Should You Be Investing In The Current Stock Market?

We are at or near a peak of a second longest bull market in the US history. A bull market is defined by a stock market that keeps on rising without being interrupted by at least a 20% decline.

So how long will this bull market continue? Let's look at what has been driving this bull market and then maybe we can get a better understanding of where it may be going.

It has been a little over eight years ago when the current bull market started after the 2008/2009 recession and it has since grown by nearly 240%, not including dividends.

This means, if you had invested in S&P 500 Index during the depths of 2009 recession, you would have more than doubled your money by now.

After the recession of 2008 and 2009, the Central Bank (Fed) adopted monetary policy to help spur economic growth by increasing liquidity and lowering interest rates. If you remember, during the last recession, banks had stopped lending money, there was simply no more money to lend. We were in a credit freeze environment and the economy was coming to an screeching halt.

Fed's lowering of interest rates and printing money to buy treasury bonds, gave banks the liquidity they needed to start lending again. Businesses and individuals could borrow money at very low cost, which allowed them to start new businesses or grow existing companies and increase profits.

Now in its eight year, the market that has been running on steroids of fed's cheap stimulus money, is just running too fast and getting ahead of itself.

The reason why fed's have been too reluctant to take the foot off the pedal is because the underlying US economy is still not growing at the expected rate and there are fears that by taking stimulus or cheap money off too quickly, we could end up back into recession.

Regardless, Fed's can't keep their foot on the gas pedal forever as it would get harder and harder to bring the economy and market back to its normal growth path.

Feds are now trying to finally slow things down by pulling back on the stimulus. This is being done using two methods. First by slowly increasing interest rates which feds have already started to do, and secondly by unloading of their highly inflated balance sheet of nearly 4.5 trillion dollars in bonds. Some say, it could take up to seven years for feds to fully unwind the balance sheet.

Both interest rate increase and unloading of fed's balance sheet would create a downward pressure on the stock market as there will be higher yielding and less risky options for investors to earn income on their money rather than investing in high risk stock market.

For example, as fed's increase interest rate, a typical savings account will start earning much higher interest rate than what it has been earning in the past eight years of Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP) environment. This will cause the money to flow out of the stock market and into fixed income instruments such as savings accounts, CDs, and bonds. High interest rates can be especially bad for certain dividend paying stocks which have been trading at all time highs and with yields less than 3%.

Therefore, all those investors that have been crowding in the stock market for purely income, will have better and safer options for their money. This by itself will reduce demand for income focused stocks such as dividend paying stocks and overall will create a downward pressure on the stock market.

The other component that has caused some of the recent expansion of the stock market is the Trump effect. As we all have seen what the stock market has done since election, it has been on the tear non-stop for the past seven months.

The Trump effect is purely based on the promises and expectations of easing of corporate taxes, individual tax reforms, better healthcare, and economic policies that puts US companies and individuals at advantage when competing in the US and global economy.

However, expectations must be met with real policy changes or implementations. If none or very few of these promises come true, it will surely to take the air out of the stock market and would just add on to the downward pressure of the fed's stimulus unwind.

Therefore, both slowing down of the stimulus in the form of rising interest rates and deleveraging of fed's balance sheet, as well as deflation of Trump effect would surely to cause the stock market to come back to its senses.

It is time for investors like myself to be very careful when putting any new money in the market at the current valuation. It's even more prudent to buildup cash reserves so that when a market correction happens, you have the money to buy stocks at a very cheap valuations.

It never hurts to take some profits and then wait for the market to correct before reinvesting; however, I would not start selling stocks just because market is at all times high unless I really need the cash.

Remember, more money is made in stock market by buying stocks at a fair to cheap valuations and not when the stock market is running at its all time high. In stock market, patience and discipline is what makes people most money and panic destroys wealth, so stay calm and have a plan for the next correction as it is coming!



  1. Mr. ATM, in my opinion, I think it's a good time to be in the stock market. I understand the concerns that we might be due for another steep decline. But, truth be told, we don't know when that's going to be. What's important is that while in the market, we are properly diversified so that it can help withstand a steep decline. Besides, it might be another 5 years before the market correct itself. Does that mean that we should be on the sidelines until then? Probably not, because we also lose the power of compounding.

    So, I say, go for it, and invest. Diversity to spread your risk, but only invest money you can afford to lose. Finally, there is a benefit to dollar cost averaging. That way, you get the average price of the stock over time and so that's probably another way to still be in the market if one is concerned about a steep decline.

    I do admit though that the post made several valid points, including having cash reserves to take advantage of the decline. But to the answer the question of the post, yes, I believe investors should be investing in the 'current' stock market.

    1. I agree with you, we don't have to be completely on the sidelines. Averaging down using dollar-cost-average strategy would work in any market given that investment period is long enough to average out any bumps.

      Though, I would not feel comfortable investing in a lump sum or investing any amount of money that I need in short-term when market is historically at its highest point, given the weak economy and all the associated risks and uncertainties that are looming above it.

      Thanks for your comment!

  2. Lots of great points here. I agree with you that it's a bad time to go all-in suddenly. And your comment to Dividend Portfolio (whose comment covered my own thoughts) was spot on: it's good to continue investing steadily because it's impossible to time markets (and politics, and the like), even if it's not a great time to drop a huge chunk of money in, or especially money that you need. That's why we keep an emergency fund separate from our stock investments, in case times get hard.

    1. FW P, great point regarding an emergency fund. One must have an emergency fund before taking risks in the stock market.

      Thanks for stopping by.

  3. I agree with a lot of stuff you've pointed out! I'd much rather buy assets at a cheaper valuation,since that's just math; that said, because we can't predict when the next crash will occur, I'm not staying on the side lines (for a fact a crash is coming, like you're saying - but the problem is, it can go up another 50% before it pulls back 20%). The one other thing I'd also throw in there is that we're at the precipice of another technological revolution (even greater in influence than the PC), and that is AI & Automation. This is my biggest reasons to remain bullish (long-term that is).

    1. Tim,

      Yes market could go up another 50%, but given that market has already gone up nearly 240% since last recession and economy isn't growing all that well to organically support this expansion (as a matter of fact it is the slowest growing post recession economy in our history). Therefore, I would think the probability is high that we would see a bigger correction first, before market goes up the next leg up. At least that's my opinion.

      Agree AI is the next big thing, though I feel we are getting a bit ahead of ourselves. It reminds me of dot com days, though not quite bad yet. Will see what happens.

      I think long-term, market has gone up more than it has gone down, so staying bullish long-term seems like a good call, but it is the short-term that worries me.

      Thanks for your comment.


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