September is living up to its reputation for being the "worst month of the year" for stocks. The ongoing doom and gloom created by soaring inflation, the Fed's promise to attack it and recession worries have only intensified. Last week, the Cboe Volatility Index (VIX), which measures fear levels on Wall Street, hit its highest level since mid-June, when the stock market last reached its bear bottom.
Is this a new bottom? We can never know for sure. But here is what we do know: The S&P 500 has now fallen more than 20% below its record set in January, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average is also down more than 20% below its all-time high. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq has fallen more than 30% since hitting a record last November.
None of this is surprising given the current backdrop of an uber-hawkish Fed, a surging U.S. dollar, rising rates around the globe and so many unknowns.
Let's remember what contributed to the current environment. Over the past three years, an enormous amount of liquidity — from both U.S. monetary and fiscal policies — was injected into the system. That is a big reason why the S&P 500 was up 28% over the past three years.
Fast forward to today, and we have much less liquidity, slower growth, and a Fed that is quite behind on the inflation curve. It wasn't transitory after all.
Now that the tide has turned, it makes sense to see equities take a beating. But it isn't all bad news. In these types of markets, there is an opportunity to take a step back and look for golden opportunities to buy quality on sale. You can upgrade the portfolio at a discount, buying best-in-class, best-in-breed companies for cheap because the headlining fear has investors throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Specifically, I'm investing in those industry-leading companies that have healthy balance sheets, great business models, proven execution, stellar management teams and strong cash flow.
A Towering Wall of Worry
Markets always climb a wall of worry. In fact, most financial professionals worry when we don't worry because we never want to be complacent. But this year, we have it in spades. We have a behind-the-curve Fed, record-setting inflation, a slowing economy, and — if our predictions pan out — we'll see a major negative impact on earnings this upcoming season.
There's no doubt, we are counting a lot of bad news. As such, I don't expect there to be an event that will push the markets to explode higher in the near future, but, at the same time, equities may not go much lower given that a lot of the doom and gloom has likely already been priced in.
I expect the choppy trading range to continue over the next quarter, and the main reason is that the Fed is simply not our friend. Fed Chair Jerome Powell has said that he plans to remain aggressive on raising rates, coming out of September when the Federal Open Market Committee raised the federal funds rate by 75 basis points for the third time this year.
