January 20, 2019

by Steve Stofka

If your twin brother went away on a spaceship a month ago and looked at the current price level of the SP500, he wouldn’t see much change. What a month it has been! A 7% drop in stock price the week of December 17th, followed by a Christmas Eve when Santa left a lump of coal in investor’s stockings, followed by a government shutdown.

Let’s say your twin brother went off to the Romulan Galaxy on a spaceship flying near the speed of light on October 1, 2007. He has just come back and has aged a few weeks. You have aged a great deal. The financial crisis, the housing crisis, the job crisis, the crisis crisis. No wonder you look older. There are too many crises.

Your twin brother notes a similarity in the behavior of the stock market the past few months and the fall of 2007 when he took his starflight cruise. What similarity you ask? He hauls out his Romulan graphing tool and shows you a plot comparison of SP500 prices (SPY) in the fall of 2007 and the fall of 2018. Not only does your twin brother look younger but he also got a Romulan grapher on his journey. It is not fair.

“In both periods, prices fell about 15% in 15 weeks,” your brother says.

“They happened to fall the same percentage in the same amount of time,” you answer.  “That probably happens all the time and we just don’t notice.”

“15-20% drops in as many weeks doesn’t happen all the time,” your brother says. “It happens when there are fault lines forming. It happened in December 2000, January 2008, again in August 2011 during another government shutdown, and now.”

“Sure, there are some trade problems and the government shutdown,” you protest, “but the economy is good. Employment is at all- time highs, wage gains were over 3% last month, and inflation is relatively tame.”

“Everything was still pretty good in December 2000 and January 2008,” your brother responds. “‘A healthy correction after a price boom,’ some said. ‘The market is blowing off the excess froth before going higher,’ others said. At both times, there was something far more serious going on. We just didn’t know it.”

“You got pretty smart in the time you were gone,” you tell your brother. “Can I get one of those Romulan graphers?”

“Yes, I bought one for your Christmas present 11 years ago,” your brother says and hands you a grapher from his spacesack. “Tell me, what are these picture phones that people are carrying around now? I don’t remember them from when I left. And what’s Facebook?”