Chuck LeBeau

Nine Months Later: Some Annual Predictions from the Financial Press

Avoid Financial Disasters with SmartStops

In less than a year six widely held financial stocks have cost Buy and Hold investors more than $840 billion dollars. (Yes, that’s “billions” with a “B”).

$840 billion in losses is a number that might even get Warren Buffet’s attention. Think of all the retirement funds and college tuition money that got needlessly flushed down the drain in these few months. It’s a sad scenario but the saddest part is that the investors who lost all these billions could have avoided this disaster by simply using a “SmartStop” trailing exit.

Let’s look at the individual stocks and see what might have happened if some prudent stops were set rather than relying on a “buy and hold”. (You will notice that I did not refer to “buy and hold” as a strategy. It doesn’t qualify to be a strategy – its actually the absence of any intelligent exit strategy.)

Fannie Mae (FNM): The Sept/Oct 2007 high was $68.60 and FNM dropped to a recent low of $6.68. This 97% decline cost investors a total of $66 billion dollars. A SmartStop exit was triggered on Oct. 17, 2007 that would have limited the loss from the peak to less than 10%.

Freddie Mac (FRE): The Sept/Oct 2007 high was $65.88 and in less than 12 months FRE dropped all the way down to a pitiful 36 cents. When Freddie took that leap off the cliff it cost “buy and hold” investors $42 billion dollars. However a SmartStop exit was triggered on Oct. 16, 2007 at a price of $58.05 that might have preserved enough equity to get the grandkids through college.

Lehman Brothers (LEH): The Sept/Oct 2007 high was $66.98 and now they have filed for bankruptcy and the shares recently closed at a value of 21 cents. This painful disaster cost LEH shareholders $46 billion from the referenced high. Where was the SmartStop exit on LEH? It was triggered on Oct. 19th at $57.47 a share. Those funds could have been reinvested and earning money toward a comfortable retirement. Where is all that money now?

American International Group (AIG): The Sept/Oct 2007 high was $70.13 and now the stock is trying to stabilize somewhere below $5 after hitting $3.50. For the unfortunate shareholders who still own AIG that’s a whopping loss of $179 billion (give or take a few dollars). How smart was the SmartStops exit? It was triggered on Oct. 15, 2007 at $66.41 and there have been 28 more SmartStops sell signals since then.

Washington Mutual (WM): The Sept/Oct 2007 high was $39.25 and the SmartStop exit was at $34.30 on Oct. 15th. WM hit a recent low of $1.75; not even enough to buy a Starbucks latte. In less than a year WM shareholders lost more than $63 billion. Maybe if they hold long enough WM will eventually recover. (Although it will require a gain of more than 2000% to make back that 95% loss.)

Bear Stearns (BSC): It’s hard to believe that the Sept/Oct 2007 high for this ancient and respected brokerage firm with over 3 billion shares outstanding was $133.20 a share. Now they are gone and even with the government assisted bailout their unfortunate shareholders have lost more than $440 billion in equity. This one can never recover. That’s $440 billion of hard earned savings that’s now gone forever. (In case you are wondering, the SmartStops exit was at $110.11 on October 24, 2007. There were 17 more SmartStops exit signals prior to the takeover.)

I wonder if the Bear Stearns account executives told their clients that the best way to invest was to buy and hold?