Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

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nedsaid
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Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by nedsaid »

For those of us who are Larry Swedroe fans, you can find his latest thoughts on his Twitter feed. He also posts articles on Advisor Perspectives and Seeking Alpha. I will not post any article links, you can go to Twitter to find them.

I thought I would share some of the latest. Much of this are common themes we have heard from Larry for years. I thought his recent comments regarding concentration of the top 5 stocks by market cap and valuation gaps between Small Value and Large Growth were most interesting. I don't remember Larry discussing Tax Loss Harvesting and possible Alpha before, that would also be quite interesting to read.

He has a recent article about momentum investing.

The markets are more efficient than you think.

An article about tax-loss selling Alpha.

A few active managers will produce great performance purely by chance.

The underperformance of non-profit endowment funds.

The growing importance of intangible assets on a balance sheet and how this affects Value investing.

Consultants can't pick winning mutual funds.

As of 6/30 the top 5 companies in S&P 500 by market cap are larger than the bottom 350 companies.

Large growth stocks trading at about 35 times earnings compared to the average about 21 since 2009. P/E for large-cap growth stocks is 45% higher than large-cap stocks (23.95) and almost triple the P/E of small-cap value stocks (12.44). From my friends at Avantis.

The political biases of fund managers.
A fool and his money are good for business.
YRT70
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by YRT70 »

nedsaid wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 10:33 am I thought his recent comments regarding concentration of the top 5 stocks by market cap
Thanks for sharing. Did you mean this tweet only or was there an article about it?
Thinking about diversification? As of 6/30 the top 5 companies in S&P 500 by market cap are larger than the bottom 350 companies.
Microsoft6.00
Apple5.78
Amazon4.49
Alphabet3.26
Facebook2.12
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Leif
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by Leif »

YRT70 wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 10:59 am
nedsaid wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 10:33 am I thought his recent comments regarding concentration of the top 5 stocks by market cap
Thanks for sharing. Did you mean this tweet only or was there an article about it?
Thinking about diversification? As of 6/30 the top 5 companies in S&P 500 by market cap are larger than the bottom 350 companies.
Microsoft6.00
Apple5.78
Amazon4.49
Alphabet3.26
Facebook2.12
All tech stocks. Tesla will soon be added. I don't know if it will be in the bottom 350. If so it should should help balance out a little.
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by am »

YRT70 wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 10:59 am
nedsaid wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 10:33 am I thought his recent comments regarding concentration of the top 5 stocks by market cap
Thanks for sharing. Did you mean this tweet only or was there an article about it?
Thinking about diversification? As of 6/30 the top 5 companies in S&P 500 by market cap are larger than the bottom 350 companies.
Microsoft6.00
Apple5.78
Amazon4.49
Alphabet3.26
Facebook2.12
That’s disturbing. I’ve noticed recently that Dow can be up 300 points but if nasdaq is down or even, the total us market fund Is up a little. Those companies account for a big chunk of returns for the total market fund,

I think all those on here who think US is all you need, watch out. If the big tech companies have a slump your going to get hit harder than you think. The recent outperformance of US has been because of these big tech and a strong dollar. That may all come to an end and you’ll be wishing you had some international. Recency bias at its best!
Seasonal
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by Seasonal »

YRT70 wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 10:59 am
nedsaid wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 10:33 am I thought his recent comments regarding concentration of the top 5 stocks by market cap
Thanks for sharing. Did you mean this tweet only or was there an article about it?
Thinking about diversification? As of 6/30 the top 5 companies in S&P 500 by market cap are larger than the bottom 350 companies.
Microsoft6.00
Apple5.78
Amazon4.49
Alphabet3.26
Facebook2.12
Tech companies appear to benefit from being large and household names. It is one of the few industries in which both employees and consumers can be at home, which is very beneficial in the current era and is not very common. It shouldn't be that big a surprise that the top tech companies are dominating.
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by columbia »

I found the conversations here about Larry's articles to be very interesting. Too bad that seems to have ended (for whatever reason).
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by nedsaid »

YRT70 wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 10:59 am
nedsaid wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 10:33 am I thought his recent comments regarding concentration of the top 5 stocks by market cap
Thanks for sharing. Did you mean this tweet only or was there an article about it?
Thinking about diversification? As of 6/30 the top 5 companies in S&P 500 by market cap are larger than the bottom 350 companies.
Microsoft6.00
Apple5.78
Amazon4.49
Alphabet3.26
Facebook2.12
Yes, I am referring specifically to this tweet. My intent wasn't to recreate the Twitter feed or to create a link farm to Larry's articles. I was just providing a sampling of Larry's latest thinking. For the record, I haven't corresponded with Larry for a while so no one put me up to this.

But yes, this tweet is of great interest to us Value oriented investors.
A fool and his money are good for business.
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by Miriam2 »

nedsaid wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 11:46 am
YRT70 wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 10:59 am
nedsaid wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 10:33 am I thought his recent comments regarding concentration of the top 5 stocks by market cap
Thanks for sharing. Did you mean this tweet only or was there an article about it?
Thinking about diversification? As of 6/30 the top 5 companies in S&P 500 by market cap are larger than the bottom 350 companies.
Microsoft6.00
Apple5.78
Amazon4.49
Alphabet3.26
Facebook2.12
Yes, I am referring specifically to this tweet. My intent wasn't to recreate the Twitter feed or to create a link farm to Larry's articles. I was just providing a sampling of Larry's latest thinking. For the record, I haven't corresponded with Larry for a while so no one put me up to this.

But yes, this tweet is of great interest to us Value oriented investors.
Nedsaid, I find it of interest to learn about international investing, in light of what YRT70 said about diversification.

Does anyone know of any articles discussing how or whether our diversification in international investing is impacted by the high market cap weight of a mere 5 or so US tech or tech-type companies?
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by LadyGeek »

I removed an off-topic interchange regarding Larry Swedroe's motives for posting here. As a reminder, see: General Etiquette
At all times we must conduct ourselves in a respectful manner to other posters. Attacks on individuals, insults, name calling, trolling, baiting or other attempts to sow dissension are not acceptable.
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by Robot Monster »

Leif wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 11:10 am
YRT70 wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 10:59 am
nedsaid wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 10:33 am I thought his recent comments regarding concentration of the top 5 stocks by market cap
Thanks for sharing. Did you mean this tweet only or was there an article about it?
Thinking about diversification? As of 6/30 the top 5 companies in S&P 500 by market cap are larger than the bottom 350 companies.
Microsoft6.00
Apple5.78
Amazon4.49
Alphabet3.26
Facebook2.12
All tech stocks. Tesla will soon be added. I don't know if it will be in the bottom 350. If so it should should help balance out a little.
Tesla is already in Vanguard Mega Cap ETF, the 21st holding, right above Disney. Disney is the 21st holding in Vanguard S&P 500 ETF.
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by Peanutsandme »

Thank you for sharing. I checked out his Twitter feed

Larry is great
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by Bitzer »

Um, I'm going to pass on Larry. Still stinging from losses on commodities and QSPIX.
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by JoMoney »

Thinking about diversification? As of 6/30 the top 5 companies in S&P 500 by market cap are larger than the bottom 350 companies.
Microsoft6.00
Apple5.78
Amazon4.49
Alphabet3.26
Facebook2.12
Having the bulk of money in those assets has worked.
Over the last five years, those 5 stocks have had double the performance of the S&P 500
PV LINK
The performance the S&P had would have lagged more without those at the top.

Larry's style of investing is "pulling the flowers and watering the weeds".
"To achieve satisfactory investment results is easier than most people realize; to achieve superior results is harder than it looks." - Benjamin Graham
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by whodidntante »

JoMoney wrote: Sun Aug 16, 2020 8:56 am Larry's style of investing is "pulling the flowers and watering the weeds".
Ha! Five flowers and thousands of weeds is an interesting description of the US equities market. I can't really say you're wrong because the US economy seems rather weak.
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by Actin »

am wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 11:14 am
YRT70 wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 10:59 am
nedsaid wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 10:33 am I thought his recent comments regarding concentration of the top 5 stocks by market cap
Thanks for sharing. Did you mean this tweet only or was there an article about it?
Thinking about diversification? As of 6/30 the top 5 companies in S&P 500 by market cap are larger than the bottom 350 companies.
Microsoft6.00
Apple5.78
Amazon4.49
Alphabet3.26
Facebook2.12
That’s disturbing. I’ve noticed recently that Dow can be up 300 points but if nasdaq is down or even, the total us market fund Is up a little. Those companies account for a big chunk of returns for the total market fund,

I think all those on here who think US is all you need, watch out. If the big tech companies have a slump your going to get hit harder than you think. The recent outperformance of US has been because of these big tech and a strong dollar. That may all come to an end and you’ll be wishing you had some international. Recency bias at its best!

Alternatively, those companies continue to grow and international lags for another decade
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by JoMoney »

whodidntante wrote: Sun Aug 16, 2020 10:22 am
JoMoney wrote: Sun Aug 16, 2020 8:56 am Larry's style of investing is "pulling the flowers and watering the weeds".
Ha! Five flowers and thousands of weeds is an interesting description of the US equities market. I can't really say you're wrong because the US economy seems rather weak.
There were other good performers in the 500, but those were clearly the most pervasive in the market over that time. The number of less-than stunning performers will always be more abundant, but it was especially the case over the last 5 years. An equal-weighted holding certainly didn't have the returns it's proponents had been touting, and on a risk-adjusted/volatility basis it was especially poor.
The interesting thing about "value" mean-reversion style fans though, is when you show them their style didn't work, their response is to double-down on it :P (not to imply that momentum or other 'styles' are without faults).
"To achieve satisfactory investment results is easier than most people realize; to achieve superior results is harder than it looks." - Benjamin Graham
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by am »

Actin wrote: Sun Aug 16, 2020 10:37 am
am wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 11:14 am
YRT70 wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 10:59 am
nedsaid wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 10:33 am I thought his recent comments regarding concentration of the top 5 stocks by market cap
Thanks for sharing. Did you mean this tweet only or was there an article about it?
Thinking about diversification? As of 6/30 the top 5 companies in S&P 500 by market cap are larger than the bottom 350 companies.
Microsoft6.00
Apple5.78
Amazon4.49
Alphabet3.26
Facebook2.12
That’s disturbing. I’ve noticed recently that Dow can be up 300 points but if nasdaq is down or even, the total us market fund Is up a little. Those companies account for a big chunk of returns for the total market fund,

I think all those on here who think US is all you need, watch out. If the big tech companies have a slump your going to get hit harder than you think. The recent outperformance of US has been because of these big tech and a strong dollar. That may all come to an end and you’ll be wishing you had some international. Recency bias at its best!

Alternatively, those companies continue to grow and international lags for another decade
Trees don’t grow to the sky and certainly this applies to these companies. Hate to have a big chunk of my future retirement depend on those companies and bonds yielding nothing.
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by Random Walker »

JoMoney wrote: Sun Aug 16, 2020 11:00 am The interesting thing about "value" mean-reversion style fans though, is when you show them their style didn't work, their response is to double-down on it :P (not to imply that momentum or other 'styles' are without faults).
What else is there to do? If one believes in buying cheap stocks, he should be more interested when they get cheaper. More importantly, when it comes to investing success, sticking with one’s plan is likely more important than the details of the plan itself. The irrational behavior is to sell low and buy high.

Dave
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by JoMoney »

am wrote: Fri Jan 02, 1970 2:22 pm...
Trees don’t grow to the sky and certainly this applies to these companies. Hate to have a big chunk of my future retirement depend on those companies and bonds yielding nothing.
It's the big trees that survive through the disasters that kill off the little ones...
Hate to be relying on a tilt to the untested more risky ones.
"To achieve satisfactory investment results is easier than most people realize; to achieve superior results is harder than it looks." - Benjamin Graham
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Latest thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by Taylor Larimore »

Bogleheads:

I am very pleased that my 500 Index Fund owns the market-weight in the largest and most successful companies on the planet.

Best wishes
Taylor
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by Hector »

Seasonal wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 11:41 am
YRT70 wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 10:59 am
nedsaid wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 10:33 am I thought his recent comments regarding concentration of the top 5 stocks by market cap
Thanks for sharing. Did you mean this tweet only or was there an article about it?
Thinking about diversification? As of 6/30 the top 5 companies in S&P 500 by market cap are larger than the bottom 350 companies.
Microsoft6.00
Apple5.78
Amazon4.49
Alphabet3.26
Facebook2.12
Tech companies appear to benefit from being large and household names. It is one of the few industries in which both employees and consumers can be at home, which is very beneficial in the current era and is not very common. It shouldn't be that big a surprise that the top tech companies are dominating.
A lot of non tech big companies have in-house IT now a days where employees and customers can be at home-ish now a days. For example a retail company can have their e-commerce business built in house without needing tech companies. Few employees and customers can be at home. Manufacturing and distribution related work needs to be done in office.
Also, how can tech companies make profit without the help of non tech companies? For example, google makes part of its money by being paid from non tech companies for their search business.
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by 000 »

You missed his article on Certain Precious Metals Can Hedge Political Risks. :twisted:

I was surprised to see this coming from Swedroe.

Has he ever discussed Precious Metals before?
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by nedsaid »

JoMoney wrote: Sun Aug 16, 2020 8:56 am
Thinking about diversification? As of 6/30 the top 5 companies in S&P 500 by market cap are larger than the bottom 350 companies.
Microsoft6.00
Apple5.78
Amazon4.49
Alphabet3.26
Facebook2.12
Having the bulk of money in those assets has worked.
Over the last five years, those 5 stocks have had double the performance of the S&P 500
PV LINK
The performance the S&P had would have lagged more without those at the top.

Larry's style of investing is "pulling the flowers and watering the weeds".
Shoot, all you had to do was have all your money in Google. :wink: The majesty of simplicity and all of that.

The S&P 500 is always top heavy but sometimes it is more top heavy than at other times. I suspect we saw this in the 1970's with energy stocks, we saw it in the late 1990's with Tech, and we are seeing it again in 2020 with Tech again. What is different from the late 1990's is that valuations are "extended" but not euphoric. Forward P/E ratios for the US Stock Market now are 20-22 compared to 32 in 1999. So some optimism but not euphoria. The S&P 500 is pretty top heavy now and it in that respect looks a lot like 1999.

One other thing is that expectations for even great companies got too high. GE had an estimated growth rate of 15% and that growth seemed very consistent. Really quality companies with very consistent growth rates can fetch a P/E at 2.5X earnings growth. GE was the bluest of the blue chip stocks and the market assigned a P/E at 3X earnings growth or a P/E of 45. Jack Welch was a master of financial engineering and a master of managing earnings expectations. The underlying growth rate minus all the financial engineering was probably more like 8% and thus the P/E should have been 20-25 and not 45. The expectations were too high and when Welch retired, the new ringmaster didn't manage earnings expectations or the actual businesses as well as Welch did. So since then, GE has been Our Lady of Perpetual Disappointment, a company that since has never failed to disappoint investors. GE has never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. The same could and probably will happen to the FAANG stocks.

Historically, market leadership has shifted, different sectors of the stock market lead at different times. I wouldn't want to make the argument that High Tech will always lead the US Stock Market. I also wouldn't argue that the Large Growth trend will continue. Market preferences for stocks change over time. Ties widen and narrow, hemlines on dresses go up and go down, things go in and out of style.
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by nedsaid »

Miriam2 wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 11:05 pm
Nedsaid, I find it of interest to learn about international investing, in light of what YRT70 said about diversification.

Does anyone know of any articles discussing how or whether our diversification in international investing is impacted by the high market cap weight of a mere 5 or so US tech or tech-type companies?
I can't speak for Larry of course but he has often written about lower valuations leading to future higher expected returns. In that light, International Developed stocks are cheaper than US and International Emerging Markets cheaper still. Pretty much International=Value, so a great argument can be made that you can get the Value factor just by owning the broad International Stock Indexes.

And yes, Larry has talked about concentration within the US Total Market and S&P 500 indexes and he has discussed that speculative stocks with little or no earnings have been outperforming. I think he is seeing froth here.

I would search Larry's Twitter feed to find such articles, if they exist. I didn't go too far down the feed for this post. You might try an internet search with Google or Bing.
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by Miriam2 »

nedsaid wrote: I can't speak for Larry of course but he has often written about lower valuations leading to future higher expected returns . . . I would search Larry's Twitter feed to find such articles, if they exist. I didn't go too far down the feed for this post. You might try an internet search with Google or Bing.
Thank you Nedsaid :happy
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by nedsaid »

JoMoney wrote: Sun Aug 16, 2020 11:44 am
am wrote: Fri Jan 02, 1970 2:22 pm...
Trees don’t grow to the sky and certainly this applies to these companies. Hate to have a big chunk of my future retirement depend on those companies and bonds yielding nothing.
It's the big trees that survive through the disasters that kill off the little ones...
Hate to be relying on a tilt to the untested more risky ones.
Look at the holdings of the Vanguard Value Index and you will see that these are hardly untested companies. A lot of big names in there. Small Value is something else but I suspect a lot of the companies that reside there are also not untested. "Small-Cap" companies are still pretty large firms.
A fool and his money are good for business.
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by Angst »

JoMoney wrote: Sun Aug 16, 2020 11:44 am
am wrote: Fri Jan 02, 1970 2:22 pm...
Trees don’t grow to the sky and certainly this applies to these companies. Hate to have a big chunk of my future retirement depend on those companies and bonds yielding nothing.
It's the big trees that survive through the disasters that kill off the little ones...
Hate to be relying on a tilt to the untested more risky ones.
I couldn't agree more. Well, not exactly...
Here's my take on it:
In my take, I (hypothetically) wrote:It's the big trees that survive through the disasters that kill off the little ones...
and it's the little trees that survive through the disasters that kill off the big ones...
Hate to be relying on a tilt to the untested more risky ones either one or the other since we don't know which kind of disaster is coming up next.
Just another way of promoting the TSM, market cap-oriented way of investing.
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by cheezit »

In most mass extinctions, the apex predators and other megafauna get wiped out while the smaller critters survive and then diversify to fill the niches left open by everything that died.
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by nisiprius »

nedsaid wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 10:33 am...As of 6/30 the top 5 companies in S&P 500 by market cap are larger than the bottom 350 companies...
The combined frequencies of the most common 100 English words is about equal to the combined frequency of the other 171,376 combined.

Seawater contains 27 times the weight in water as it does in all other substances combined.
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by nedsaid »

nisiprius wrote: Mon Aug 17, 2020 11:48 am
nedsaid wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 10:33 am...As of 6/30 the top 5 companies in S&P 500 by market cap are larger than the bottom 350 companies...
The combined frequencies of the most common 100 English words is about equal to the combined frequency of the other 171,376 combined.

Seawater contains 27 times the weight in water as it does in all other substances combined.
Well as I said, the broad indexes are always top heavy with the most successful companies. Sometimes these indexes are more top heavy than at others. Again, not fomenting panic here just saying that market trends don't continue forever. The more top heavy than normal S&P 500 is a sign that the Large Growth, High Tech/Internet, and FAANG stock trend is getting long of tooth. It certainly doesn't mean the market will collapse, just that market leadership will change as it always has.
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by HomerJ »

nedsaid wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 10:33 amAs of 6/30 the top 5 companies in S&P 500 by market cap are larger than the bottom 350 companies.
Good thing we own those bottom 350 companies too (more than that since most of us own Total Stock Market, not just SP500)

So if things change, and some smaller companies start doing well, and the big companies falter, we'll still do okay because we'll share in the gains of the new leaders that are currently in the bottom.
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by Seasonal »

Barry Ritholtz: "Top-Heavy Stock Indexes Are Nothing to Fear. It’s not rare for a small group of equities such as Apple, Microsoft and Amazon.com to account for a large percentage of the S&P 500." https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/artic ... ng-to-fear

We are at a top ten concentration high point, but not by much.
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by pb1996 »

cheezit wrote: Mon Aug 17, 2020 11:08 am In most mass extinctions, the apex predators and other megafauna get wiped out while the smaller critters survive and then diversify to fill the niches left open by everything that died.
I don't really have a dog in this fight but I like this quote and it makes me want to root for the little guy...
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by garlandwhizzer »

Seasonal wrote:

Barry Ritholtz: "Top-Heavy Stock Indexes Are Nothing to Fear. It’s not rare for a small group of equities such as Apple, Microsoft and Amazon.com to account for a large percentage of the S&P 500." https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/artic ... ng-to-fear

We are at a top ten concentration high point, but not by much.
1+

Great post and interesting article well worth reading. Barry Ritholtz is always worth listening to. What I worry a bit about is not the asset concentration at the top into LCG mega-cap tech. Those are the only companies that have provided reliable revenue and profit growth in an otherwise stagnant economy for a decade. Their advantages have only been increased with social distancing, switching from bricks and mortar to online. It seems reasonable to me to pay up for reliable consistent growth when it is so rare.

What I worry about is excessive levels of optimistic sentiment/Robin Hood short term MOM investing likely done by inexperience younger investors. TSLA has gone up 527% in the last 5 months. This reminds me of the dot com euphoria in the late 1999. Not all the FAANGS have such outrageous appreciation in such a short time period. Bear in mind this is in an economically grim period with massive unemployment, severe economic contraction since year end 2019, and an ongoing world wide pandemic that currently getting worse in the USA.

What TSLA's market action tells you is that it's sentiment that's totally driving the market now. A lot of future good news is already priced into mega-cap tech darlings especially TSLA and AMZN. Those expectations might be fulfilled or even exceeded, but there is IMO a lot more risk to the future of mega-cap tech darlings than is currently anticipated by the market including increased governmental regulation, trade war, change in corporate tax policy, disruption of supply chains by China/US struggle for tech supremacy, and user privacy issues. Excessive investor sentiment is a lot like musical chairs, it is fun while the music is playing but at some point the music stops.

Garland Whizzer
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by heyyou »

by Bitzer » Sun Aug 16, 2020 8:55 am
Um, I'm going to pass on Larry. Still stinging from losses on commodities and QSPIX.
I too have stopped giving Larry even a click on a site, because my money was acquired by living below my means.
QSPIX is at 66% of its opening price after almost 7 years, currently at near half of its two previous highs.
PCRIX is worth 26% of its opening price 18 years ago, now at 13% of its peak price.
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nedsaid
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by nedsaid »

HomerJ wrote: Mon Aug 17, 2020 11:41 pm
nedsaid wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 10:33 amAs of 6/30 the top 5 companies in S&P 500 by market cap are larger than the bottom 350 companies.
Good thing we own those bottom 350 companies too (more than that since most of us own Total Stock Market, not just SP500)

So if things change, and some smaller companies start doing well, and the big companies falter, we'll still do okay because we'll share in the gains of the new leaders that are currently in the bottom.
Except that the US Stock Market was flat from 2000-2012 the last time something like this happened. Just sayin'.
A fool and his money are good for business.
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by nedsaid »

A few recent tweets from Larry Swedroe:

Larry Swedroe
@larryswedroe
Nov 6
My new Seeking Alpha article examines the value of security analysis and shows the evidence that even corporate insiders have difficult time in determining fair value of their stock. And analyst predictions go in opposite direction of the academic evidence

Larry Swedroe
@larryswedroe
Nov 13
From M*
U.S. equity fund outflows more than doubled from Sept to $46B, 2nd highest monthly outflows ever.
Active managers bearing brunt of outflows, giving back $267B in the 12 months through October passive U.S. equity funds added about $1.6B
The Incredible Shrinking Alpha!

Larry Swedroe
@larryswedroe
Nov 16
The top-heavy outperformance of the FAANG stocks is not a historical anomaly, but history shows that they are likely to be tomorrow’s underperformers. I examine the evidence in my latest Advisor Perspective article.


Larry Swedroe
@larryswedroe
Nov 16
SV (Small Value) recovery that no one noticing. Example,3/23/20 AVUV closed at 27.18. now trading at 52.35 and paid out 0.30 in distributions. That's return of 94%. How many investors bailed out and missed the rally? How many didn't rebalance into SV? so much of returns comes in short bursts

Larry Swedroe
@larryswedroe
Nov 24
Great example of so much of market's long term returns occur over short and unpredictable bursts. US SV example--AVUV on 3/23 closed at 27.18; as I write this it is at 55.29, or more than 100% return in 8 months. On 9/23 it closed at 41.51, so up 33% in just two months.
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Leif
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by Leif »

I've noticed SV's recent climb. The fund I track, DFSVX, is still under water YTD, so behind the 500. If this is the recovery phase then that is when SV tends to shine. Certainly very volatile.
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by nedsaid »

Leif wrote: Thu Nov 26, 2020 1:36 pm I've noticed SV's recent climb. The fund I track, DFSVX, is still under water YTD, so behind the 500. If this is the recovery phase then that is when SV tends to shine. Certainly very volatile.
Vanguard Small Cap Value Index ETF is up 1.70% for the year and iShares S&P 600 Small Cap Value Index is still down -1.14% for the year. Small Value has really roared back from the March 2020 lows.
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by livesoft »

nedsaid wrote: Thu Nov 26, 2020 1:44 pmSmall Value has really roared back from the March 2020 lows.
Everything else has roared back more though, right?

In the spirit of Full Disclosure, I own Vanguard Small-Cap Value Index fund and the ETF. I market time IJS which is the iShares S&P Small Cap Value ETF, but currently do not own any shares.
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by nedsaid »

livesoft wrote: Thu Nov 26, 2020 1:47 pm
nedsaid wrote: Thu Nov 26, 2020 1:44 pmSmall Value has really roared back from the March 2020 lows.
Everything else has roared back more though, right?
Well shoot, I haven't checked the recovery of every darned asset class out there. Just a point made by Larry that excess returns can come from short violent bursts upward, performance doesn't happen on a nice smooth, upward slope. The market itself was down from peak to trough maybe 35%, so it had less of a loss to recover from. Yes, most everything has recovered.
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by Leif »

heyyou wrote: Tue Aug 18, 2020 4:13 pm PCRIX is worth 26% of its opening price 18 years ago, now at 13% of its peak price.
That's a painful memory. I watched it decline over the years. Ended up selling it for about 1/3 the original investment. Larry said my mistake was I should have also bought long term Treasuries. I guess I missed that piece of advice. My worst investment. I decided, in the future, to get my inflation protection from TIPS.
Last edited by Leif on Thu Nov 26, 2020 2:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by nedsaid »

livesoft wrote: Thu Nov 26, 2020 1:47 pm
In the spirit of Full Disclosure, I own Vanguard Small-Cap Value Index fund and the ETF. I market time IJS which is the iShares S&P Small Cap Value ETF, but currently do not own any shares.
I own both VBR and IJS but have not market timed these investments. In fact, I have not yet sold even one ETF share. I am a buy, hold, and rebalance kind of guy. I didn't even rebalance much until July of 2013, when I started my program of mild rebalancing and slow de-risking of my portfolio. Don't even like to rebalance but I was shamed into it by my fellow Bogleheads. Rebalancing is the next thing to Godliness here.

I also own Wisdom Tree International Small Cap Dividend ETF, which is my only International Small Value investment.
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by james22 »

Thanks for this thread, nedsaid.

I hope you can keep it up.
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HomerJ
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by HomerJ »

heyyou wrote: Tue Aug 18, 2020 4:13 pm
by Bitzer » Sun Aug 16, 2020 8:55 am
Um, I'm going to pass on Larry. Still stinging from losses on commodities and QSPIX.
I too have stopped giving Larry even a click on a site, because my money was acquired by living below my means.
QSPIX is at 66% of its opening price after almost 7 years, currently at near half of its two previous highs.
PCRIX is worth 26% of its opening price 18 years ago, now at 13% of its peak price.
This. Seriously... People who have followed Swedroe's advice over the past 12-14 years have far less money than those of us who ignored him.
"The best tools available to us are shovels, not scalpels. Don't get carried away." - vanBogle59
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by jhawktx »

HomerJ wrote: Thu Nov 26, 2020 9:00 pm
heyyou wrote: Tue Aug 18, 2020 4:13 pm
by Bitzer » Sun Aug 16, 2020 8:55 am
Um, I'm going to pass on Larry. Still stinging from losses on commodities and QSPIX.
I too have stopped giving Larry even a click on a site, because my money was acquired by living below my means.
QSPIX is at 66% of its opening price after almost 7 years, currently at near half of its two previous highs.
PCRIX is worth 26% of its opening price 18 years ago, now at 13% of its peak price.
This. Seriously... People who have followed Swedroe's advice over the past 12-14 years have far less money than those of us who ignored him.
LOL. Larry spends (wastes) so much time blabbering about topics that will have a minute effect on any portfolio.
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by Grt2bOutdoors »

You know what they say right? One man's trash is another man's treasure. You may or may not find value in anyone's opinions or statements, I find that Larry is one of the good guys. Occasionally, what we see here and in real life is one person will say something along the lines of "i don't agree with such and such...." and then we have others pile on with sarcastic comments and more useless drivel. That is why holding intellectual thought provoking conversations has become less and less common here. So, for those who find Larry's comments useless, direct us to their own statements and those other experts who made the right calls 100% of the time. But you can't can you?, because if you truly believe in what you say you do, then you know that there are no above average performers, right? Thought so!
"One should invest based on their need, ability and willingness to take risk - Larry Swedroe" Asking Portfolio Questions
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by jocdoc »

I have found his writings interesting and thought provoking. Although some his recommendations have not panned out the reasoning for the recommendations that were laid out were fairly sound. The results could have gone the other way. He would then have been lauded.
JC
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by HomerJ »

jocdoc wrote: Fri Nov 27, 2020 5:12 am I have found his writings interesting and thought provoking. Although some his recommendations have not panned out the reasoning for the recommendations that were laid out were fairly sound. The results could have gone the other way. He would then have been lauded.
JC
This is correct.

He may have actually calculated everything right, but it's just probabilities, and the low chance scenario occurred. That's absolutely possible, and even likely, because Swedroe is smart, and his reasoning is sound.

But it's also certainly reasonable to wonder if his calculations were wrong, since they turned out so poorly. Lot of variables, few data points, human emotions involved.

Just another example of even the experts don't know enough, no matter how confident they appear in their articles and posts.
"The best tools available to us are shovels, not scalpels. Don't get carried away." - vanBogle59
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Re: Latest Thoughts from Larry Swedroe

Post by Random Walker »

jocdoc wrote: Fri Nov 27, 2020 5:12 am I have found his writings interesting and thought provoking. Although some his recommendations have not panned out the reasoning for the recommendations that were laid out were fairly sound. The results could have gone the other way. He would then have been lauded.
JC
One of Larry’s main tenets is “hyperdiversification”. This is because over any finite time span, even a quite long one, any given source of return may perform poorly. With regard to SV, important to appreciate that in long only finds it has market beta exposure about same as TSM. Also, since SV has higher expected return, very rational to increase allocation to safe bonds concomitant with tilting to SV. What matters is the performance of the portfolio as a whole.

Dave
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