Posts tagged ‘magazine covers’
Back to the Future: Mag Covers (Part I)
Magazine Covers Part II – – – Magazine Covers Part III
I’m not referring to the movie, Back to the Future, about a plutonium-powered DeLorean time machine that finds Marty McFly (played by Michael J. Fox) traveling back in time. Rather, I am shining the light on the uncanny ability of media outlets (specifically magazines) to mark key turning points in financial markets – both market bottoms and market tops. This will be the first in a three part series, providing a few examples of how magazines have captured critical periods of maximum fear (buying opportunities) and greed (selling signals).
People tend to have short memories, especially when it comes to the emotional rollercoaster ride we call the stock market. Thanks to globalization, the internet, and the 24/7 news cycle, we are bombarded with some fear factor to worry about every day. Although I might forget what I had for breakfast, I have been a student of financial market history and have experienced enough cycles to realize as Mark Twain famously stated, “History never repeats itself, but it often rhymes” (read previous market history article). In that vein, let us take a look at a few covers from the 1970s:
Newsweek’s “The Big Bad Bear” issue came out on September 9, 1974 when the collapse of the so-called “Nifty Fifty” (the concentrated set of glamour stocks or “Blue Chips”) was in full swing. This group of stocks, like Avon, McDonalds, Polaroid, Xerox, IBM and Disney, were considered “one-decision” stocks investors could buy and hold forever. Unfortunately, numerous of these hefty priced stocks (many above a 50 P/E) came crashing down about 90% during the1973-74 period.
Why the glum sentiment? Here are a few reasons:
- Exiting Vietnam War
- Undergoing a Recession
- 9% Unemployment
- Arab Oil Embargo
- Watergate: Presidential Resignation
- Franklin National Failure
A cartoon from the same bearish 1974 cover article.
Not a rosy backdrop, but was this scary and horrific phase the ideal time to sell, as the magazine cover may imply? No, actually this was a shockingly excellent time to purchase equities. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, priced at 627 when the magazine was released, is now trading around 10,247…not too shabby a return considering the situation looked pretty darn bleak at the time.
Reports of the Market’s Death Greatly Exaggerated
Sticking with the Mark Twain theme, the reports of the market’s demise was greatly exaggerated too – much the same way we experienced the overstated reaction to the financial crisis early in 2009. BusinessWeek’s August 13, 1979 magazine captured the essence of the bearish mood in the article titled, “The Death of Equities.” This article came out, of course, about 18 months before a multi-decade upward explosion in prices that ended in the “Dot-com” crash of 2000. In the late 1970s, inflation reached double digit levels; gold and oil had more than doubled in price; Paul Volcker became the Federal Reserve Chairman and put on the economic brakes via a tough, anti-inflationary interest rate program; and President Jimmy Carter was dealing with an Iranian Revolution that led to the capture of 63 U.S. hostages. Like other bear market crashes in our history, this period also served as a tremendous time to buy stocks. As you can see from the chart above, the Dow was at 833 at the time of the magazine printing – in the year 2000, the Dow peaked at over 14,000.
This walk down memory lane is not complete. Conveniently, the Back to the Future story was designed as a trilogy (just like my three-part magazine review). You can relive Parts II & III here: Magazine Covers Part II – – – Magazine Covers Part III
Wade W. Slome, CFA, CFP®
Plan. Invest. Prosper.
DISCLOSURE: Sidoxia Capital Management (SCM) has a short position in MCD at the time this article was originally posted. SCM owns certain exchange traded funds, IBM, and DIS, but currently has no direct position in Avon (AVP), Polaroid, Xerox (XRX). No information accessed through the Investing Caffeine (IC) website constitutes investment, financial, legal, tax or other advice nor is to be relied on in making an investment or other decision. Please read disclosure language on IC “Contact” page.
Back to the Future: Mag Covers (Part III)
Congratulations to those who have graduated through my first two articles (Part I and Part II) regarding the use of media magazine covers as contrarian investment indicator tools. We’ve reviewed magazine’s horrendous ability of predicting market shifts during the 1970s and Tech Bubble of 2000, and now we will take a peek at the “Great Recession” of 2008 and 2009. If you have the stamina to complete this final article, your diploma and selfless glory will be waiting for you at the end.
This magazine cover series was not designed to be utilized as an exploitable investment strategy, but rather to increase awareness and raise skepticism surrounding investment content. Just because something is written or said by journalist or blogger does not mean it is a fact (although I fancy facts). In the field of investing, along with other behavioral disciplines, there are significant gray areas left open to interpretation. A more educated, critical eye exercised by the general public will perhaps release us from the repetitive boom-bust cycles we’ve become accustomed to. Perhaps my goal is naïve and idealistic, nonetheless I dare to dream.
The wounds from a year ago are still fresh, and we have not fully escaped from the problems that originally got us into this mess, but it is amazing what a 60%+ market move since March can do to the number of “Great Depression” references. Let’s walk down calamity memory lane over the last year:
Great Depression Redux?
Months ago we were in the midst of a severe recession, and the media was not shy about jumping on the “pessimism porn” bandwagon for the sake of ratings. Like a Friday the 13th sequel (nice tie in!), CNBC just weeks ago was plugging the crisis anniversary of the Lehman Brothers failure. Time magazine’s portrayal of the financial crisis as the next Great Depression, including the soup kitchen lines, mass unemployment, and collapse of thousands of banks, was used like chum to feed the frenzy of shocked investing onlookers. Unemployment rates are still creeping up, albeit at a slower rate, but we are nowhere near the 25% levels seen in the Great Depression.
American Disintegration
One of my favorite articles (read here) of the global crisis was written by The Wall Street Journal late last year about a Russian Professor, Igor Panarin (also a former KGB analyst). I find it absurdly amusing that the WSJ would even give credence to this story, but perhaps now I can look forward to an Op-Ed in their newspaper from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or North Korean Leader Kim Jong Ill. Not only did Professor Panarin pronounce the complete evaporation of the United States, but he also provided a specific timeframe. In late June or early July 2010, he expects the U.S. to fall into civil war and subsequently get carved up into six pieces by particular foreign regions, including China, Mexico, E.U., Japan, Canada, and Russia (which will control Alaska of course). I guess Sarah Palin will not be a happy camper?
Other Crisis Souvenirs
Hey Georgy, let me know when you turn bullish…so I can sell!
Market Mayhem
- Who’s that on the cover? Nancy Pelosi?!
Lessons Learned
Contrarianism for the sake of contrarianism is not necessarily a good thing. Trend can be your friend too. Bubbles take much longer to inflate than they burst, so it may be in your best interest to ride the wave of ecstasy for longer than the early alarm ringers. Take for example Alan Greenspan’s infamous irrational exuberance speech in 1996, when the NASDAQ index was trading around 1300. As we all know, the NASDAQ went on to pierce the 5000 mark, four years later. Sorry Al…right idea, but a tad early. Although he may have been correct directionally, his timing and degree were way off. Pundits like Nouriel Roubini and Peter Schiff are other examples of prognosticators who identified the financial crisis many years before the catastrophe actually hit. As I noted previously, trading based on magazine covers was not conceived as a legitimate investable strategy, but as I’ve shown they can be indicators of sentiment. And these sentiment indicators can be used as a valuable apparatus in your toolbox to prevent harmful decisions at the worst possible times.
Thanks for coming Back to the Future on this historical tour of cover stories. Now that you have graduated with honors, next time you are in line at the grocery store, feel free to flash your diploma to receive a discount on a magazine purchase.
Class dismissed.
Wade W. Slome, CFA, CFP®
Plan. Invest. Prosper.
DISCLOSURE: No information accessed through the Investing Caffeine (IC) website constitutes investment, financial, legal, tax or other advice nor is to be relied on in making an investment or other decision. Please read disclosure language on IC “Contact” page.
Back to the Future: Mag Covers (Part II)
In my most recent article, I went Back to the Future to examine the role magazine covers play as a contrarian indicator in fear-driven markets like we experienced in the 1970s (see previous story). Investing is both an art and science. While measuring the scientific aspects of the market can be more straight-forward, the behavioral and emotional sides to investing are more subjective. Magazines act as sentiment sensors to gauge the fear and froth pulses of the general investing public. Since last time we explored fear, let’s check out some froth from the 1990s technology boom.
How to Invest in the Hottest Market Ever
Seeing the forest from the trees can be difficult when you’re trapped in the thick of it, but the March 2000 issue of Money magazine’s “How to Invest in the Hottest Market Ever” is a classic example of the mentality that reigned supreme in the late 1990s technology bubble. Objective, fact-filled articles that challenge the status quo are not necessary to generate sales, but articles and magazine covers that pander to the raw emotions of fear and greed keep the cash register ringing. If you don’t believe me, just read the sensational headlines at your local grocery store explaining how swine flu will kill us all and how there are millions to be made in melting gold coins and jewelry (read gold article).
I love some of the quotes from the article, especially from Pam, the 51 year old divorced New York City art museum volunteer who bought AOL, Microsoft, and Qualcomm (which rose +2,621% in 1999) who dismisses diversification: “I feel pretty safe now. I think we are in a new paradigm now.” Yeah, a “new economy” that catapulted Yahoo to a Price/Earnings ratio of 400x’s earnings; Cisco 109x’s earnings; and Sun Microsystems practically a bargain basement steal at 88x’s earnings. For reference purposes, the S&P 500 index currently trades for about 14.6x’s estimated 2010 earnings and 19.5x on 2009 estimates.
GetRich.com
Another landmark masterpiece I love is the September 1999 Time cover, “GetRich.com.” Never mind the unabated technology boom (excluding a brief hiccup in 1998) that inflated the bubble for a decade – Time still managed to unearth the “Secrets of the New Silicon Valley.” The article goes onto to express the get-rich formula:
“Can’t program a computer? Not a techno savvy? Not a problem. If you’ve got a hot Internet business idea, Silicon Valley’s astonishing start-up machine will do the rest.”
Like a drug dealer pushing heroin on an addict, the article goes on to entice its readers to question “Why have a boss when you and three buddies can build your own publicly traded company in two years? Windows this big don’t open very often.”
A Few More Favorites
Great timing on this February 2000 cover…a month before the crash!
This July 1999 cover captures envy. Everyone's getting rich!
As we saw during the technology boom, media outlets have no shame in shoveling greed inducing slop to the hungry general public. Like all historical events that end tragically, valuable lessons can be learned from our mistakes. Developing a discerning palette for the news we digest is a critical quality to generating an informed investment decision process. With the 1970s and 1990s behind us, as the last of my three part series, we’ll use time travel to another period to see if modern magazine editors fare any better in market timing as compared to their predecessors. Please excuse me while I jump in my time machine.
Wade W. Slome, CFA, CFP®
Plan. Invest. Prosper.
DISCLOSURE: Sidoxia Capital Management (SCM) or its clients has a long position in CSCO and QCOM at the time this article was originally posted. SCM owns certain exchange traded funds, but currently has no direct position in YHOO, MSFT, or JAVA. No information accessed through the Investing Caffeine (IC) website constitutes investment, financial, legal, tax or other advice nor is to be relied on in making an investment or other decision. Please read disclosure language on IC “Contact” page.
Back to the Future: Mag Covers (Part I)
Magazine Covers Part II – – – Magazine Covers Part III
I’m not referring to the movie, Back to the Future, about a plutonium-powered DeLorean time machine that finds Marty McFly (played by Michael J. Fox) traveling back in time. Rather, I am shining the light on the uncanny ability of media outlets (specifically magazines) to mark key turning points in financial markets – both market bottoms and market tops. This will be the first in a three part series, providing a few examples of how magazines have captured critical periods of maximum fear (buying opportunities) and greed (selling signals).
People tend to have short memories, especially when it comes to the emotional rollercoaster ride we call the stock market. Thanks to globalization, the internet, and the 24/7 news cycle, we are bombarded with some fear factor to worry about every day. Although I might forget what I had for breakfast, I have been a student of financial market history and have experienced enough cycles to realize as Mark Twain famously stated, “History never repeats itself, but it often rhymes” (read previous market history article). In that vein, let us take a look at a few covers from the 1970s:
Newsweek’s “The Big Bad Bear” issue came out on September 9, 1974 when the collapse of the so-called “Nifty Fifty” (the concentrated set of glamour stocks or “Blue Chips”) was in full swing. This group of stocks, like Avon, McDonalds, Polaroid, Xerox, IBM and Disney, were considered “one-decision” stocks investors could buy and hold forever. Unfortunately, numerous of these hefty priced stocks (many above a 50 P/E) came crashing down about 90% during the1973-74 period.
Why the glum sentiment? Here are a few reasons:
- Exiting Vietnam War
- Undergoing a Recession
- 9% Unemployment
- Arab Oil Embargo
- Watergate: Presidential Resignation
- Franklin National Failure
A cartoon from the same bearish 1974 cover article.
Not a rosy backdrop, but was this scary and horrific phase the ideal time to sell, as the magazine cover may imply? No, actually this was a shockingly excellent time to purchase equities. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, priced at 627 when the magazine was released, is now trading around 10,247…not too shabby a return considering the situation looked pretty darn bleak at the time.
Reports of the Market’s Death Greatly Exaggerated
Sticking with the Mark Twain theme, the reports of the market’s demise was greatly exaggerated too – much the same way we experienced the overstated reaction to the financial crisis early in 2009. BusinessWeek’s August 13, 1979 magazine captured the essence of the bearish mood in the article titled, “The Death of Equities.” This article came out, of course, about 18 months before a multi-decade upward explosion in prices that ended in the “Dot-com” crash of 2000. In the late 1970s, inflation reached double digit levels; gold and oil had more than doubled in price; Paul Volcker became the Federal Reserve Chairman and put on the economic brakes via a tough, anti-inflationary interest rate program; and President Jimmy Carter was dealing with an Iranian Revolution that led to the capture of 63 U.S. hostages. Like other bear market crashes in our history, this period also served as a tremendous time to buy stocks. As you can see from the chart above, the Dow was at 833 at the time of the magazine printing – in the year 2000, the Dow peaked at over 14,000.
The walk down memory lane is not over yet. Conveniently, the Back to the Future story was designed as a trilogy (just like my three-part magazine review), so stay tuned for “Part II” – coming soon to your future.
Wade W. Slome, CFA, CFP®
Plan. Invest. Prosper.
DISCLOSURE: Sidoxia Capital Management (SCM) has a short position in MCD at the time this article was originally posted. SCM owns certain exchange traded funds, but currently has no direct position in Avon (AVP), Polaroid, Xerox (XRX), IBM or Disney (DIS). No information accessed through the Investing Caffeine (IC) website constitutes investment, financial, legal, tax or other advice nor is to be relied on in making an investment or other decision. Please read disclosure language on IC “Contact” page.
Investing Caffeine 
