Quote for the Week

Before I came down to Wall Street in 1914 the future of the stock market had already been forecast — once for all — in the famous dictum of JP. Morgan the elder: “It will fluctuate.” It is a safe prediction for me to make that, in future years as in the past, common stocks will advance too far and decline too far, and that investors, like speculators — and institutions, like individuals — will have their periods of enchantment and disenchantment with equities. — Ben Graham (source)

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Despite the selloff over the last two months, the broader markets are positive through three quarters of 2023. U.S., international, and emerging market indexes declined in August and September.

The S&P 500 finished the third quarter with a 13.1% return year to date, down from 16.9% at the end of the second quarter. The international market index closed the quarter at 7.6%, down from 12.1% in Q2. Emerging markets dropped to 2.2% at the end of Q3, down from 5.1% in Q2.

Both REITs and high-yield bonds (Agg index) turned negative for 2023, due to third-quarter declines. But cash (a basket of short-term T-Bills) and high-yield bonds buck the trend with gains over the last three months. High-yield bonds rose to 6% on the year, while cash rose to 3.7% year to date.

A note before getting to the 2023 numbers. The asset class, sector, international markets, and emerging market return quilts are up-to-date through the third quarter. Hit the links for each one.

There are four tables below. The sector, developed market, and emerging market tables break down 2023 returns by month. The global returns table shows 2023 returns by quarter.

Nine months into the year, the tables offer a few broader lessons for investors: Continue Reading…

Quote for the Week

When the markets were shaken by the Russian situation, a lot of the normal relationships between different markets were thrown off — say, the relationship between the prices of corporate bonds and treasury bonds. When these relationships get out of line, they can be a profitable opportunity because eventually they can be expected to return to normal. But this time they did not return to normal or, at least, not soon enough. The analytical system that Long-Term Capital Management used to exploit such opportunities works 99.9 percent of the time. But because they had borrowed so heavily, that very unusual deviation of the markets, which might occur 0.1 percent of the time, caused them almost to run out of capital…

If Long-Term Capital had been forced to liquidate, the deviations from the normal behavior of bonds and other investments would have been even greater and the effects on the banks would have been even worse. That is why the New York Federal Reserve intervened. One really interesting thing is that it showed how faulty are the methods banks use to assess and manage risks. — George Soros (source)

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Quote for the Week

The really hard part about investment policy is not figuring out the best feasible combination. While it takes some time and analytical discipline, this part of the problem-solving is far from advanced science.

The really hard part is managing ourselves: our expectations and our interim behavior. Walt Kelly’s Pogo puts it as “we have met the enemy and he is us.” Most investors are too optimistic about the long run and much too optimistic about how well they will do compared to the averages, so they set themselves up for disappointment.

Even worse, most investors do harm to their longer-term investment results by trying and trying again to do better: changing managers and changing asset mix at the wrong time and in the wrong way. — Charles Ellis (source)

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Quote for the Week

My ability to forecast the market is no better than anybody else’s, which means it’s quite poor. Some people are successful in calling one or two or even three turns in a row, but they are even worse off than I am because once somebody thinks he can forecast the market he tends to put increasing amounts of money behind his opinions. When he finally makes a mistake, he really gets destroyed…

As I said, I don’t know what the market is going to do. I don’t think most people are any good at forecasting swings either, so I think this leaves you with only two ways of approaching the market. In the first, you remain fully invested at all times, and every once in a while you stand up and take your losses like a gentleman. The other involves following a formula of one sort or another. — Robert Wilson (source)

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