It was 40 years ago today, August 13, 1979, that BusinessWeek ran the infamous cover story titled The Death of Equities. Pointing to persistently high inflation and a Labor Department ruling that allowed pension funds to diversify assets outside of stocks and bonds, the story contained ominous warnings about the future of owning stocks. Though the predictions were temporarily true, with the market acting poorly until 1982, it certainly was no ‘death’. According to Bloomberg (now the owner of Bloomberg Businessweek) from 1982 to today, the total return of the S&P500 stock index has been nearly 7,000%. This is a vivid example of the need to have a defined strategy, and the behavioral stamina to stay committed to it, in order to be a successful investor. We discussed some of these concepts in our latest Quarterly Point of View, Tolerance Over Avoidance (July 2019 Quarterly Point of View). In many facets of life, history can provide some illuminating lessons.
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