Everybody with gray hair remembers the day Kennedy was assassinated, on November 22nd of 1963. Everybody post-puberty remembers the day America was attacked, on September 11th of 2001. But, do you remember where you were when the stock market hit its low point in this recession, which was two years ago today?
That morning, I had breakfast with the regional president of a major national bank and studied his level of concern. I was struck by his predictable American optimism. At lunch that day, I delivered "meals-on-wheels" with my wife. We were struck by the relative indifference of most recipients to the stock market. That night, we attended a political event, where one party blamed everything on the other party. America had not changed, not even our inability to handle the 24/7 news flow of bad news.
By that point, I was sitting on a good deal of cash in most portfolios. The next morning, I started buying the ETF for the DJIA for my aggressive clients. I'm really glad I did! Of course, hindsight being hindsight, I wish I had bought them even more.
The applicable cliche is that it is always darkest before the dawn, but the dawn always comes. In fact, during the last two years, the stock market has absolutely gotten a sunburn. It has been a great bull run, with stocks doubling in value in just two years, even though we are still about 15% below the stock market highs in 2007. Fortunately, the bull market is not over, but it is time to take a break and let the economy catch up. That break may not come until the end of QE2 at the end of June. But, like the dawn, it will come!
