In today’s Your Money Matters, Clint Lee and Ted Bauman discuss what Ted calls the “investment of the decade.” Crypto? Pot stocks? NFTs? None of the above. Instead, it’s the investment that has created more wealth than any other in human history. It’s a classic play on supply and demand. And right now, demand is dramatically outstripping supply … creating three types of opportunities that can bring you huge gains if you buy in now.
Originators handed out adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) like Halloween candy. Big banks packed them into MBS. They bribed agencies for AAA ratings. Then they sold them to unsuspecting investors. The shorts predicted that when ARMs began to reset in the second quarter of 2007, the MBS market would collapse like a Jenga tower .That’s exactly what it did. Their short bets earned them billions. The rest of the financial system collapsed. All through the movie, I kept asking myself one question … where’s the opportunity for today’s Big Short?
Two powerful forces have closed in on growth stocks: The Fed and the pandemic. But, what does this mean for the rest of the market? Are we seeing a dot-com peak followed by a waterfall decline … or is this just a rotation that smart investors can profit from? In today’s Your Money Matters, Ted Bauman and Clint Lee discuss the fall of growth indexes, the Fed’s tapering timeline and how you can protect and grow your portfolio.
The narrative around the Fed’s increasingly hawkish stance is that it’s reacting to consumer price inflation. That’s part of it, but I’m convinced Powell & Co. are playing at a much bigger game. Ever since the great financial crisis, asset markets have become unhealthily dependent on easy money. Besides exacerbating inequality, artificially inflated asset markets are prone to bubbles and bust. That’s why the most incisive market watchers have been saying for a long time that the Fed’s biggest challenge is to end this dependency once and for all. If that’s what the Fed is doing, how’s it going to affect markets? More importantly, which assets will suffer, and which will prosper?
Things are hard to find these days. COVID tests and face masks are in short supply. And a shortage of bus drivers is affecting my local school district. Some things are hard to find in the stock market as well … especially for income investors. The yield on the S&P 500 is a measly 1.3%.The 10-year Treasury yield is only 1.67%.Factor in inflation and those figures drop into negative territory. Your income isn’t keeping up with rising prices. You can look for yield in riskier assets such as high-yield bonds. But the “risk premium” is near historic lows. You’re not getting paid enough to justify it. Finding a good yield is becoming more like a treasure hunt … with investors scouring over hard-to-read maps. That’s why it’s time to revisit one popular strategy for clues.
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