From the Desk of Joe Rollins
I often refer to the above quote by the famous investor Sir John Templeton to explain what is currently going on in marketplaces. Not a single day goes by that I am not confronted by the question from clients regarding the ever-advancing stock markets. It seems that everyone would like to project the decline in the market since everyone now has become an expert on valuations of stock. In each of those cases, I attempt to talk clients out of any rash moves since we all know that “market timing” is virtually impossible, but it is really difficult to convince clients of that fact. So in this writing, I thought I would explain why we have not reached the level of “euphoria”, referred to above, by Sir John Templeton.
While it is certainly not 1999 again, for too many reasons to explain, I will give you the basics of the difference between then and now. And we certainly cannot party like it is 1999 any longer. Also, I want to reflect back on the incredible year of 2020, which none of us are sad to see pass. If you are not excited about the upcoming 2021 year, you really do not have a firm concept of basic economics. In Economics 101 we learned the importance of supply and demand. We all learned that if the demand is higher than the supply, then prices will most assuredly rise. We learned many other basic economic provisions during those years in school that will come into play during the 2021 year. I will try to explain all of those.
Ava (9) and
CiCi enjoying a Florida Christmas
At the beginning of every year, I try to make a projection for the upcoming year. If you refer to my blog posted in January 2020, you will note that I projected that the S&P 500 Index would be at a level of 3600 at the end of 2020. That projection reflected a total gain in that index of 13%. I am not disappointed to report that I actually missed that projection by roughly 5%. The S&P 500 Index finished the year at 3756, with a total return of 18.4% for the year 2020. But quite honestly, that does not tell the entire story.
So many investors have been lured into the mistaken concept that they can invest strictly in an index fund and outperform professionals who actually manage money. The year 2020 was a clear example of how flawed that concept really is. Most of the actively managed mutual funds with professional management teams outperform the S&P 500 Index by a multiple of 1.5 to 2 times that rate of return. It was not unusual to find many actively managed growth funds that returned 35%-45% during 2020, far exceeding the level of index funds. There are many reasons for this outperformance, some of which I would like to point out later in this writing. Of course, I want to give you my projection for 2021, which is always based on my reading of the economic data. If anyone could accurately forecast the future, they would certainly be too wealthy to write this monthly posting.
The Wilcox
family taking in the view
from Rabun Bald
I have so much to discuss and so little space, but I must give you the excellent financial results for the year 2020. Who would have ever thought in March of 2020, when the markets declined over 30%, that we would end the year setting all-time records in virtually all indexes? I guess you could say maybe I projected that, but even I had an uncertain comfort level with that projection. As the markets came roaring back in April through the rest of the year, there were many that fought the concept of higher returns and did not participate. In many cases, I talked until I was literally hoarse to convince clients to stay invested, but many elected otherwise. They missed the basic concept of economics that drives stocks higher. In this period of time liquidity exceeded the number of stocks available to buy and coupled with the avalanche of cash the government threw into the economy, stocks moved higher, notwithstanding the economy.
During the year 2020, the Standard & Poor’s Index of 500 stocks had a total return of 18.4% for the year. The five-year annual average for this index is 15.2% and the 10-year at 13.9%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average returned a total return of 9.7% during 2020 and has a five-year average return of 14.7% and a 10-year average return of 13%. The NASDAQ Composite, once again, was the leader having a sterling return in 2020 of 44.9% with a five-year average at 22.1% and a 10-year average at 18.5%. As you can tell, all of the one-year, five-year and 10-year numbers were excellent rates of return. Just to form a comparison, the Bloomberg Barclays Aggregate Bond Index was up 7.8% for 2020, has a five-year annual increase at 4.5% and 10-year annual increase of 3.8%. As you can tell, the bond index has not kept up with the sterling returns that the stock indexes have returned over the last decade.
The Schultz
family spending their Christmas
in beautiful Amelia Island, Florida
Recently, the 10-year Treasury Bond jumped over 1%, which by any definition is a historically low level. However, with the flush of cash provided to the economy by the Federal Reserve, almost assuredly we are facing inflation going forward. You could not expect that the Treasury furnishing $3.5 trillion worth of liquidity into the economy would not create a supply and demand issue related to certain hard assets. When this demand for hard assets exceeds the supply, you will eventually get inflation. It is my projection that by the end of 2021, the 10-year Treasury Bond will be closer to 2% than the 1% it is today. If that forecast is correct, during the year 2021, there is a high likelihood that cash earning the meager rates that it currently earns, will outperform the total return on bonds for the year 2021.
For those of you that are concerned about the current chaos in Washington, the only comfort level I can give you is that with the Congress being equally divided in both houses, there is hardly any likelihood of major change that will occur very quickly. It would be a miracle of legislative speed if a tax bill could be approved by Congress within a two-year period. Given that the Senate is exactly 50/50, it only takes one sitting Senator to make any bill impossible to pass. I think it speaks very well for the economy that Congress is likely to be in a period of chaos for some time to come. As we all know, the best years ever in investing occurs during times when the politicians do not affect our pocketbooks.
I have so many people that try to give the impression that the year 2020 was like the year 1999. Most investors today really weren’t around in 1999 and did not understand the dynamics of the market. That was a time when Dr. Alan Greenspan, as chairman of the Federal Reserve, was very concerned about the Y2K problems and flooded the economy in 1999 with a ridiculous amount of liquidity in order to avoid any potential risk of a Y2K meltdown. During that time, the so-called “dot.com” stocks came on selling at many times their value, given the potential of the newly formed internet. You can easily see where a company coming out of nowhere that can reach virtually everyone in the world at no cost would have huge potential. What we now know is, of course, many of these are not real companies and the run-up in the dot.com marketplace quickly failed in the year 2000. However, the major difference did not relate to any of these matters. The major difference related to what the Federal Reserve did to close down the dot.com era. In March of 2000, Dr. Greenspan immediately restricted the money flow and “choked” the financial markets to a major correction. Just as he hyperinflated the market in 1999, he deflated it in 2000. The strangulation of the economy was solely at his desire to burst the bubble of speculation in the dot.com era. Fortunately, we do not have a similar situation in 2020.
Caroline (6) and
Reid (5) Schultz taking
Santa’s chair in Rosemary Beach,
Florida
As the new Congress comes to be at the end of January 2021, you can expect that the spigots of governmental spending will explode. You can expect another stimulus package of higher rebates to taxpayers and more than ever before governmental spending for municipal projects and supporting municipal governments. If we had a Federal Reserve that was conscious regarding reducing the speculation, they would not have announced that there would be no significant rate increases through the end of 2023, three years from the beginning of this year.
As I have pointed out before, the decade that ended in 2019 was the only decade ever in the history of American finance that we did not have a recession. We actually did have a recession in 2020 for a couple of months, but the Federal Reserve dumped $3.5 trillion into the economy and, in turn, the economy came roaring back. Just in the last couple of weeks, Congress has approved to add an additional $900 billion stimulus directly into the economy. Along with that, I project, we will see a couple trillion dollars more in stimulus will come almost immediately. All of this money will create a gush of cash in the economy which will not only bring the economy back to life, but will almost assuredly lead to higher stock prices.
There are many commentators that have pointed out that cash levels sitting in checking accounts are at all-time highs. One of the reasons for this is when the economic fallout occurred in March of 2020, the average citizen in the U.S. was concerned about their future employment and the savings rate spiked to an all-time high of 35% in April of 2020. At the end of 2020, cash levels sitting in checking accounts were 15.3% higher than they were at the beginning of 2020. Now we are not talking about money in investments, we are talking about actual cash sitting in checking accounts. What has been proven over and over again is that cash sitting in checking accounts is not a savings vehicle, but rather a spending vehicle. It is only a matter of time before this cash will be put back to work, either in additional consumer goods or that cash will be invested. Even though we are standing at record levels of cash today in checking accounts, this number is only going to get larger as the Federal Government flows through additional stimulus that will end up in people’s checking accounts.
Jennifer,
Harper (11) and Lucy (9) Wilcox
admiring the festive light display
So, what we can assume in 2021 is that as we move forward, we are going to see less of the influence of the virus on the economy. As of this writing, it is believed that 23 million Americans have already contracted the virus and roughly 10 million have been vaccinated against the virus. Therefore, we have already reached a level of 10% of the population that has some level of immunity going forward. It is believed, and I concur, that there will be vaccination rollouts to the general public, which will lead to vaccinations of roughly 1 million per day going forward. If we are able to vaccinate 100 million people in the U.S. before the end of the first quarter of 2021, along with the people that have already contracted the virus, we will have reached the level where businesses can reopen, and a level of normal activity can return.
It is now projected that corporate earnings would increase roughly 38% in 2021 over earnings in 2020. What you will see almost assuredly is a flood of Americans this summer wanting to go on vacation and spending money for pleasure that they have missed during the pandemic and a rush to visit restaurants, movie theatres, cruise ships and airlines. All of this bodes extraordinarily well for earnings and the economy, and ultimately for stock prices.
What we will not see like we did in 1999 is the Federal Reserve pulling out the rug and tripping the economy. The Federal Reserve has already committed to long-term low interest rates and they intend to allow the economy to continue to accelerate which should be nothing but great for stock prices. I fully anticipate that the current euphoria in real estate prices will continue as more and more money chases hard assets such as real estate. We are seeing the effect of supply and demand on virtually all commodities. You are seeing record prices in copper, gold and other commodities that give you the impression that certainly inflation will eventually follow.
Printing all this money that the Federal Reserve is pushing into the economy is certainly a long-term negative and a short-term positive which, at some point, some generation will be tasked with the obligation of repaying. However, that is likely decades, rather than years, away. At the current time, the need to stimulate the economy was important in March 2020 but it appears that the economy has quickly recovered on its own and an additional stimulus will probably only accelerate asset appreciation in the coming months. Even though the negative for the future is well documented, we have years to prepare for that and we should participate in any market increases that occur due to this flooding of cash by our Federal Government.
Mia
Musciano-Howard and her
family enjoying
their annual,
traditional Christmas PJ picture
Sometimes, I like to reflect upon the growth of our firm here in Atlanta. In 2015, CNBC ranked our firm the 20th best financial advisor in the country. This is not an award that we asked for, applied for, paid for, or even actually knew was even going on. At that time, the information they utilized was from our SEC filing that listed our assets at $274 million. Today, five years later, we are approaching $1 billion dollars in assets with clients all over the United States, as well as clients in Europe and Asia. It has been a remarkable run of accumulation of assets and we are truly blessed with the clients that rewarded us with their hard-owned assets and allowed us to grow those assets for them.
At the beginning of every year, I give you my projection for the upcoming year for investing. It is impossible to project for 2021 based upon any type of documented price/earnings ratio. All these calculations are totally out of whack because of the extraordinarily low interest rates that we are enjoying today and the earnings that were unfairly punished during the pandemic in 2020. What would be different in 2021 is that we expect the earnings to come roaring back as the economy loosens up and we return to a normal lifestyle in the second half of 2021. But interestingly, we do not anticipate a large increase in interest rates which would normally be the result of a strengthened economy in 2021.
Morgan Miner and
her cat, Drake,
who is on the naughty list this year
Since the Federal Reserve has essentially guaranteed low interest rates for three more years, it appears that will allow the economy to accelerate based on its earnings without interruption of governmental intervention. Therefore, I expect that during 2021 we should see another excellent investment year that will be very satisfying for your long-term retirement needs. I see the S&P 500 Index ending the year at a level of 4400, which would mean that it would gain 644 points during 2021. This would be a total increase of 17%. In addition to that, the annual dividend rate of this index is roughly 2%. So, I project today that the total return for the S&P 500 for the year 2021 would be a total return of roughly 19%. This would be another extraordinary excellent year. I really hope I am correct.
What I do not expect to happen is that this really nice gain in 2021 will be straight up. I fully expect that it will be choppy along the way and there will be periods of time where there will be extraordinary volatility. Once again, I want to point out that any short-term disruption in the market is likely to be very short-term. While you will always have traders attempting to move the market to their benefit, just exactly where are they going to go to invest? As illustrated above, we do not believe that bonds form a reasonable alternative to stocks and the very low rates of returns on cash are not very attractive. Therefore, while the traders may move in and out of stocks, it is unlikely that they will be out very long. So, while you may see major swings of the market, these will only be temporary and will lead to a very satisfactory year before year-end.
We are also seeing strength throughout the world as the economies recover. Already in Asia, their economies are back to full capacity. You are seeing major advances in Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Southeast Asia. Already China is back in full production even though their political issues continue to overwhelm their financial markets. While Europe is not fully recovered, they are making significant progress. With the advent of the rollout of vaccines throughout the world by the summer of 2021, virtually all economies will have at least stabilized and start to move higher. All of this will lead to a worldwide rally in stock markets which is likely to be unprecedented in its coordinated move higher. Make no mistake that this coordination of higher economies is solely due to the assistance with the central governments of all those countries flooding their economies with liquidity. If for whatever reason the central governments elect not to continue to fund the economy, this projection may change. However, I highly doubt that any change will be in the offering in 2021.
Musciano-Howard
twins, Mitch and Marti (16)
So, in summary I am very optimistic for 2021 as compared to the pessimistic view held by many. One of the things I have been able to do to successfully invest, is to separate my feelings regarding most everything and rely upon all my instincts of economics regarding stock prices. Every time I hear a client express the negativity of restaurants not being open as a reason why the economy will not succeed gives me greater confidence that I am correct. As we went through 2020, we suffered huge economic declines, buy yet cash continued to accumulate in peoples checking accounts. Even though many will forever distain the activity of 2020, the vast majority of investors have benefited even from the turmoil of that year.
I fully expect 2021 to go through major ups and downs, but by the Fall of 2021 the outlook should be much clearer and more positive than today. For those of you that are not invested and refuse to invest due to your perceived conceptual idea of stock prices being too high really are not taking into account the economic benefits of the gusher of money reaching the economy by the Federal Government.
On that note, come visit with us and discuss your goals and financial plans. If you are interested in discussing your specific financial situation, please feel free to call or email.
As always, the foregoing includes my opinions, assumptions and forecasts. It is perfectly possible that I am wrong.
Best Regards,
Joe Rollins
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