If you can stomach a little more volatility for a higher yield and
potential stock bear market diversifier, bonds can still provide that function even if the returns are lower than they've been in the past.
And if we assume the DOW Index is indeed peaking, and that the
subsequent stocks bear market might replicate the average decline of the last two bear markets in magnitude and time duration, then the DOW Index could conceivably drop to 9000 in the not too distant future.
The same analysis using the S&P BSE Sensex with the time period starting in Sep. 1996 shows gold performs far better in Indian stock bull markets than in
Indian stock bear markets.
Imagine that in January I had told you that early in the year we would see a
global stock bear market, that Great Britain would vote to leave the European Union and that Trump would win a poorly predicted US Presidential election.
Investment Newsletters Prior Bear Markets: A Poor Guide to Future Newsletter Performance The
current stock bear market has been so traumatic, it is likely to dominate investment decision - making for years.
A stock bear market, by contrast, doesn't begin until stocks have fallen at least 20 percent.
But that's nothing like
a stock bear market.
The upshot is that the Raging Stocks Bull during the past five years has turned into an Aging Stocks Bull, which will eventually birth
a Stocks Bear Market.