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When someone says “The Stock Market,” often the images that come to mind are screaming traders in blue jackets or a large mahogany desk perched atop the glass and steel of Wall Street’s skyscrapers. While everyone has a different image of the stock market, when gauging how well the market is doing, most investors think of the same two or three market indexes. The problem with using these popular indexes as the comparison is that investors are often much more diversified and conservative than these “benchmarks.”

With two tough quarters, we are not sure what the third quarter will look like. However, we know there are three questions on everyone's mind: 1. Are we in a recession? (If not now, is one coming?) 2. When will inflation (specifically gas prices) come down? 3. How long will this market last?...

We are facing a bump in the road right now, and I can feel anxiety and panic coming from some clients. I’m writing this today to hopefully relieve some of those emotions and explain what has happened in markets, why it has happened, and what FSG is doing. In addition, this past Monday, the 9th, Mark Carter and I recorded a video talking about many of the same things.

We are living in a period of great uncertainty, economically and socially. The world is faced with a geopolitical and humanitarian crisis in Eastern Europe. The effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine are beginning to reverberate through the world economy in the form of rising oil, natural gas, and commodity prices.

Well, this past quarter was not in the 2022 roadmap! In last quarter’s market update, I outlined three potential market villains for the year: 1. A Covid Return 2. Inflation 3. Rising Interest Rates. Little did I know, a real world Bond Villain (Putin) would be the catalyst for most of the market's headwinds this year. Frankly, that is the way these things go: THE UNKNOWN IS ALWAYS THE PROBLEM. The market and its participants were just as aware of the three headline risks I assessed and, therefore, those risks were already priced into the market.

Before I get into the nuts and bolts of what is happening and how we as a firm view the market impact, I want to address this question: Should you be concerned? The answer to this question is the same for every market crash. You should be concerned ONLY if you are relying on your portfolio for income AND there is NO fixed income allocation in your portfolio. Allow me to explain, but first we must agree on the premises that you are investing for the long term, the market cannot be timed, and fear is the enemy of successful investing.

Once every 18 months. That is how often the S&P 500 drops 10%, also known as a “correction”. We all remember the last correction (also commonly referred to as a “crash”), which happened in March of 2020. But what you may not remember is how long it took for the market to recover from that crash. The market took less than 5 months to rebound, bouncing back in August 2020. That was an enormously quick turnaround. August of 2020 was 18 months ago, and guess what we have not had in 18 months? That’s right, a correction!

The first season of a great television series is often hard to top. The excitement of a new plot, meeting the major characters, and understanding the themes of the show means that every subsequent season will be compared to the first. Well, if 2020 was season one of the pandemic 2021 was the promising albeit repetitive second season. The stock market was great for investors in seasons one and two (more on that in a minute), but the cast of villains had some changeover.