is a seemingly basic portfolio allocation strategy created by investment advisor Harry Browne in the 1980’s and outlined in his book Fail-Safe Investing back in 2001. Here’s the secret (simple) sauce and how each asset class should do during repeatable economic cycles:

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Head Nodders and Recency Bias

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Dear Mr. Market:

“In the business world the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.”

Everyone following the markets is aware that we’re dealing with global economic stresses, a bottle necked supply chain, geopolitical tensions, 40 year highs with inflation, rising rates, and literally the worst start to a stock market year since 1970. It’s got the entire crowd nodding their heads in agreement that these are some brutal times. We’re also clearly in an environment with much groupthink and division…but more on that later.

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Stock Market Correction: Finally!

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Dear Mr. Market:

Finally. It’s here….a bonafide stock market correction. What’s also almost here is Groundhog Day…but more on that in a minute. For those of us with short memories we’ll have to do the necessary preamble and small talk refresher on what this is. For those of you who remember what you did (or were supposed to do/not do) during the last correction, here we go again. Do you remember the fantastic Bill Murray movie “Ground Hog Day”? Click here for the last time we wrote about it but again….people seem to forget what they ate for breakfast so you may not remember what happened in 2018.

Oh… but “it’s different this time“, right? Those are indeed the four most dangerous words in investing. Are there problems to worry about? YES!!!! (but there always has been and always will be)

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