February 4, 2018

by Steve Stofka

We tell ourselves stories. Here’s one. The stock market fell over 2% on Friday so I sold everything. Here’s another story. After the stock market fell 2+% on Friday, the SP500 is up only 21% since 2/2/2017. Wait a second. 21%! What was the yearly gain just a few days earlier? 24%! Yikes! How did the market go up that much? Magic beans.

Here’s another story. Did you know that there has been a rout in the bond market? Yep, that’s how one pundit described it. A rout. Let’s look at a broad bond composite like the Vanguard ETF BND, which is down 4% since early September, five months ago.  The stock market can go down that much in a few days. Bonds stabilize a portfolio.

Two stories. Story #1. The Recession in 2008-2009 produced a gap between actual GDP and potential GDP that persists to this day. To try to close that gap, the Federal Reserve had to keep interest rates near zero for almost eight years and is only gradually raising interest rates in small increments.

Story #2. The Great Recession was an overcorrection in a return to normal. The GDP gap was closed by 2014. Here’s a chart to tell that story. It’s GDP since 1981. I have marked the linear trends. The first one is from 1981 through 1994. The second trend is an uptick in growth from 1995 to the present.

What do these competing narratives mean? For two years the economy has been growing at trend. Should the Federal Reserve have started withdrawing stimulus sometime in 2015, instead of waiting till 2017? Perhaps chair Janet Yellen and other members were worried that the economy might not sustain the growth trend. A do-nothing incompetent Congress could not agree on fiscal policy to stimulate the economy.  The extraordinary monetary tools of the Federal Reserve were the only resort for a limping economy during the post-Recession period.

Ms. Yellen’s last day as Fed chair was Friday. She served four years as vice-Chair, then four years as chair. During her tenure, she was the most powerful woman in the history of this country. She was even-tempered in a politically contentious environment. She kept her cool when  testifying before the Senate Finance Committee.  A tip of the hat to Ms. Yellen.

////////////////

Performance

Vanguard recently released a comparison of their funds to the performance of all funds.

///////////////