A Brief Pause Before a New Year
Photo by Ales Krivec on Unsplash
“The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want….”
Psalm 23:1
What a cool verse. Stop a minute, take a step back, and pause… If God is your Shepherd, you will not need anything.
This feels pretty tough these days. If we are honest with ourselves, this is hard for any of us to digest.
Society is in a semi-shutdown phase due to the Coronavirus that may last for a year or more, there is social unrest that has grown from protests to riots, there is political uncertainty and the feeling of…”I want my guy or gal to be elected, and I am afraid that the other-side will steal the election and the country will be wrecked.”
And in the investment world, there is uncertainty. It feels like this, “I am afraid to risk because I am afraid to lose… And yet, I hear people are making money, and I’m afraid of missing out.”
We get it, we can feel this same way. There are two things that we can practice in moments like this: 1) Follow this verse. I encourage you to trust God. Please don’t hear this like a Sunday school lesson or a sermon. But pause and ask; is God in charge? Since the answer is yes then relax and yet have focused patience moving onto decisions and actions. 2) What do the facts tell us? Regarding your investments, what do the facts say? There is still a Global Pandemic, over 14 million people unemployed,[1] and a stock market that by many indications is in a bubble.[2] The US economy is in a terrible recession.
Yet, lately, we have been asked “is this stock rebound for real? I have I missed out?” Our answer and our opinion are “no, you have not missed out.” If this stock market does not go down another leg, this would be the first stock market in 50 years to only go down one leg and then permanently recover (a “V” shape) during an economic recession.[3]
Our team built and we use the four legs of our rules-based framework to measure data like this; market sentiment, market valuations, the US economy, and the US Fed policy. Now, you can nerd out and read all that you want to (Market Valuations,[4] Market Sentiment,[5] US economic growth,[6] and US Fed policy[7]). This data is constantly changing but the best news is, in our opinion, this gives us a full and accurate picture of what’s happening.
God gives us peace and joy. He also gives us wisdom and good people to work with and collectively look at the facts and make solid decisions. For us, this is a solid foundation in times like these.