September 2014 Market Commentary

It has been said that “April is the cruelest month,”but historically, September has the highest odds of the S&P500 ending the month lower than it began.

So far in 2014, the Big Picture still looks good for domestic equities (US stocks), barring any sudden and unexpected disaster – terrorist, political or otherwise.

There is a never-ending supply of good news AND bad news in the media.  Depending on what you are looking for, and want to hear, you will most likely find it.  Often, clients and friends send us newsletters with Doomsday headlines, asking what we think.  According to many of these articles, we should have been seeing record lows over the past several years.  But we haven’t.

Some of these upsetting opinions are based on sound logic, but bottom line, predictions are just guesses.  Is any Doomsday scenario possible?  Yes.  Does that matter?  Not really.  It doesn’t become real until the sellers overwhelm the buyers.  The important thing is to focus on what we can control.  We can’t control world events, politicians, or interest rates.  But we can control our decisions, which control our actions.  Bottom line, we are more interested in having a plan of action for each scenario, rather than making predictions and guessing.

In other news, Real Estate seems to be a hot topic again.  We’re amazed at the resurgence of seminars, systems, etc. that promise quick fortunes for those investing in real estate.  Haven’t we seen this before?  At the last real estate peak in 2007, these programs were plentiful.  Sometimes we think there is more money to be made in selling these “systems” than in the actual real estate market.

Finally, have you seen gold lately?  Ouch.  Remember when THAT was the “next big thing”?  For over two years now, we’ve been suggesting against it (see chart).

Investing Tip:  October is the historically the best time of the year to make lump sum or extra contributions to your retirement account(s).  Since it normally follows September (see above), the idea here is: buy lower-er, sell high-er.  Make sense?  Please contact us if you’d like to make an IRA or Roth IRA contribution in October.