Wednesday, September 22nd, 2021
- Stephen: If you’ve been wondering what’s going on with the stock market lately. All this news about China Evergrande, and the real estate over there. Then you’re going to want to watch the rest of this video. I’m your host, Stephen Rischall, along with my cohost Chris Carter. And this is the Smart Money Show.
- Welcome back. Thanks for tuning in. You know, we’ve got a lot to talk about today and we want to cut right into it. Because a lot of people have been asking us questions about what’s going on with the stock market. Are we in for some sort of a correction here in the near term? So Chris, I want to ask you that question and toss it right back over to you.
- Chris: Yeah, certainly a volatile week for sure. And the title of this segment of the Smart Money Show is a lot packed into it. Let’s dive right in. Markets around the world tanked on Monday because China’s second largest property developer Ever Grand is about to default on 19 billion with a B billion dollars in debt. Now over the years, the company borrowed tons of money and lent it out to Chinese people who wanted to buy homes.
- The company’s business practices have long been questioned, but now we’ve reached a point where they’re unable to make interest payments on their debts and they could default. And that’s what sent global stock markets into a tizzy on Monday. Some pundits. Some people are saying that the financial crisis of 2008 was caused by similar problems at Lehman brothers back in the day. You know, are we staring down another global financial crisis, it’s an important question.
- And that’s, that’s possible of course, but we don’t think we do not think a global economic meltdown is likely because the Chinese government will probably step in and shore up Ever Grand’s books. It’s their nature to control the Chinese economy. And the government has a tendency to bail out troubled companies. Now we may not see what the Chinese government is doing because they usually don’t talk about the steps that are taking. But if history is any guide, officials will intervene.
- Stephen: Well, Chris, let me ask you real quick, do you then think this is anything like, I’ve heard some of the headlines in England, you know, it’s, China’s Lehman’s moment. Lehman’s brother’s moment. I mean, there’s some similarities, but this doesn’t seem really anything like what we had in 2008 during that financial crisis here in the U S.
- Chris: No, no. And, and our view here at Nava line, isn’t, you know, we’re not the only ones, you know, thinking this way. On Monday, I believe S and P global ratings said the same thing they think in Ever Grand default could cause financial volatility, but it’s unlikely to bring about another 2008 style global financial crisis.
- We could both be wrong of course, but we’ll have to wait and see. Well, you know what, let’s take a slightly different approach. Stephen let’s let’s consider what investors would do, even if the Ever Grand story does get ugly. Even if that situation stabilizes, there are plenty of other issues that threaten the market right now. Obviously the Delta variant of COVID. The debt ceiling inflation. Fed reserve policy. You know, could we be at a tipping point, is the market about to tank? And if so, what should investors do?
- Stephen: Yeah, I mean, that’s a, that’s a really good point, Chris. And, you know, we don’t really know what’s going to happen in the future. We never know what’s going to happen in the future. The market could enter a correction or a bear market because of Ever Grand. While we don’t think that’s likely, or some other reasons that you mentioned a lot of other potential reasons and things have been weighing on the market and, you know, let’s face it.
- We’ve really gotten so used to seeing accounts and portfolios in the market, just going up and up and up every day, especially every month. So, you know, when the inevitable drop happens, people might be rather surprised and might be a little bit worried. So it’s understandable. I’m going to share real quick on the screen, this chart that just shows the total returns. It helps when you put things in perspective. So when we zoom out from the chart, like we say, I’m going to put this into perspective here in terms of what has been the S and P five hundreds total returns over the last 10 years.
- It shows how easy it is to get complacent in here, right? I mean, so far year to date through, you know, the end of last month, August, you know, 21.5, 8%, that’s absolutely blazing growth. You know, over 17% or sorry, 18% last year, over 31% the year before in 2018. Finally, you know, we had that, that drop, but other than that, the, the past decade has been really good for investors.
- Chris: Yeah. Even when the market tanked in 2020, it recovered very quickly. So, you yeah. We’re used to, you know, always making money recently and not losing any. So, you know, that experience can lead to misguided expectations. What I’m saying is, I don’t know what’s going to happen with Evergrande or other current events, but I do think investors should remember that corrections and bear markets are a natural part of investing. Right? In fact, corrections, which again, by definition, a correction is a loss of more than 10%, but less than 20%.
- They happen every, you know, just shy of every two years, about 1.8, seven years on average, according to Investopedia. So that means we’re probably due for one, it’s been a while. Having said that it’s historically taken, you know, only about six months for those losses to be made up. You know, it’s never comfortable when we go through those, those periods obviously, but they do tend to recover fairly quickly. That’s no guarantee of the future of course. Just an average of what happened in the past, but it, it argues against trying to time the market for sure. Bear markets. So corrections are between 10 and 20% pullbacks. A bear market is when the market loses 20% or more. And they happen on average about every 11 years.
- Since 1926 bear markets have meant losses of between 21 and 87%. Obviously that was a long time ago, but historically bear markets have lasted between six months and three years, but the bear market of 2020, you know, that lasted 33 days. 33 days, the shortest bear market in history. But again, none of this is a guarantee of what, what might happen in the future, just looking at, at, at history. And if, and if that’s true, what’s also interesting is that since 1950, I read this the other day that for every day the market dropped there, I think two and a half days when the market went up.
- Basically that means that in any given day, the market has about a 72% chance of going up and, you know, those are all odds you really don’t want to bet against. So I guess the bottom line here is just to kind of wrap up is that when the market goes up, it’s easy to forget that it’s quite normal for it to fall as well. Corrections happen every couple of years, bear markets happen too. We just haven’t had any really painful, extended market experiences in a long time. So we’re not used to it.
- But it could happen soon. When it does for whatever reason. It’s important not to go into shock. Instead, remember that investing is a long-term proposition and long-term investors have historically been rewarded for, you know, not reacting to those negative market events like corrections in bear markets.
- Stephen: Right. And I mean, look at it. The other thing too, to keep in mind that helps is look, we do this show for fun and for clients and to share important information and updates. We’re not the financial news media. And we have to remember with perspective the financial news media they’re in the ratings business. So, you know, it’s very easy for them to really pile into a story like they did early this week. Like we started talking about China, Evergrande.
- Stephen: But the reality is like, Chris, you said, this is nothing new. You know, the Chinese real estate, market’s been sort of iffy for quite some time. And you know, this is not new news, but it’s just the news of the day. So quiet down the news of the day, focused on your long-term plan.
- Hey, if you enjoyed this video today, if you found this interesting and informative and helpful, be sure to share it with your friends and your loved ones, because they might be thinking about some of the same things you are like, Hey, should I be selling everything from my portfolio right now? The answer to that, probably not. So until next time, this is the Smart Money Show. I’m Steven Rochelle, that’s Chris Carter, and we’re helping you get smart with money.