Tag Archives: S&P 500

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Investors Beware: You Can’t Get Outperformance Without Underperformance

Nobody minds market volatility when it’s in the upward direction. But this week, we got plenty of the type of volatility that we don’t like so much as investors, the kind that inspires headlines with words like “plunge” and that end with exclamation points.

It presents an opportunity, therefore, to remind ourselves of one of the central tenets of the art and science of investing:

You can’t get outperformance without underperformance.

Indeed, the only reason we have a right to expect a higher rate of return on any given investment is that we’re willing to endure greater risk, and, in all likelihood, higher volatility. But just how much volatility?

Let’s look at some of the scariest market moments of the past 50 years, specifically how far the market—in this case, the S&P 500—dropped over a handful of notable time periods:

Biggest Market Drawdowns of the Last 50 Years
Biggest Market Drawdowns of the Last 50 YearsTIM MAURER
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If You Don’t Like The Market Today, Just Wait Until Tomorrow

Originally in ForbesIn my hometown of Baltimore, there’s an oft-heard saying that seems especially applicable when, like now, the seasons are changing: “If you don’t like the weather today, just wait until tomorrow.” For whatever meteorological reason, it’s not uncommon for an absolutely miserable Monday to turn into a gorgeous Tuesday. Temperatures have been known to swing as much as 20 degrees inside of an afternoon.

A scientific view of stock market history, unfortunately, shows us an even greater propensity for unpredictability and volatility.

Even the years that we refer to as the “good” ones, in retrospect, test our mettle. For example, between 1950 and 2014, a span of 65 years, the S&P 500 ended the year with a gain 51 times (or in almost 80% of them). Not bad. But in how many of those up years do you think investors would’ve found themselves in a “losing” position at some point in the year?

Every. Single. One.