Patience is a virtue: I have been reminded of that lesson over the last year. We have been recovering from the 2022 bear market, and it has been a frustratingly slow process. Things started off looking better, yet it was only seven stocks that were going up while everything else went nowhere or even down. Then finally the wind came back around and we ended 2023 with a strong rally. I am happy to say that we were well-positioned for that rally and delivered very good results for our clients, but that is not the point of this lesson.
Yeast is a very small thing, but the difference it makes in bread is huge. In the institutional retirement plan world, there is very little difference between doing the right thing for plan participants and covering one’s behind – DTRT or CYA? The difference in action is no bigger than a single grain of yeast, but oh my what a difference it makes in outcomes.
We have just experienced one of the strangest quarters that I can remember. At the beginning of June, Goldman Sachs research indicated that all of the return for the S&P 500 year-to-date through May was attributed to just seven stocks; the other 493 stocks in the S&P 500 have an average return of zero, nada, zilch. How did that happen?
The economy is hanging in there better than most experts suggest, since rising interest rates are not actually stopping consumers from living their daily lives. We maintain our view that we will either escape a recession all together or have a very mild one. We are not basing that on our business, but on feedback we get from others. Let’s take a look.
In the 30+ years I have been in this business, I do not recall a time when so many were so convinced that a recession was inevitable… which is precisely why I doubt a severe recession will occur this year. The economy flows in a way not dissimilar to nature. Nature has its seasons, the economy has the business cycle; the difference is human psychology.
