secular bear market

[Nords]

NYCGuy deserves credit for his post.

Yes, but not for his condescending attitude toward the posters and their criticism.

Again, posters dissatisfied with the quality of the board have two choices:
1) post better stuff, or
2) post somewhere else.

One of the ways to post better stuff is to debate an article on its merits, not on the quality of the posts or the posters.  In fact, resorting to the latter tactic calls into doubt the OP's ability to do the former.

I'm gravely disappointed that nobody wanted to try to decipher my qualifications.  Lets see if I can remember them.
BSA = Bull**** artist
FBI = female body inspector
CS = cub scout
LE = liar extraordinaire
FOS = full of ****
YNGT = you'll never get this

So you managed to get the qualifications-- but the credibility check doesn't stop there.  What really counts is the continuing education & proficiency requirements!

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

My post was supposed to be Justinism sarcasm...

Oh dammit, i completely missed that. I was torn about putting up a pithy/snarky comment about the subject matter and decided to just let it pass. Showing once again that I do have restraint.

Objectors are probably looking at this thread standing on its own merit. There are a few regular one-drum-beaters on overpriced equities and the coming doom of a bear market. The moment he demonstrates anything upstream of fearmongering and arm waving, I'm all ears. As far as I know, nobody can accurately measure or predict whats going to happen and when. We're all pre-Hosuc'ed to this theory that everythings overpriced, that nobody should own stocks, and that we should just commit to negative return or flat returning plans and eat our portfolios and hope someone sprays us with bird pellets when we run out of money...

Aside from that, I agree with SG...the article has no substance to 'discuss' really, and its put forth by some guys who have such low self esteem that they feel the need to line up the alphabet soup after their names to create credibility.

If you want something really significant to have a serious discussion about, I may drag up a paper going into the plausibility that gnomes are stealing our underwear at night when we're asleep. That paper has the same predictive plausibility as this 'report' does.

 

[Nords]

gnomes are stealing our underwear at night when we're asleep.

Ooooh, I heard that's on the Internet so it must be true. They're using kayaks!

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

And they have a 3 part business plan they adopted from a lot of successful internet companies.

1 - Steal underwear
2 -
3 - Profit!

 

[justin]

The problem as I see it:

1. We MIGHT have a problem with nighttime underwear theft by incognito gnomes

2. Nighttime underwear theft by incognito gnomes occurs mostly during our sleeping hours at night.

3. Keep your underwear in a very expensive actively guarded underwear drawer instead of that old, crappy passive underwear drawer you're using right now.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I believe the gnomes have drilling tools and mining capabilities...no guarded location is safe from their thievery.

I can write an article up on that subject though, if you wish to see it validated.

 

[HFWR]

Secular bear market... WETFTI??

I have some small cap, both blended (Russ2000) and value. Have some EM, some int'l, both blended and value, some REIT funds, some large cap blend, a tad of microcap, some TIP, some GLD, and some "cash"...

Could be it all goes nowhere, but I've learned a couple of things over the years: stock picking is like having another high stress job, and stock picking is like having another high stress job... No wait, the second was that it's fraught with risk - company specific risk, bad stock picking risk, herd mentality, etc.

As for market timing, my allocation might change some, depending on obvious over-or-under valuations (think "bubble"), but my theory is "buy the market" and hope a big rock doesn't hit me in the head.

I can't and don't want to buy a business, but I'm happy to invest, and get some cap gains and divvies for my trouble. I HATE Las Vegas...

 

[haha]

You would have to be blind not to tumble to the fact that much of what is happening on this board is dominance. A lot of intelligent guys who retired too early and no longer have a dominance ladder on which to compete with other guys. We should probably follow Jarhead's example and seriously take up some competitive sport which will let us strive in our accustomed way.

Maybe we should add to the requirements of adequate nest-egg and some provision for health insurance another requirement that applies only to males. A man must achieve a certain degree of testicular involution before he is eligible for ER. We can start a thread to determine how much remaining balls is safe for entry into retirement.

No way do I exempt myself from this crocodile swamp either.

Ha

 

[renferme]

Read an article this past Sunday saying that bull and bear markets are usually long term affairs. For example, 1966 to 1982 bear market; 1983-1999 bull market,
and 2000 - today bear market.
There can be mini-bull markets within a long term bear market and vice versa.
We are in bad times, right now, for the market.

 

[Cool Dood]

Me, I prefer a secular beer market.....

Oh wait, I've already done that one

 

[HFWR]

I'm only an alpha male in my own mind... 8)

 

[thefed]

Read an article this past Sunday saying that bull and bear markets are usually long term affairs. For example, 1966 to 1982 bear market; 1983-1999 bull market,
and 2000 - today bear market.
There can be mini-bull markets within a long term bear market and vice versa.
We are in bad times, right now, for the market.

but who says it has to be 83 to 99? maybe the drop in 2000-2003 was a short-term bear in a bull's world?

I say bull market 1983 (my birth year) til 2083 (when I anticipate dying)

 

[laurence]

This thread made me snort/laugh out loud three times here in my little hellcubby-hole of a cube, better get back to work before some one investigates!

Perhaps we were a little hard on the thread-starter, not everybody knows the history or prevailing attitude of this board. Anything that leaves a trail of breadcrumbs back to actively managed funds gets treated with suspicion and derision here.

But this thread did spark a thought:

We subscribe to the notion that indexing is better than actively managed over the long term (for a host of reasons already gone into on this board elsewhere). We also all agree that indexing in a bear market leads to negative returns (duh) and we do things to mitigate that, international, reits, bonds, commodities, dabbling in energy sector, etc.

I'm curious, though, do the majority of low cost actively managed funds outperform the market as a whole during bear markets? If we could predict a bear market (big if) and select low cost (relative), actively managed funds to invest in to hedge against indexing....maybe we could create an ETF that buys into the 100 lowest cost actively managed funds, 1% of holdings each, let's see, brewer is in the business, CT and CFB could provide seed money....

 

[riskadverse]

The problem as I see it:

1.  We MIGHT have a problem with nighttime underwear theft by incognito gnomes

2.  Nighttime underwear theft by incognito gnomes occurs mostly during our sleeping hours at night. 

3.  Keep your underwear in a very expensive actively guarded underwear drawer instead of that old, crappy passive underwear drawer you're using right now. 

How can we remain serious when you write this kinda stuff?

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

CFB could provide seed money....

My wife said I can provide neither seed nor money.

Back to topic, I cant imagine living my life in fear of abject disaster, or fooling myself into looking at tea leaves and chicken bones and seeing anything except tea leaves and chicken bones.

 

[HFWR]

How can we remain serious when you write this kinda stuff?

Shirley you jest... 

In 2000-2001, I was thinking recession, okay, maybe 10-20% down, no biggie...

When it blew right through 20%, I made some adjustments... As I said before, if things look drastic, I'm not so set in stone (or stoned) that I can't/won't adjust. But these things are hard to predict, and the list of maladies we face as individuals, a nation, and as humankind can be pretty daunting, if taken out of the context of history.

As for chicken bones, I prefer to look at the Hooter's waitresses, and let sleeping bones lie... 

 

[wildcat]

I'm curious, though, do the majority of low cost actively managed funds outperform the market as a whole during bear markets?

In my opinion the actives can do better than the index funds in sideways market and over a short period of time. The only problem is you have to pick the right ones. If I were to go that route I would select Vanguard's actives for small/mid cap and for large cap exposure I would find a concentrated fund with a low exp ratio - I don't think Vanguard has one.

 

[JPatrick]

Well if nobody else wants this jewel I'll take it.                                                         

Shirley you jest... 

AND DON'T CALL ME SHIRLEY

 

[Eagle43]

And they have a 3 part business plan they adopted from a lot of successful internet companies.

1 - Steal underwear
2 -
3 - Profit!

I hope they steal your avatar's undies.

 

[HFWR]

Glad you weren't talking to Jiggles...

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I dont think Vida knows what underwear is, exactly.

Once again, like in the 'depression' thread, I'm drawn by deep curiousity to learn what NYCguy's expected outcome of this posting was.

 

[poyet]

You would have to be blind not to tumble to the fact that much of what is happening on this board is dominance. A lot of intelligent guys who retired too early and no longer have a dominance ladder on which to compete with other guys. We should probably follow Jarhead's example and seriously take up some competitive sport which will let us strive in our accustomed way.


Ha

The greatest of all the posts and probably not too far from being right on the target. I'm still laughing reading it again and again.

As far as secular markets are concerned: I do not even wish to be long on a cyclical bear and secular long but I'm fine being long on a cyclical bull in a secular bear !

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Most certainly the elements of dominance and aggression will come to the forefront of an issue, whether it has merits or not.

If we were all a bunch of wimps, we'd probably still be working as we'd be afraid of retiring.

In this particular issue, SG quite succinctly pointed out the specific points of why the topic as presented isnt particularly debatable and it disintegrated from there.

Its a bit of a leap to go from the act of diminishing fear and concern over unmeasurable events that may or may not come to be and have little predictability and an act of dominance for dominances sake...

 

[Spanky]

I'm curious, though, do the majority of low cost actively managed funds outperform the market as a whole during bear markets? If we could predict a bear market (big if) and select low cost (relative), actively managed funds to invest in to hedge against indexing....

In general, they do.

If one can predict with any degree of certainty about the bear market, the best investment will be cash. Ummm... second thought bear market fund or any fund that shorts the market.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I thought that was a myth...didnt berstein cover that in the four pillars...that actively managed funds in general didnt do better in a bear. It intuitively makes sense, that an active manager could 'steer out of the skid', but I thought the data said otherwise?