2022 was a disaster. But January came in hot, making up a good chunk of any losses from the previous year in just one month. January was one of the best months in years for both the unmanaged stock market indexes and bond indexes. This is now the fourth month of a recovery. October, November, December and now January. The rest of the year is an unknown, only time will tell, but like we always say the best thing we can do is be patient.
Let’s take a closer look at what we’ve seen so far in our February 2023 financial market update.
Hi there. Mike Brady with Generosity Wealth Management, a comprehensive, full-service financial services firm headquartered in Boulder, Colorado.
2022 was a disaster. Both stocks, the unmanaged stock market indexes, the unmanaged bond indexes down pretty sharply double digits, very unique that both of them went down at the same time. If you watch all my videos and newsletters from 2022, I deconstruct some of my thoughts about why that is with the supply chain issue which led to an interest rate issue with the reaction to that. We’ve got both fiscal, tons of money, money supply increasing so we’ve got some fiscal, we’ve got some monetary, we’ve got supply, all these things coming together.
I will tell you that January was one of the best months in years for both the unmanaged stock market indexes and bond indexes. As a matter of fact, you’re going to see this in a second. A good one-third to one-half of all that was lost in 2022 was made up in just one month which is January. I will tell you that this is now the fourth month of a recovery. October, November, December and now January. I don’t know what the rest of the year holds for us but I’m a broken record. I said three out of four years are negative. That means that sometimes there’s – sorry, three out of four years are positive, excuse me. Quite the opposite. Three out of four years are positive and one out of four are negative which means that we sometimes just have to be patient. The best thing that we can do is be patient.
Up on the screen there you’re going to see this is the unmanaged stock market index, the S&P 500 going back to 1980 and you’ll see that so far this year, this is the first week of February it is positive. You’ll see last year that arrow there that was last year. This next one up on the screen is the unmanaged bond index. Bonds went down last year in a reverse to the increasing interest rates and so far this year you can see that a good third of the decrease in the bonds has been made up already. You can see that right here. I’m going to put in a block there. Depending on the duration the length of a bond from short to long, you can see what the year-to-date return has been on a bond right there in that highlight.
This next screen I want to highlight the bottom right corner. Historical markets drawdown and the next 12 month rebound. You can see the tech bubble, the global financial in 2008, you’ve got COVID. After there’s been a decline, there’s been a great recovery in the next 12 months.
I don’t know if that’s what we’re in. I have no idea. The future is inherently unknown, but the way I like to think of it is you’ve got your Apple maps, you’ve got your Google or your Waze, whichever way that you get navigation to find someplace on your smart phone. You thought it was going to take you 30 minutes and you see that there’s an accident up ahead. It was unplanned, it’s unpleasant, you hate it. But you know what? The path that you’re on is still the right path. Doing anything else it’s so easy to want to get on a side road when really perhaps it’s really being sidetracked.
This next sheet up on the screen is showing – I’m going to put a circle around it which is inflation. Inflation in the last year or year-and-a-half was significant. It was the reaction to it that caused a lot of the bond decline over the last 12 to 18 months. What you’ll see is on this next chart that sharp increase all through the year of 2022 causes the bond market to go down. You’ll see the decrease that is expected from the Fed. We’re getting a handle on the inflation.
Let’s go back to that chart that I just showed, the previous one. You’ll see that on the right hand side inflation is starting to come down. It’s starting to creep back down which is wonderful. The reasons that bonds went down in 2022 and the last little bit of 2021 is the environment is reversing which is very, very good.
I could sit here and talk about other encouraging signs both from the economic forecasts and the stock market forecasts and the reaction to it, but I want to keep this one short. All I really have to say is the last month has started to negate some of the very long and painful quarter upon quarter, three quarters last year that were negative and one quarter that was positive. That one quarter that was positive was the last one and now going into this first quarter of 2023.
I’ll continue to do my newsletters and videos throughout the year. I’m going to try to do them a little bit more often as we really work to get to breakeven and then going back onto our original plan which, of course, is why would you have investments if you don’t believe that long term they’re going to be higher than they are today.
Mike Brady, Generosity Wealth Management, 303-747-6455. You have a great day. See you. Bye-bye.