Chris Shenfield

Why the Bear Market Bottom Is Not Yet In

When Sir John Templeton said that “The four most dangerous words in investing are: 'this time it's different'” he was NOT referring to bull markets or bear markets or cycles. He was referring to the fact that many investors tend to repeat their mistakes or the mistakes of others and was warning against investing with the safety of the herd. We are now in the bottom of a decades long downturn in which bonds have outperformed stocks, the NASDAQ is far below its levels of nearly a decade ago, and many sound Dow companies are trading for a fraction of their prices a few years ago. We're still trying to come out of the worst recession in this country since the great depression. We're trying to recover from a war on terror, the most significant armed attack on this country since Pearl Harbor, a credit crisis that has resulted in the most significant government intervention since the New Deal, and the sharpest postwar downturn in housing that anyone under 65 can remember. This is EXACTLY the time that the great contrarian, Sir John Templeton, would would say to invest. He would say "Peter, stop reading charts and books, put away your fortune cards, and BUY!