T MINUS TWO DAYS AND COUNTING!
On December 29 at 8 p.m. ET, our very own Alexander Green and Chief Income Strategist Marc Lichtenfeld will sit down to discuss how to boost your Oxford Club returns by as much as six times in 2022.
This is such a valuable presentation that we’ve arranged for you to attend for FREE. (Absolutely free! No credit card required!)
As Alex points out below, you can’t predict the next black swan event, but you can minimize your risk.
If you have financial goals for 2022, you won’t want to miss THIS.
Click here to register now for the free online event.
2021 has been a year for the books.
We’ve battled an ongoing crisis.
We’ve seen tremendous innovation – and adaptation – in the private sector and unprecedented policies in the public sector.
We’ve experienced a record-breaking bull market.
(Stocks are up more than 110% from the March 23, 2020, low.)
Who predicted all this… and where will stocks go from here?
The answers are nobody… and no one knows.
That may sound disappointing – or just plain odd – coming from someone who gives investment advice for a living.
After all, people in my line of work are supposed to have strong, well-reasoned opinions about the outlook for economic growth, inflation, interest rates, currency values, commodity prices and the market.
Yet those opinions are worth exactly what you pay to hear them: nothing.
Stocks are the best-performing asset class of all time – and that isn’t likely to change.
But whether stocks go up or down in the short to medium term will depend on events we can’t foresee.
Consider just a few of the biggest market-moving events of the last 35 years…
On Black Monday in October 1987, world stock markets crashed.
No government official was shot that day. No currency collapsed. In fact, there was no major news whatsoever.
Yet markets around the world plunged up to 40%… in a single session.
Who predicted this?
No one. (Excepting, of course, the broken clocks who predict a stock market crash every year.)
After a three-year recovery in stocks, we hit another bear market as the world geared up for the first Gulf War.
Who predicted that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein would suddenly invade Kuwait and grab its oil fields?
No one.
A few years later, the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management lost $4.6 billion in four months.
Then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan had to recruit 14 major financial institutions to help supervise its orderly liquidation and avoid a financial panic.
Who predicted the collapse of a major hedge fund run by Nobel laureates?
No one.
On 9/11, a small group of terrorists flew planes full of people into buildings. That caused the stock market to close for a week. It plummeted when it reopened.
Who predicted 9/11?
No one.
Real estate prices in the U.S. rose more or less steadily for almost a century.
But 14 years ago, prices suddenly accelerated. The housing market turned into a bubble, then burst, leading to a financial crisis, the Great Recession and, not incidentally, a halving of share prices.
Who saw all this coming?
No one.
In 2020, a novel virus escaped China and became a global pandemic, leading to a health crisis, millions of business shutdowns and the biggest spike in unemployment since the Great Depression.
Who predicted this?
No one.
Knowing all this, do you really care what some talking head on CNBC forecasts for the year ahead?
While the timing is always uncertain, we will have many bull markets and bear markets in the future.
Smart investors prepare for them in advance.
How?
You capitalize on bull markets by owning a diversified selection of high-quality companies, with excellent prospects, that sell at reasonable valuations.
You prepare for bear markets by asset allocating outside of U.S. equities, position sizing your stock portfolio and running trailing stops behind your individual positions.
You may feel you have a good grasp on what’s happening with the economy, interest rates, inflation and even geopolitics.
That’s still not enough.
Risk isn’t limited to what you can imagine. It also includes what you can’t imagine.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m an optimist. I see human ingenuity, technology and capital markets creating a far better future. I remain a long-term believer in equities.
But for investors, the biggest risks are the ones you can’t see coming.
And the time to prepare for them is now.
P.S. A few weeks ago, I wrote a column about my personal heroes, Robert and Monica Kinder, a West Virginia couple who have fostered more than 20 children impacted by the nation’s opioid crisis.
Their extraordinary story generated hundreds of letters and comments from Oxford Club Members. In fact, it generated more positive feedback than anything I wrote all year.
Many thanks to those of you who contributed to the GoFundMe account the Club set up to help the Kinders with emergency home repairs and other expenses.
However, we are still a little short of our goal. To hear the Kinders’ extraordinary story – and experience the true spirit of Christmas yourself – just click here. And please share our campaign on social media as well.
Click here to watch Alex’s latest video update.