This week saw healthy US retail sales data with further employment improvement. We also saw continued soft inflation and slightly weaker industrial production. Related to this data, the Federal Reserve left US interest rates unchanged during this week’s meeting. We believe the current media focus on what the Fed may do, and when, is potentially excessive, especially for longer term investors. Historical data shows that rising rates are not necessarily bad for the stock market, in part because rates generally rise because the economic environment is viewed as robust.
Internationally, there are elections scheduled in Greece this Sunday. This is the third time the Greeks will go to the polls this year, though the issues surrounding a bailout in Greece now appear largely resolved. China released long awaited plans to reform state owned enterprises, though for many Western commentators the plans did not go far enough in opening these enterprises up to market forces. The IMF released updated growth forecasts, showing improved growth for the US and Euro area but marked deterioration in Brazil and Canada. Overall aggregate global economic growth is expected to be 3% for this year, 0.1% decline relative to prior forecasts.
A reminder this week on the potential benefits of a passive approach to investing. During volatility, such as we’ve seen recently, there is no shortage of pundits claiming to have predicted the market successfully and to know what’s going to happen next. However, academic studies strongly suggest that focusing on a low cost approach and avoiding excessive trading is likely to deliver better returns on average and over time. We believe this approach can be augmented by automatic rebalancing. This can correct for the problems in trading on emotion as behavioral finance identifies. Also, a focus on tax efficiency whether through techniques such as tax loss harvesting or tax efficient asset placement has the potential to help after tax returns.