Look at a chart of the S&P 500 from 1920 to 2008 and you'll notice something rather curious: the stock market has gone parabolic ever since the financial crisis. What made this period so unique? Tremendously low interest rates coupled with quantitative easing dissuaded capital from financing the real economy and instead encouraged herding and levering up in the financial economy for returns.<p>At ever dip, it was an open secret the Fed would cut rates and ease again.<p>At least for now, that game is over. We've had moments in the past when the markets had a similar panic (see 2018), but this period is unique due to the inflationary backdrop. Since 2008 we've never seemed to be able to create significant economic growth or inflation greater. The COVID fiscal canon blew growth and inflation skyward. The fed can't just turn on the printers again or cut rates until we hit proper a proper recession.<p>That's when you buy the dip.<p>[0]: <a href="https://www.macrotrends.net/2324/sp-500-historical-chart-data" rel="nofollow">https://www.macrotrends.net/2324/sp-500-historical-chart-dat...</a>
I lived through the dot-com crash and got out safely after hearing something so ludicrous that I had to ask myself "How insane does this industry have to be for someone to think they can build a high growth internet company out of home cement delivery?" My memory may be playing tricks, but it was something like that.<p>After 2008 I became interested with crashes throughout history. There are so many fascinating little details that added up to one giant mess.
Sad to think that investing in the stock market, which I have only been able to financially over the last 5 years might have been much riskier than I might have previously thought. What I previously thought as "okay I just leave it in the stock market for a bit of time to recoup" is something I am now realizing would likely have to be 10+ years.<p>It's kind of funny because I was getting shaky about having money in the stock market back in December, and I held onto investing some of my money there. But I ultimately relented 4 months later to lose 10% within about two weeks (and after just index funds). Now it's much worse, and I guess I'll just leave it all there.<p>And in 15 years I'll be back to where I was when I originally invested it.
If interest rates continue to increase, the market is in for a very rough time.<p>COST is about 40 PE right now which implies 2.5% trailing yield. You can get 3.1% on a 10y treasury risk free right now.<p>Of course equities have growth potential, but also risk, typically the spread between risk free rate and equity yields is much higher.<p>Plenty of 30-40 PE companies at index level with close to 0 growth. Companies like NET still at 30x sales.<p>If inflation persists and the 10y runs to even 3.5-4%, could be looking at close to 50% downside. However there are signs that the consumer is likely to collapse within the next 6 months, which should lead to disinflation, but also likely an earnings recession
The Federal Reserve has taken on $9 trillion onto their balance sheet to flood the economy with money.<p><a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttrends.htm" rel="nofollow">https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttren...</a><p>They’ve lowered short-term interest rates to effectively 0 and kept them there for quite a number of years.<p>Federal and State governments have flooded the economy with stimulus.<p>There is so much money that has been injected into the economy that it is no wonder that every asset has gone up so much. It is no wonder we have such high inflation. The trick now will be to stop it before we have a wage-price spiral where employees demand higher wages to compensate for higher prices which leads to even higher prices.<p>Expect the Fed now to be raising interest rates, taking $47.5 billion out of the economy per month starting in June and then $95 billion per month starting in September.<p><a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/monetary20220504b.htm" rel="nofollow">https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/mone...</a><p>I think what’s coming is going to look at lot more like the dotcom bust than it will 2008. So I think the article’s caution on buying dips this time around is warranted.
It feels like the vast majority of the comments are negative towards the stock market and essentially saying “we may not recover this time”. The thing is, we always think that. We always think this time is different. We always think this might be the end. When Covid struck? It was different because the world economy was shut. When 2008 happened? It was different. 2000? Different. 1987? Different.
Markets will eventually recover. It will not take you 4 decades to recover. Sure, it could take years. But buy good companies, dollar cost average, and realize your loss isn’t realized until you sell.
Also realize that the best time to buy stocks is always, but especially when people are flooding forums with negativity.
> Buying the dip isn’t some secret strategy. Time is the secret strategy.<p>Ah yes, the good ol' "time in market beats timing the market".<p>Of course, that assumes that markets trend upwards in the (very) long term. Which... if past performance is any indicator of future performance [0], the past 100 years provide a fairly compelling narrative.<p>[0] Another mantra: it's not.
Another thing to look at is the CAPE ratio. Even now, it's still above 30. We've gone from around a 37 to a 32. Mean/median is in the 16-17 range. DotCom crash in 1999 topped out at around 44.<p>Still a lot of room to fall.
Random thoughts:<p>(1) People were deeply and extremely risk-averse coming out of the 2008 crisis. And now we are _starting_ to see the other end of that spectrum. However, we are still far from the heights/throes of the dot-com boom. Those were some insane times when nothing even mattered.<p>(2) But keep in mind, the main driver of global economy is still increasing standard of living and middle class. And that’s far from over. We are still roughly 50% into land grab.<p>(3) If current pace of inflation persists, then you want to be in equities chasing cash flow in enterprises with pricing power. What you don’t want is to stay in cash. It appears counterintuitive because of all the things we experienced in 2000 and 2008. A vast majority of investors still base investment decisions with those two crises in mind. It’s a significant handicap.
Nick Maggiulli:<p>> <i>Logically, it seems like Buy the Dip can’t lose. If you know when you are at a bottom, you can always buy at the cheapest price relative to the all-time highs in that period. However, if you actually run this strategy you will see that Buy the Dip underperforms DCA over 70% of the time.</i><p>> <i>This is true despite the fact that you know exactly when the market will hit a bottom.</i> Even God couldn’t beat dollar-cost averaging.<p>> <i>Why is this true? Because buying the dip only works when you know that a severe decline is coming and you can time it perfectly. Since dips, especially big ones, haven’t happened too often in U.S. market history (i.e. 1930s, 1970s, 2000s), this strategy rarely beats DCA. And the times where it does beat DCA require impeccable timing. Missing the bottom by just 2 months lowers the chance of outperforming DCA from 30% to 3%.</i><p>* <a href="https://ofdollarsanddata.com/even-god-couldnt-beat-dollar-cost-averaging/" rel="nofollow">https://ofdollarsanddata.com/even-god-couldnt-beat-dollar-co...</a><p>The thing about trying to miss the worst days (get out before the dip, get in after), is that the 'best' (recovery) days are often not long after, and if you miss just a few of those your returns get hosed:<p>> <i>If you missed just the 25 strongest days in the stock market since 1990, you might as well have been in five year treasury notes.</i><p>* <a href="https://theirrelevantinvestor.com/2019/02/08/miss-the-worst-days-miss-the-best-days/" rel="nofollow">https://theirrelevantinvestor.com/2019/02/08/miss-the-worst-...</a><p>> <i>This is actually a pattern, it turns out. The market’s worst days tend to be followed by its best days, according to research from J.P. Morgan Asset Management.</i><p>> <i>If you sell when the markets hit the skids, you’ll likely miss the upside.</i><p>[…]<p>> <i>According to J.P. Morgan’s analysis, the 10 best days over the past 20 years occurred after big declines amid the 2008 financial crisis or the 2020 pullback during the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.</i><p>* <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/09/you-may-miss-the-markets-best-days-if-you-sell-amid-high-volatility.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/09/you-may-miss-the-markets-bes...</a>
Index investing will work, if you live for a long time. The problems are, we do not live infinitely, and the average person does not have the stomach to see their investment going down for years, unless that investment is small enough to tolerate (in which case it is not enough to make a big difference, for most people).<p>What I think will work - not claiming that it will actually work - based on history:<p>Invest in companies that are generating a lot of cash and a lot of profits, have a moat/USP/technology advantage, and are at the forefront of where the world is headed in terms of trends, or at least are following a sustainable trend. Yes, you need to identify the company. Yes, you need to take decisions: INTC vs AMD (1980s), YHOO vs GOOGL (2000s). But it gives you a much better chance of seeing a profit in your lifetime than index investing. You can still index invest, but only an amount you can "set and forget". This gives you the best of both worlds.<p>Edit: (1) What I posted above is for long periods of no movement of stocks except downwards, as I believe we are going to see. (2) Index investing will work eventually and that is what I said above as well. The point is, the time period required for that. (3) I thought of posting this on my blog tomorrow, but it is past midnight here, and I wanted to see what HNers think. It is interesting to see the different opinions. Time may change some of your opinions (not about "index investing will not work" - that is not what I said above - but rather, about the protection offered by diversification, and what diversification actually means. Also, quoting this part again: "the average person does not have the stomach to see their investment going down for years, unless that investment is small enough to tolerate (in which case it is not enough to make a big difference, for most people)").
While I appreciate many of the arguments being made - and there are countless similar situations (nifty 50 anyone) - that nasdaq is not the stock market it’s like 1/3rd of it… pop over to yahoo finance and look at the chart of the Russell 3000 Vs the nasdaq, this is why people recommend diversification…
I recommend reading the book “ Panic: The Story of Modern Financial Insanity” by
Michael Lewis. It’s a series of articles and expert opinions before and after modern market crashes that helps gaining perspective of expert opinions during the ups and downs of the market.
SNL skit from the dot-com era: <a href="https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1522798778725675009" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/152279877872567500...</a><p>Does anyone have a solid understanding of how QE affects the economy? From what I've read, QE basically stays locked in the financial system as interbank cash. I think this can affect short term interest rates, and therefore affect lending(and money creation by the big banks), but otherwise that money doesn't really drive inflation, at least not directly.<p>Based on that assumption, the real driver of inflation is the $5.4T in stimulus combined with supply-side shortages.<p>It's looking to me like inflation is here to stay. On-shoring, demographics(aging boomers), the end of cheap energy and many materials, and other factors seem to be putting the US on a different course than we've been on for ~100 years.
I'd love to better understand how crashes start / propagate. A lot of the discussion seems to talk in slightly binary terms - "bear" vs "bull", "crash" as an on/off state, etc. But if we think inflation and reduced stimulus are going to cause a downturn in the stock market, I assume different sectors / types of companies will get impacted at different times? I'd love to see some theories/discussion of how that might play out. Timing dips might be super hard, but predicting how they play out, once they're underway, might be less difficult
Buy the dip is always trumped by "don't try to catch a falling knife." If you can't tell the difference (I am not professionally trained to) then it may not be worth the effort.
>Why has this strategy been so profitable and painless? Well, because stocks have been in a bull market for thirteen years.<p>If "buy the dip" works for a bull market, does "short the peak" work for a bear market?
There's a marked difference between a dip and a cliff.<p>A dip, by definition, implies a continuation through a period of depressed price/earnings/some-metric. Buying at the bottom of a dip is logical.<p>A cliff implies a discontinuity. Almost nothing survives a fall of a cliff. Buying at the bottom of a cliff is therefore illogical.<p>The key is identifying when something is heading for a dip or a cliff.
> Buying the dip isn’t some secret strategy. Time is the secret strategy.<p>There is a Dutch guy out there with some rotted tulips who begs to differ.
Starting early is the best way of getting ahead to build wealth, investing remains a priority. The stock market has plenty of opportunities to earn a decent payout, with the right skills and proper understanding of how the market works. You can reach out to Norrel Smith on his email norrelsmith8 @ gmail .com
Can some of you share what are the ways to hedge against tumbling NASDAQ? The article is assuming we swing only a single bat. To me it seems spreading your investment into fixed dollar amount over a period of time is a sensible strategy.
Sorry, the standard of living for the night class has been declining for decades, and the rate of decline accelerating. Anyway, buy the dip works in the bull market and doesn't end up bear market, it's as simple as that.
No technique always works. Buying the dip is just that, a technique, not a promise. This is a single example at a specific (long-term) time-frame with many other factors involved.
The story of my country has been one of decadence and degeneracy since the 1960s but the 90s were peak Sodom and Gomorrah. I'm glad I experienced it.