Ouch. The good times ended in October and rather suddenly at that. There are many straws out there, and it's impossible to know which one broke the market's back but break it did.
The best explanation, which is one part voodoo and one part real economics, was that the market has been up for so long that investors were looking for signs that the music was going to stop. The sign was rising interest rates leading to fears that the global economy and real estate market couldn't handle higher rates. This in turn led to worry that tech stocks have risen so far so fast that the downside is exceeding the upside.
Even with our interest-rate-sensitive portfolios with significant foreign exposure (a performance drag), we fell significantly less than the S&P 500. More notable is that the global total portfolio benchmark that we also aim to beat over time, the Vanguard STAR fund, was down 5.71%, almost as much as the S&P 500 and quite a bit for a diversified global portfolio that is only 60% stocks. We're trying to deliver a better risk/reward tradeoff than this balanced fund (not an easy task given this is a great low-fee total portfolio fund, but we aim high) but have been lagging it recently on the way up. As you can see, such upside performance often comes at a price—Vanguard STAR was taking quite a bit more downside risk than we were.
One reason balanced portfolios fell in October is that all categories fell. That has become the new problem with building portfolios: there is nowhere to hide when the drops come but low-return cash. Diversification doesn't really work anymore.
The best-performing fund categories in October were precious metals, utilities, and Latin America. Not coincidently, precious metals funds and Latin American funds have some of our highest category ratings on MAXfunds: 91 and 97, respectively. We're still short gold because we don't believe it has any long-term investment merit, and our limited stake in Latin American stocks in our iShares MSCI BRIC Index (BKF) fund was offset by losses in the RIC part—Russia, China, India—of BRIC (though the fund fell less than emerging markets in general).
Other areas of relative strength include value stocks in general, an area we are focusing more on after the big run in growth and tech this past decade or so. But our only traditional stock fund that posted a gain was Vanguard Utilities (VPU), up 1.17%—even Vanguard Value (VTV) was down 4.35%.
Homestead Value (HOVLX) dropped 9.03% despite being a value fund because it's somewhat of a tech value fund now. The fund's holdings are probably more economically sensitive than many other value funds, and the fears of rates hurting the economy hit this fund hard.
All our bond funds where down, but long-term bonds fell the hardest with Vanguard Extended Duration Treasury (EDV) down the most at 4.61%. Long-term rates shouldn't go up much from here (at least not quickly without risking much more downside to stocks). You'd rather be in long-term bonds with the moderate loss you will take than the stock alternatives if rates climb quickly.
The shining stars of October were our three short funds, all up high double digits: PowerShares DB Crude Oil Dble Short (DTO) up 18.6%, Proshares Ultrashort Russel2000 (TWM) up 24.56% and Proshares Ultrashort NASDAQ Biotech (BIS) up 33.42%. These funds, which can slowly go to nothing over time as markets long term go up, can be useful in a crash scenario. We should have rebalanced into a short tech fund because our short stake was so small after dwindling in value in the portfolio from losses in the bull market as to have minimal upside performance impact. That said, we did beat the balanced portfolios out there and these funds are a good part of the reason our "riskier' aggressive portfolio actually fell by less than our short-fund-free conservative portfolio.
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Ouch. The good times ended in October and rather suddenly at that. There are many straws out there, and it's impossible to know which one broke the market's back but break it did.
The best explanation, which is one part voodoo and one part real economics, was that the market has been up for so long that investors were looking for signs that the music was going to stop. The sign was rising interest rates leading to fears that the global economy and real estate market couldn't handle higher rates. This in turn led to worry that tech stocks have risen so far so fast that the downside is exceeding the upside.
In October, our Conservative portfolio declined 3.52%. Our Aggressive portfolio declined 3.11%. Benchmark Vanguard funds for October 2018 were as follows: Vanguard 500 Index Fund (VFINX) down 6.85%; Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund (VBMFX) down 0.73%; Vanguard Developed Markets Index Fund (VTMGX) down 8.49%; Vanguard Emerging Markets Stock Index (VEIEX) down 7.58%; Vanguard Star Fund (VGSTX), a total global balanced portfolio, down 5.71%.
Even with our interest-rate-sensitive portfolios with significant foreign exposure (a performance drag), we fell significantly less than the S&P 500. More notable is that the global total portfolio benchmark that we also aim to beat over time, the Vanguard STAR fund, was down 5.71%, almost as much as the S&P 500 and quite a bit for a diversified global portfolio that is only 60% stocks. We're trying to deliver a better risk/reward tradeoff than this balanced fund (not an easy task given this is a great low-fee total portfolio fund, but we aim high) but have been lagging it recently on the way up. As you can see, such upside performance often comes at a price—Vanguard STAR was taking quite a bit more downside risk than we were.
One reason balanced portfolios fell in October is that all categories fell. That has become the new problem with building portfolios: there is nowhere to hide when the drops come but low-return cash. Diversification doesn't really work anymore.
The best-performing fund categories in October were precious metals, utilities, and Latin America. Not coincidently, precious metals funds and Latin American funds have some of our highest category ratings on MAXfunds: 91 and 97, respectively. We're still short gold because we don't believe it has any long-term investment merit, and our limited stake in Latin American stocks in our iShares MSCI BRIC Index (BKF) fund was offset by losses in the RIC part—Russia, China, India—of BRIC (though the fund fell less than emerging markets in general).
Other areas of relative strength include value stocks in general, an area we are focusing more on after the big run in growth and tech this past decade or so. But our only traditional stock fund that posted a gain was Vanguard Utilities (VPU), up 1.17%—even Vanguard Value (VTV) was down 4.35%.
Homestead Value (HOVLX) dropped 9.03% despite being a value fund because it's somewhat of a tech value fund now. The fund's holdings are probably more economically sensitive than many other value funds, and the fears of rates hurting the economy hit this fund hard.
All our bond funds where down, but long-term bonds fell the hardest with Vanguard Extended Duration Treasury (EDV) down the most at 4.61%. Long-term rates shouldn't go up much from here (at least not quickly without risking much more downside to stocks). You'd rather be in long-term bonds with the moderate loss you will take than the stock alternatives if rates climb quickly.
The shining stars of October were our three short funds, all up high double digits: PowerShares DB Crude Oil Dble Short (DTO) up 18.6%, Proshares Ultrashort Russel2000 (TWM) up 24.56% and Proshares Ultrashort NASDAQ Biotech (BIS) up 33.42%. These funds, which can slowly go to nothing over time as markets long term go up, can be useful in a crash scenario. We should have rebalanced into a short tech fund because our short stake was so small after dwindling in value in the portfolio from losses in the bull market as to have minimal upside performance impact. That said, we did beat the balanced portfolios out there and these funds are a good part of the reason our "riskier' aggressive portfolio actually fell by less than our short-fund-free conservative portfolio.