Author: Tim Porter

Today the market dropped to a level that’s pricing in a recession later in the year. Recessions last on average 11 months and have an average pullback in the stock market of 30%. While there’s plenty of drama today about how to slow the spread of COVID-19, we believe the bad news is mostly priced in now and took advantage of the opportunity to buy some American stocks today. 

We bought Home Depot HD for the Growth Stock Portfolio and the SPDR Technology Fund XLK, which includes companies like Microsoft and Apple, in our Funds Portfolio.

We’re implementing Warren Buffet’s simple rule – be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful – he wrote about in a letter from Oct, 2008. I recommend you give it a read as we work this through this difficult situation.

– Bruce Porter & Tim Porter, CFP®

Buy American, I am – Warren Buffet Oct 16, 2008

The financial world is a mess, both in the United States and abroad. Its problems, moreover, have been leaking into the general economy, and the leaks are now turning into a gusher. In the near term, unemployment will rise, business activity will falter and headlines will continue to be scary.

So… I’ve been buying American stocks. This is my personal account I’m talking about, in which I previously owned nothing but United States government bonds. (This description leaves aside my Berkshire Hathaway holdings, which are all committed to philanthropy.) If prices keep looking attractive, my non-Berkshire net worth will soon be 100 percent in United States equities.

Why?

A simple rule dictates my buying: Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful. And most certainly, fear is now widespread, gripping even seasoned investors. To be sure, investors are right to be wary of highly leveraged entities or businesses in weak competitive positions. But fears regarding the long-term prosperity of the nation’s many sound companies make no sense. These businesses will indeed suffer earnings hiccups, as they always have. But most major companies will be setting new profit records 5, 10 and 20 years from now.

Let me be clear on one point: I can’t predict the short-term movements of the stock market. I haven’t the faintest idea as to whether stocks will be higher or lower a month or a year from now. What is likely, however, is that the market will move higher, perhaps substantially so, well before either sentiment or the economy turns up. So if you wait for the robins, spring will be over.

A little history here: During the Depression, the Dow hit its low, 41, on July 8, 1932. Economic conditions, though, kept deteriorating until Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in March 1933. By that time, the market had already advanced 30 percent. Or think back to the early days of World War II, when things were going badly for the United States in Europe and the Pacific. The market hit bottom in April 1942, well before Allied fortunes turned. Again, in the early 1980s, the time to buy stocks was when inflation raged and the economy was in the tank. In short, bad news is an investor’s best friend. It lets you buy a slice of America’s future at a marked-down price.

Over the long term, the stock market news will be good. In the 20th century, the United States endured two world wars and other traumatic and expensive military conflicts; the Depression; a dozen or so recessions and financial panics; oil shocks; a flu epidemic; and the resignation of a disgraced president. Yet the Dow rose from 66 to 11,497.

You might think it would have been impossible for an investor to lose money during a century marked by such an extraordinary gain. But some investors did. The hapless ones bought stocks only when they felt comfort in doing so and then proceeded to sell when the headlines made them queasy.

Today people who hold cash equivalents feel comfortable. They shouldn’t. They have opted for a terrible long-term asset, one that pays virtually nothing and is certain to depreciate in value. Indeed, the policies that government will follow in its efforts to alleviate the current crisis will probably prove inflationary and therefore accelerate declines in the real value of cash accounts.

Equities will almost certainly outperform cash over the next decade, probably by a substantial degree. Those investors who cling now to cash are betting they can efficiently time their move away from it later. In waiting for the comfort of good news, they are ignoring Wayne Gretzky’s advice: “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been.”

I don’t like to opine on the stock market, and again I emphasize that I have no idea what the market will do in the short term. Nevertheless, I’ll follow the lead of a restaurant that opened in an empty bank building and then advertised: “Put your mouth where your money was.” Today my money and my mouth both say equities.

That was the ominous query topping The Wall Street Journal’s “Money and Investing” section on March 9, 2009. Exactly 11 years ago today. I was sitting in our office with Bruce and we and our clients had just endured a 56% drop in the stock market over the previous 18 months. There was very little good news that day and we were all bracing for lower stock values.

That day marked the bottom of the stock market and was the beginning of the longest bull market (up market) in history.

Unfortunately, the title works for today too, as stocks fell again… Now down to a level from back in June of last year (see chart). 

Today’s news is that Russia and Saudi Arabia are engaged in an oil price battle, which dropped the price of oil 25% to $31/barrel. This is rattling a stock market already sick with COVID-19.

When markets go down like they have the last few weeks, and in 2008-9, investors tend to stay in the weeds and focus exclusively on short-term negative news to the detriment of anything long-term and/or positive. This is not helpful, but it is normal. Today let’s poke our heads up out of the weeds and take a look around.

COVID-19 will slow economic growth. 

True. Social distancing, event cancelations, and calls for quarantines will limit how much money consumers and businesses will spend. The falling price of oil today is reflecting this. In regards to large and small businesses, we are already getting reports that revenues are down, with the exception of Costco and a few others. Less revenues mean less profits, so stocks are falling. BUT there are a few silver linings:

• Lower oil prices mean more money in our pockets
• Lower interest rates to pay on our mortgages and for businesses to borrow and invest
• Housing is still strong
• Starting from a strong economy and low unemployment
• The administration is proposing a stimulus package tomorrow to help

COVID-19 will push us into recession.

Maybe. A technical recession is two straight quarters of no economic growth for the country. This may happen, but it will depend on how long the COVID-19 keeps some of us from going out and spending money. The sooner it’s contained the sooner we can get back to normal and get back to growing the economy again.

It’s taken the Chinese two months to gain control of the outbreak, but it’s unclear how long it will take the US. See the chart below – website here – to see new cases of the virus in mainland China leveling off.

Biotech firm Gilead could have the key to a quicker recovery. They developed a drug for the Ebola epidemic called Remdesivir that is being touted by the World Health Organization as a treatment (not to be confused with a vaccine) to shorten the duration and reduce the severity of the virus. It’s undergoing trials currently and we should have more information this month. This will be a gamechanger if it proves effective. We’re watching this closely. 

This recession will be like 2008.

Unlikely. The recession we remember best is the one we went through last. The last recession was in 2008-9 and, this is important, the Great Recession of 2008-9 was a systemic problem with the foundation of our economy – the banking system. The banks were on the brink of collapse and the recovery took years. The issue we’re dealing with today is VERY different. Here are some key differences:

• Not financial, but biological/humanitarian – We have the best biotechnology firms in the world working together for a treatment and a vaccine. Just the news of an effective drug should give all of us confidence and result in a nice bump in stocks.
• Not long-term, but short-term – It took 4 years for stocks to recover from the Great Recession low of March 9, 2009 (Happy Anniversary!). There is no evidence to suggest it will take us that long to recover now. Our base case is a recovery in less than a year.
• Not foundational, but it will affect the economy – A slowing of the economy is not all that unusual. Recessions happen quite often – 11 times since 1947 lasting an average of 11 months. Banks are on a much better footing now and will weather the storm much better this time around.

The bottom line is we are disappointed the stock market is down, as always. However, we are looking forward to the day when we can invest more at lower prices and watch those investments trend higher as COVID-19 is conquered. 

– Bruce Porter & Tim Porter, CFP®

I mentioned it in last month’s letter, but fear of the spread of Coronavirus is now gripping investors. As of today, the stock market has dropped 10% in one week as companies, economists, and individuals try to quantify what the economic impact of the virus may be around the world. So far this is a pretty standard pullback but we want to give some perspective in case it continues.

I don’t want to minimize the human tragedy of this event and certainly don’t take human suffering lightly. This is a biological and human tragedy first and an economic issue second. With that said I’d like to focus on the data of past epidemics to give us an idea of how this might affect our investments going forward.

First Trust, which is one of the fund companies we use to invest in, put out an informative piece earlier this week to show how epidemics of the past 40 years have affected the stock market. 

You can review below, but here are the main takeaways:

•  Out of the 12 epidemics since 1980, 6 months after the epidemics the stock market was negative only once.
• After 12 months, the stock market was negative in 2 of the cases. 
• The average return of all epidemics in the stock market was 8.8% after 6 months and 13.6% after 12 months.

What does this tell us about Coronavirus? Every situation is different and I don’t want to read into this too much, but I think it’s safe to say this too shall pass. Will it last 6 or 12 months? I’m not sure. The bad news is still continuing as the spread is being followed around the world and possibly in our country. The stock market will likely react negatively until all the bad news is out. 

Changes to Portfolios

To be prepared for an event like this we’ve had approximately 15% cash/money market waiting to invest in most accounts. Typically we’d be ready to pull the trigger and be buying on a day like today, but we’d like to wait until more information is available before we do that. In the coming weeks, we’ll be looking to buy investments below their fair value as the emotion of fear overtakes facts and fundamentals. 

Because we never know when the market will stop going down, we typically invest at a few different times. For example, in the 2018 downturn, we invested when the S&P 500 pulled back 10% from the top and then at a 15% pullback. Those investments turned out to be great decisions. 

Below are the investments we’re interested in owning at lower prices:

Growth Stock Portfolio

• Microsoft MSFT
• Lowes LOW
• Visa V
• Adding to Boeing BA

Funds Portfolio

• S&P 500 Index SPTM
• Dividend Growth Fund DGRO
• Pimco Dynamic Income Fund PDI
• First Trust Internet Fund FDN

It’s hard to say how long it will take for these investments to be positive. Sometimes we get lucky and buy at the absolute bottom and they’re profitable quickly, but more than likely it will take some time to see the gains materialize. 

Warren Buffet was just quoted this week as saying he’s never seen a dip in the market that an investor shouldn’t have bought. We think that’s good advice and will follow it once again.

Please contact us if you have any questions or concerns! 

– Bruce Porter & Tim Porter, CFP®

The Coronavirus daily updates are on every news outlet I have. The unfortunate numbers are stacking up and the stock market is beginning to notice. Last week the year-to-date gains were erased as new cases appeared in our country. This week stocks are headed back up from a somewhat sketchy press release showing treatments for the virus “might” be helpful.

I keep being asked, “Why would the US stock market go down in response to this virus?” Here are the reasons:

1. China sequestered 50 million in or near Wuhan. That area is now a ghost town, which means the economic impact in that area will be drastically lower. This is a huge negative for the economy of China, potentially lowering their GDP (annual growth rate) from 6% down to 4%.
2. Now think of all the products the Chinese are not importing and buying from US companies during this time. Then think of the US multinational companies doing business in China like Starbucks, Target, Disney, Taco Bell, United Airlines, etc. These businesses are closed and will be taking losses for the time being.
3. Finally, think about the slowdown in the global economy this will cause. Even though the US and global economies are growing, the pace of growth of 2.1% in the U.S. last quarter is modest and we can’t afford to slow down before we’ll be tipped into recession.
4. You can start to see how if the Chinese economy sneezes – figuratively and literally – the US stock market could catch a cold, or maybe a virus is a better metaphor.

Let’s keep a level head though, we’ve seen this type of thing before. The SARS pandemic, another coronavirus from 2003, gives us some idea of what could happen. 8000 people were infected and 800 died from that virus. The stock market went down 10% in response, but in mid-March had bottomed and stocks rebounded up 26% for the year.

This virus is spreading faster with 28,000 infected today but, thankfully, has only one-fifth of the mortality rate at 563. The latest projection is for the virus to peak in April and subside from there. This means we’ll continue to hear about the tragic sicknesses and deaths, but it won’t last forever.

TD Ameritrade Conference

That brings me to the TD Ameritrade national conference Bruce and I attended in Orlando, FL last week. The conference was a treasure trove of best practices from some of the best and brightest advisors across the country. I came home with a long list of ideas to improve our portfolio, planning, advice, cybersecurity, and other aspects of our business

The other reason we attended the conference was to hear about the Charles Schwab TD Ameritrade buyout. It’s now official that Schwab will be acquiring TD Ameritrade and the deal, which will make one mammoth investment company managing over $5 Trillion in assets, should close the second half of 2020. There will be no changes until then, but after midyear, we’ll know more about what kind of changes will take place like name, website, etc.

One concern we had is that TD clients would have to create new Schwab accounts which would have created a lot of irritating paperwork for everyone. Thankfully, TD said this will not be the case and we’re glad to not have that looming.

As always, please let us know if there’s anything we can help you with. 

Thanks for reading,

– Bruce Porter & Tim Porter, CFP®

What should we make of a stock market at all-time highs and priced for perfection? After a nice run in 2019, it appears many investors are taking the Safety Third approach. This investment approach replaces the mantra of “safety first” with “risk and return first”, and asks, “What could possibly go wrong?”

Like my son Henry trying to impress his sisters by climbing to the top of this palm tree on our vacation to Kauai over the New Year. Safety was not his top priority, getting to the top was. Safety was definitely third. When he got a little higher he asks, “Dad, now catch me.” To which I replied the classic dad line, “you got yourself up there, you can get yourself down.” A few scrapes later he was down.

Now that we’re this high in the stock market – DOW hit 29,000 this week – let’s talk about how we’ll get down.

To be clear I’m not predicting a selloff, there are many good things happening in the economy right now – low employment, a Federal Reserve sitting out this year, no recession warnings from companies, and a trade war that’s on pause. It would be foolish not to consider that the party will end at some point. There will be some news that will at least temporarily push the market down.

When the news is ugly and the market is down, we try to keep our fearful emotions in check by not selling at the bottom. Instead we try and buy because things are never as bad as the news portrays.

When times are good and market is up, like it was this last year, we try to keep our greedy emotions in check by not buying at the top. Instead we sell because things are not usually as good as the stock market is trying to tell us. Greenspan called this phenomenon “Irrational Exuberance” in 1996. Right now, the stock market is telling us there’s no bad news in sight. We’re a little skeptical of that.

On that same trip to Kauai with my family, I was slightly concerned the Christmas gift Kim Jong Un, the North Korean leader, promised to send our country was going to be missiles to Hawaii. Thankfully, that didn’t materialize. Instead, we started trading missiles with Iran. The stock market shook those headlines off pretty quickly but it just goes to show I cannot predict the bad news, only that it’s coming.

To keep greed in check and anticipate the bad news that will eventually shake up investors, retirees, and those soon to be, should prioritize safety by getting a little more defensive mentally and financially:

1.  Lower Expectations – Returns have been good the last year and decade, but are not likely to be as good in the next. Starting at a significant low point in the stock market as we did one year ago and in 2010, it’s easier to have good returns. Starting this decade at all-time highs, it will be harder to notch such good returns. Throw in high debts, high deficits, and aging demographics and we have an uphill battle.

2.  Investment Accounts – Prioritize safety again in investments by taking gains and moving some stocks into cash and short-term bonds. This will help cushion the next fall in your accounts and provide extra ammunition to invest in stocks at emotionally low prices in the future. We’ve already been doing this in our client accounts.

3.  Guaranteed Income – Make sure that you have guaranteed income (pension income, social security, or annuity) to cover basic necessities like housing, food, transportation and utilities in retirement. This will help put your mind at ease that a down market won’t wreck your retirement.

SMB Financial News

This year we’ve been loving our new office in Tigard, where we’ve been for two years now. We especially enjoy rolling the Traeger grill out of our garage door and grilling salmon and tri-tip for client lunches. We did this probably 30 times last year. If you haven’t had the chance to come in for lunch, please ask! We love to do it.

Jeremiah Forrister, has been with us two and a half years now and is doing a fantastic job! I’m not sure how we functioned without him. He’s in charge of operations in the office and he’s also a licensed advisor looking to grow his own book of clients.

Bruce and wife Maiza, have enjoyed traveling this year and are looking forward to more travels throughout 2020. Bruce also wanted to mention we had a fantastic time at my house for Christmas where all four of his sons got a chance to be loud and obnoxious together once again.

Finally, Holly and I haven’t had any major life changes this year, but the family is still growing like a weed. Henry is in second grade now and just started basketball. Lucy started Kindergarten this year and just performed in the Nutcracker ballet. Penny is now three and a half and is the mascot of our family, being crazy and having fun at all times.

The business has been growing as well. We now have seven advisors at the firm and are managing $117 Million in assets. Because we’re now over $100 Million, we had to move our registration from the state of Oregon to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) this year.

Our partnership with KaiPerm Credit Union has blessed us with the opportunity to do 40 presentations so far at Kaiser Permanente facilities around Portland, Salem and Vancouver. We expect those to continue and be a big part of our growth for the future.

An opportunity I’m still working on is with the Coast Guard. As a reservist with the CG, I see the desperate need that all the young guys and gals have for good financial advice. I’ve made some inroads with some folks at the top but still haven’t found the right fit for me or my firm to provide that advice…yet. I’m hoping to make some headway in this area in 2020.

Needless to say, this has been a busy year and we are very excited for the future of our firm. Thank you for being with us and helping make it special. We enjoy the great relationships we get to have with each one of you.

As always, please let us know if there’s anything we can help you with.

Thanks for reading,

Bruce Porter & Tim Porter, CFP^®

What a difference a year makes! Typically I (Tim) try to write one blog a month. This is usually enough to keep you updated about the stock market and important financial matters. Last December the news and markets were so negative, I felt like I needed to write three!

1. I told everyone the downturn we were in was Not That Interesting,

2. Pointed to a JP Morgan prediction of a significant rebound (that turned out to be accurate) in Looking for Good News, and

3. Then called it a Crisis Without a Crisis and detailed the buys we made during the pullback anticipating a rebound.

To be perfectly honest, it’s no fun watching accounts pull back like they did last year. During our Christmas Eve family get together, it was real work to put a smile on. When I try to reassure everyone with those letters, believe me, I’m writing as much to myself as I am to you.

But as you’ve seen on your statements, it paid to not panic, to take the long-term view, and to even have the guts to buy when everyone else is selling. So congratulations for a great year of investing! Let’s enjoy this nice run, but also remember, with a new year will come new challenges.

Looking ahead to 2020, we want to hear from the stock market optimists (the Bulls) and the pessimists (the Bears).

Bull Case

JP Morgan, the same strategists who called the runup this year is back at it. They see stocks 8% higher this time next year and the S&P ending 2020 at 3,400. They cite low inflation and continued low interest rates as the reason, even with uncertainty surrounding the trade war. They point out the large gains this year (about 25% year-to-date) despite the trade headline dominating the headlines.

Here’s an interesting stat: 6 times since 1990, the year following a 20% gain in stocks, the market has responded with an 18% gain on average. Will it happen a seventh time or will it be different this time?

Bear Case

Not so fast, says Ben Levisohn at Barrons.com. Recession is around the corner and no one should get too comfortable. While the economy is growing, it’s not growing enough to weather a financial shock to the economy. 

He states, “Even many bulls would agree that an unexpected event that would simply ding an economy growing at 3% to 4% could force one growing at 1% to 2% into recession” – think a deepening trade war or a 2020 election result that disappoints the stock market.

Our Portfolios

To prepare for either case, we’ve gotten a little more conservative in all our accounts. In the Growth Stock portfolio, we’ve taken some gains by selling a few stocks and invested those proceeds in the more stable First Trust Short Maturity FTSM which yields 2.4%/yr. This will help cushion the next pullback and give us some ammunition to buy during the next surprise headline.

We’re also more conservative in our Moderate Low-Cost Funds portfolio by having only 60% or less in stocks right now, while we wait for a pullback in the stock market to buy the Vanguard Global Wellington Fund VGWAX.

We hope everyone has an incredible holiday!  In between festivities, myself and the team will be in the office reaching out to clients and wrapping up year-end details like Required Minimum Distributions. Please get ahold of us if we can do anything for you.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

– Bruce Porter & Tim Porter, CFP®

This last month has reminded us of why we don’t try to predict which direction the stock market will go. October is typically the worst month of the year and we were anticipating this October would be no different. With seasonal fears, trade disputes ratcheting up, and increasing recession predictions… we hit new highs and they’re continuing to push higher as I write this!

The reason? Things are Not As Bad As Feared. We have a trade war with China that’s not escalating into something worse, an economy that does not appear to be headed for an imminent recession, low unemployment, earnings from companies that are in line with expectations, and a Federal Reserve that lowered rates again.

This has provided a much-welcomed relief rally in the market that may continue until the end of the year. This should be reflected in your October statements.

Aside from some minor tweaks that we’ll discuss in the next section, we’ll likely keep some cash in each portfolio as we await the next news cycle. Issues like the impeachment inquiry and further escalations in the trade war could give us another opportunity to put the cash to work.

Moderate Funds Portfolio

In the moderate funds portfolio, we’re rotating out of some of the existing funds and into some new funds with lower expenses. After evaluating the current funds we use, we found that Vanguard, iShares, and SPDR funds have lower internal expenses. Keeping these internal expenses low will help to increase return over time.

Growth Stock Portfolio

In the growth stock portfolio, we’ve added to a few positions hoping to get a pop on earnings. We bought more in Grand Canyon Education LOPE which reported better than expected earnings, but disappointing news about two partnerships that came to an end. The stock is down on the news, however, we still like them long-term and are hopeful they will raise 2020 guidance next quarter which should help the stock.

We also bought more of a company we’ve liked for a long time, a company we’ve described as the South American Amazon, Mercadolibre MELI. They reported a larger than expected loss this quarter as they invest heavily in marketing the Mercadolibre (similar to Amazon) and Mercadopago (similar to Paypal) names. The stock dropped and we took advantage of the opportunity. They have continued to accelerate their revenue growth now at 70% year over year. No telling what could happen in the short term but we think over 3-5 years this could be our best performer in the portfolio.

All in all, this has been a good year for all investors and we’re hopeful it’ll hold up through the holiday season.

Estate Planning and Taxes

In other news, we’ve recruited an estate planning attorney that does will and trusts, Pam Nicholson, AND a trusted CPA we’ve been using, Virginia Platten, CPA, to move into our building. If anyone is looking for either of those services, please let us know. They’ve both taken great care of the clients we’ve sent them and they are conveniently located in our building now. 

If you want to discuss any of this further or have other questions about your financial situation, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

– Bruce Porter & Tim Porter, CFP®

KaiPerm Credit Union and SMB Financial have teamed up to provide 30 presentations so far across the Portland, Vancouver, and Salem KP campuses. The next presentations are below:

What You’ll Learn:

• Avoiding making mistakes in retirement
• How to choose a lump sum or monthly pension option
• How much you should be saving
• What you should be investing in
• How to use Kaiser specific benefits to plan for retirement
• How to avoid getting overcharged on investments

Also being offered – FREE Retirement Income Plan!

We’ll teach you how to do your own Retirement Income Plan (see below) in the presentation or, if you’d rather, we’ll do it for you – FOR FREE!

Click here to schedule a call or an in-person meeting to have your Income Plan done.

Income Plans use Kaiser specific benefits like Plan A (lump sum or monthly pension), Plan B (Kaiser contributions to Vanguard), the TSA (employee contributions to Vanguard), Senior Advantage Medical benefit, NW Perm benefits (lump sum or monthly benefits and the 401k at Fidelity), Social Security and any other investments.

November:

• Monday 18^th Longview 10:30-11:30am or 12:00-1:00pm
• Monday 25^th Salmon Creek 10:30-11:30am or 12:00-1:00pm

December:

• Wednesday 4^th Tualatin 10:30-11:30am or 12:00-1:00pm
• Wednesday 11^th KPB 10:30-11:30am or 12:00-1:00pm
• Monday 16^th Sunnyside 10:30-11:30am, 12:00-1:00pm, or 4:30-5:30

January:

• Wednesday 22^nd KPB 10:30-11:30am or 12:00-1:00pm

Look for the emails announcing room location, but until then, please download the pdf below…

Click HERE to download the PDF

• 

• 

Entering fall is always a tumultuous time in the stock market. September and October are historically the most volatile months of the year. Now that September is behind us we see that our Growth Stocks portfolio was down last month a couple of percent, but our Moderate Funds portfolio bucked the trend and ended higher by a few percent. Both are up considerably for the year.

Looking ahead to October, we have some significant financial news happening this week. China and the US are meeting AGAIN to try and hash out a trade agreement. There’s not much optimism a deal will get done so there’s significant upside to the accounts if we get a surprise compromise. If there’s no deal or no path to a deal, there will likely be some volatility as we find out what the next round of tariffs will include.

We’re handling the uncertainty by being prepared for both scenarios. We have significant cash in our portfolios to invest and take advantage in case the market drops, but if we get a surprise agreement, the accounts are mostly invested to capitalize on an upmarket. We’ll have to wait and see how the trade meetings go to determine our next steps.

Other news last week was about trade fees. The brokerage industry is now in a race to zero for stock trading fees. This industry is mostly controlled by Schwab, TD Ameritrade, Fidelity, and ETrade. They had all cut their fees to between $5-$7 per trade a few years ago, but just last week Schwab announced they are cutting their fees to $0 per stock trade.

Thankfully, TD Ameritrade followed suit, so now there are no stock trade fees for any of our clients. Hooray!  These weren’t large costs because we don’t trade all that much, but it represents reduced cost to us and our clients which is always welcome. I should point out there are still mutual fund trading fees, however, these are a small portion, like < 10% of our Moderate Funds portfolio. 

Since we’re starting a new quarter, earnings season is kicking off and we’re hopeful the companies of the stocks we’re investing in will have better than expected earnings to report. We also stand ready to take advantage if the market pulls back and gives us some opportunities if we get bad trade news. As always, we’ll report back at the end of the month and let you know how things turned out.

Thanks for taking the time to read! Please call or email if we can do anything for you!

– Bruce Porter & Tim Porter, CFP®

Did you hear about the economist that predicted 10 of the last 5 recessions? Well, everyone’s an economist these days with the constant talk of the next dreaded recession. Today we’d like to give some perspective on the topic.

Recessions are as normal to the economy as Winter is to the weather. Every year we know the sun will be replaced with rain and heat with cold. Although a little depressing right now knowing the sun will soon be harder to come by, Winter is perfectly normal. I just need a few more weeks to finish my projects!

Recessions are a little depressing as well. When the economy slows, growth in stocks will be harder to come by. The good news is they don’t happen every year and they don’t last forever. The common definition of a recession: when the economy stops growing and starts shrinking.

Since 1950 our country has gone through 11 recessions lasting on average 11 months in length (see image). This means the sunny days in the economy darken every 6 or so years but have always been followed by more sunshine.

A few of reasons for the obsession this time around: 1) the inverted yield curve (now uninverted) which has been a predictor of recessions in the past, 2) the unusually long period of time since, and the severity of, the last recession in 2009 – which we don’t expect to repeat by the way, and 3) the uncertainty in the global economy from Europe (Germany is already in recession) to China.

The bottom line is we’re certain a recession IS coming in the future, just like I’m certain Winter is coming. The only thing we’re not certain of? Timing. I’m better at predicting the timing of Winter.

To prep for the inevitable slow down, we’ve been trimming some winners, buying investments that should hold up better in a recession and making sure we have plenty of cash to take advantage of the next pullback. 

Growth Stocks

Last month we made a few trades in our more aggressive Growth Stock portfolio. We purchased additional shares of Grand Canyon Education LOPE on a headline-driven pullback and then sold once the shares came back up approximately 19%. We also sold Cooper COO, a contact lens business for a gain because we thought it was too overvalued. We used the proceeds of the Cooper sale to fund a position in Silver SLV which is up approximately 10% so far.

Moderate Funds

In the Moderate Funds portfolio, we purchased an investment in Silver SLV for everyone’s account. We bought this investment because Silver and Gold typically do well when interest rates plunge, as they have, and it also does well in uncertain times. One big buy we’d like to make if the market pulls back is in Vanguard’s Global Wellington Fund VGWAX. The Wellington funds are some of Vanguard’s best and have a good 90-year track record.

Conservative

For conservative clients, we still like the Lincoln investment that currently pays either: 3.2% for 5 years OR a gain of up to 7% if the stock market grows or a gain of 0% if the market falls. We also have options that can guarantee income in retirement for those that are interested. Please contact us in you’re interested.

Final Thought

While we do expect another recession someday, there is very little data pointing to a slow down in the next 12 months. Unemployment is near record lows, interest rates are low, and our economy is still growing around 2% per year. But when it does show up, we don’t expect to repeat the severity of 2008-9. That was an unusually deep downturn that was comparable to the wheels coming off the financial system. Instead, our expectation is for something with less declines in the accounts and less overall pain for our clients.

Thank you for taking the time to read. Please let us know if there’s anything we can do to help.

– Bruce Porter & Tim Porter, CFP®