June 2, 2023
By Steve Blumenthal
“Peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.”
In John Mauldin’s newsletter last week, he shared a short excerpt from Felix Zulauf’s interview with Ed D’Agostino from the 2023 Strategic Investment Conference that took place last month. As John said in his newsletter, Zulauf, a renowned Swiss money manager, is always a crowd-pleaser at SIC whose predictions more often than not hit the mark. What does he predict for 2023? A slowdown that will hit markets hard.
From Zulauf:
“We only know by hindsight when the recession started, but there is an indicator you can watch that gives you some indication when the start of the recession is here, without knowing for sure, and that is when the inverted yield curve begins to flatten.
As Zulauf related, we’ve seen the yield curve start to flatten, which he believes could indicate that we’re nearing the start of a recession. However, he predicts the recession will not be long, but rather short and deep since the Fed and other central banks are overtightening as a result of looking at inflation numbers, which are lagging indicators. Once they recognize we’ve hit a recession, Zulauf believes they’ll swing from quantitative tightening (QT) to quantitative easing (QE) fairly quickly—as early as the third quarter. He continued:
“If the market declines the way I expect, it could lead to lower lows. I still have the target that I told my subscribers in late ‘21 of about 30% down, which is the low 3,000 in the S&P and maybe 9,000 in the Nasdaq. That means lows below [those of October 2022] sometime in the second half [of] this year. If all that happens, then we start another mini cycle that will be the last one in the long-term cycle that started in 2009. I would expect it to terminate sometime in 2025.”
As Zulauf explained further, if the scenario plays out as he described, we’ll see a recession since money will be injected into the system will not go into the real economy immediately. Instead, it will flow to the assets that are scarce:
“I think there is structural scarcity in the commodity segment where we have [seen] underinvestment for many years, and where the two political situations of disturbing supply chains and disrupted supply chains will play a role. Then I think we will see a sharp rise in commodity prices. While crude oil could see $50 first over the next few months, I think we will probably see $150 to $200 in 2025 and 2026, and that will [result in] much higher inflation rates.”
Felix believes we will remain in a long-term secular bull market that will peak in 2025. He believes we remain in a short-term bear market with a possible bottom around 3,000 for the S&P 500 Index and 9,000 for the Nasdaq. The Fed and other central bankers will come back in with quantitative easing, igniting a rally that will take the market to new all-time highs. Inflation will kick back in at a point, and we’ll find ourselves in even greater debt. And then we’ll reach the “Grandaddy Bear Market,” as he calls it, where he believes the markets will decline by 50% or more.
Zulauf sees the period ahead as a roller coaster–like ride with steep ups and downs. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t an opportunity. If you can time the cycles correctly, even if you miss 50% of the down moves and 50% of the up moves, he believes you can improve your performance considerably. It’s an environment to combine good stock-picking talent with cycle-timing. Look for stocks that can grow their top-line and bottom-line profits. I believe this is a period that will favor long-short funds, macro hedge funds, and likely managed futures traders as well. Find talent.
It’s been some time since I’ve shared my favorite valuation charts with you. I’m going to save the bulk of them for next month when we get the quarter-end numbers. However, I find Zulauf’s 3,000 target to be in line with my valuation work.
This next chart, courtesy of Ned Davis Research, plots the “Median PE” of the S&P 500 Index going back 59.3 years. If you look at the PE of each stock in the S&P 500 Index and rank them from highest PE to lowest, the median is the PE in the middle. The actual earnings used are 12-month trailing, fully diluted earnings, excluding extraordinary items.
In the center section of the chart, you’ll see a green dotted line that shows the 59.3-year Median PE to be 17.6. NDR calls it “Median Fair Value.” Follow the path of the orange line and compare where it was at any given point in time from today back to 3-31-1964.
What I like best about this chart are the zones in the center section that indicate “Very Overvalued,” “Overvalued,” and “Bargains.”
Standard deviation (eg. +1 SD or -1 SD) is the measurement used to show the extent of the deviation from the 59.3-year median PE data. Most of the time, the Median PE was between Median Fair Value (the dotted green line) and a +1 or -1 SD. Events with +2 SD are extremely rare.
So, how should we think about this? We can use it to help to set targets.
NDR puts it this way:
“P/E valuation-based indicators are often used as a sentiment indicator, with high valuations indicating high optimism and low valuations indicating pessimism. Extreme deviations from the norm, or median, are watched for to signal high- or low-risk periods. The Standard and Poor’s 500 Stock Index typically performs better when the Standard and Poor’s 500 Stock Index Median P/E is below its historical median than when valuations are far above average.”
If Felix is right, a move to 3,000 is an attractive buying point in terms of the long-term valuation history of the market.
Look at the lower section of the chart now. You can see that Median Fair Value is 3,047.10. This reminds me of the Charlie Munger quote I share each week in Trade Signals: “Extreme patience combined with extreme decisiveness. You may call that our investment process. Yes, it’s that simple.”
Remaining patient is a very hard thing to do.
Grab your coffee and find your favorite chair. The debt deal passed the Senate and is headed for President Biden’s signature. Much to digest. I’ve got a brief on it below. I’ve also included more insights from the 2023 SIC, including from some heavyweight geopolitical speakers that presented.
Here are the sections in this week’s On My Radar:
- The U.S. Debt Limit Deal
- Geopolitical Risks
- Random Tweets
- Trade Signals: A Rare -4 Zweig Bond Model Signal
- Personal Note: Peace
(Reminder: This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. My views may change at any time. The information is for discussion purposes only.)
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The U.S. Debt Limit Deal: Crisis Avoided
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Geopolitical Risks
George Friedman:
Courtesy John Mauldin 5-26-23 letter titled SIC Mix.
George thinks the next president (whoever it is) will fail to solve important problems as he gets no cooperation from feuding factions, then be replaced by some yet-unknown figure who will do the unthinkable in a crisis that forces cooperation. You might compare it to Carter being followed by Reagan, but George thinks this cycle will be even more dramatic. Here’s a bit from the 18-page transcript.
Ed D’Agostino: “Let’s get back to your socioeconomic cycle. You said Reagan inherited an economy starved for capital, and he changed that. He lowered taxes, created incentives for investment, and created a booming economy, but he also sowed the seeds for wealth disparity. And today, you say the US has too much capital.
“So, it seems like we’re right in the middle of these changes starting. We are entering a credit crunch, or at least, I believe we’re entering a credit crunch, a Fed-induced credit crunch. Is this all part of how your cycle plays out?
George Friedman: “There was a period of time when there was more capital than there was opportunity, not too many years ago.
“You always have an imbalance that can develop, and it has to be adjusted. The market adjusted that excess capital, and we wound up investing all over the world…
“We now are moving into a period that always happens here—of capital shortage, of rising costs, and declining demand. In each of the economic cycles, that happened. That signals that the system, the way it is built, has failed—as they all do—and now has to be reconsidered, restructured.
“And interestingly enough, in the history of the United States, that was never done by the market. That was done by government, and you can see the presidents that did it. The market utilizes it, makes it work, and exploits it. But the change itself comes from something that a government, usually by the president, said had to happen.
“We talked about the Reagan change. That Reagan change created a system of growing excess capital. But everything fails in the end. But for every period, it was Roosevelt flooding the market with demand. Where everybody wanted to be careful about that, he flooded the market with demand.
“Rutherford B. Hayes, who was president after the Civil War, was printing money for free. It was dollars. He came in with two things. He says, ‘No, we’re not going to keep printing money,’ and ‘No, we are going to link it to gold, to a reasonable extent, but not enough to commit suicide.’
“Andrew Jackson looked at the fact that Eastern banks were wrecking any chance of settling the West by fluctuating interest rates so that you bought something—a piece of land from somebody—you borrowed money to pay for it, and it kept moving around. The Eastern banks did pretty well. We could not have settled the West. He put in process a system that kind of broke the Eastern banks, the crisis after Andrew Jackson. Everybody in the East was horrified at what he did. We don’t remember that if he hadn’t done that, I’m not sure who would’ve owned California.
“So, in each of these cases, you are faced with what appears to be a problem that can’t be solved. Along comes a president who states the problem, understands that it has to be solved—there is no such thing as not solving it—and comes up with a stupid solution.
“Each of these things that were done were mindbogglingly stupid. It was so obvious they couldn’t work. That’s what Reagan was. Reagan was loathed for being simple-minded and not understanding the complexities. But he understood that we had to make investments in companies and said we had to give them that.
“So, it’s a peculiar thing about the presidents that come along. And each of them had an intuitive sense of what was wrong, an intuitive sense of what the stupid solution was. And he didn’t care what people thought of him. That was the interesting thing about each of these presidents. Yeah, they like being elected and everything like that. They just did it.
“Now, at this moment in history, I don’t see that guy coming out of the woodwork, but I never saw Reagan coming out of the woodwork either.
“So, what happens is that it hurts more and more. The pain that we’re going through intensifies until it looks like the republic can’t stand it. And that’s when the solution comes. So, we’re looking close at it. Biden could surprise us, so could Trump. But I doubt it. So, the president after Biden will be a simple, stupid man who knows this can’t go on.”
George later clarified he sees this “change agent” rising to power in 2028, not 2024. Whoever wins in 2024 will be a transition figure. Also, note that George uses hyperbole when he says that president will be a stupid man. His opponents will certainly call him that!
Ed pulled so much more out of George. They talked about China’s intent for Taiwan, which George views differently than most. He doesn’t believe China will invade Taiwan. He also sees real danger ahead no matter who “wins” the Ukraine conflict.
Neil Howe – The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End
From John Mauldin: Neil calls this era “The Fourth Turning,” and we are in the middle of it right now. It’s the culmination of a roughly 80-year cycle, the last of which encompassed the Great Depression and World War II. Before that, it was the Civil War, the Revolutionary War, England’s Glorious Revolution, and so on. These cycles have been going on for centuries in the Anglo-Saxon world. Other parts of the world have similar patterns. It is evidently part of human nature. (In an attempt to be humorous, I once told Neil it appears each generation screws up their kids the same way their forebears did 80 to 90 years earlier. Why should we expect different results?)
The final cycle in Neil’s generational cycle—The Fourth Turning—brings huge, fundamental change—not just economic but social and political change. Some of society’s core institutions collapse, and new ones rise. That’s the kind of period we are about to enter. And it’s why I’ve made “Thinking the Unthinkable” our SIC theme this year.
The days of expecting Institution X to take care of our problems are gone. And whether the X you’re thinking of is a company, a government agency, or some private organization, we should not assume it will be there to fulfill its normal role. In a Fourth Turning, everything is on the table.
SB here – The signs are quite evident: The end of a debt supercycle, internal conflicts we have not seen in decades, and external conflicts of a rising power challenging an existing power. Alliances are intensifying: China – Russia – India – Brazil – much of the middle east and Africa (The BRICS) vs. the NATO countries led by the U.S. Restructuring of trading partnerships, friend shoring, and restoring – manufacturing partnerships, new currencies… The debt problems are most everywhere, adding to tensions.
Neil feels this plays out over the balance of this decade. The good news is that Fourth Turnings are always followed by First Turnings, and First Turnings are awesome as we unite and come back together again, usually from a triggering event.
Frank Luntz and Andrew Yang
Ed D’Agostino interviewed Dr. Frank Luntz, longtime associated with the Republican Party, noted pollster, and businessman and former presidential candidate on the Democratic ticket, Andrew Yang. It was an interesting conversation, and I learned a few unexpected things.
Both agreed that we are divided at the extremes, and the center has lost its voice (for now). Much of the conversation was on the potential for a third party that represents the middle.
Andrew Yang asked, “How is it that in a country of 330 million people, and we’re going to have these two people again as our only choices, combined age 160, both of them deeply unpopular? It’s because the two-party system has become increasingly institutionalized and unrepresented. I ran in an Iowa caucus on the Democratic side that got 6.5% of Iowans. I’m sure it’s probably the same on the Republican side. So you have these parties that are meant to represent half the country, but really there’s like a sliver of a sliver that’s in control, and it’s increasingly distorting things. It’s why we could wind up with a Biden/Trump rematch that none of us wants. Really, it’s insane. It’s like, how the heck? Each of you knows a dozen people that you would happily slot into the White House ahead of either of those two choices.
Ed D’Agostino said, Frank, you asked me to run a poll to the strategic investment conference audience. You said, “I bet that your audience would choose, at a disproportionately high percentage rate, a third party candidate if their choices were Trump or Biden.” And you were right. You were right, by far. I think it ended up that the third-party candidate option was Joe Manchin. It was Manchin, Trump, Biden, or “I won’t vote.” I think Manchin came in at 71% or so. Andrew Yang responded, Oh my gosh.
Luntz commented on how negative he is on the state of things. “I’m so pessimistic that I don’t want to depress people. I don’t want you all to walk out of wherever you’re watching us and walk in front of oncoming traffic. But we’re passing it along to our kids. People are angrier, more frustrated, and more likely to act out than they’ve ever been before. We’re passing it on to our friends, where we seek people who affirm us rather than inform us. We’re passing it on to our family. More people can’t have a Thanksgiving meal without having a fight about politics. These are things that we used to be able to do so easily. To be American was to be open-minded, was to be embracing. It’s not to say that we don’t have embarrassing moments in our past. Obviously, we’ve had a racial awakening, a gender awakening, a generational awakening. That said, we used to be able to communicate with each other, and we can’t anymore. And Joe Manchin is one of the most open-minded, most down-home, homespun members of the Senate. I’m not surprised that he got as much as he did. I think the actual numbers were, Trump was 23, Biden was 23, and I think Manchin was 46. And whenever I talk to these people, they love Joe Manchin. The problem that we have is that we have an increasing segment of society that says, “To hell with everybody, I want to do something different.”
Andrew Yang has started something called the Forward Party. It is already the third-biggest party in the country in terms of resources. He and many others, including me, believe we need a third-party movement in this country to advance sane alternatives because each of the current parties is enthralled to the most extremes because of the way the party primaries are set up. It’s just an incentives thing. What we’ve done is we’ve set up this crazy system that empowers folks who do not represent the American mainstream.
The Forward Party is not left or right; it’s forward, Andrew said and noted there’s a 22% approval rating for US Congress. And asked, do you know what the reelection rate is for incumbents? It’s 94%. Imagine if you were running a business where four to five of your customers were unhappy, and you changed absolutely nothing. That is why everyone is becoming so furious.
Did you know that 90% of the congressional districts are drawn up to be uncompetitive? Andrew said, “They’re duping us in this, even saying there’s a two-party system. It’s a one-party system in 75% of the country, including probably where you live. It’s a foregone conclusion what party’s representing you. I’m in New York. It’s a blue zone. And then if you say, “Hey, I don’t like what’s going on in my community in terms of homelessness or education or public safety.” They’d be like, “Oh, it’s someone else’s fault. It’s someone else’s fault.” No, it’s because neither party wants any competition, and neither party wants to have to deliver. People are voting with their feet and leaving places because they believe they can’t make any changes in the city they live in, so they pack up and move to Florida. He said we have a diseased system. So what we need to do is introduce competition in blue coastal enclaves and in red states. The Forward Party thinks that one-party rule is just bad and uncompetitive, regardless of whether it’s red or blue.
Frank Luntz offered a couple of solutions:
- Number one is to open up the primaries. No one should be denied the right to vote for anyone, in any primary, in any state. You should be able, Republicans and Democrats should be able to vote in each other’s primaries because in the end you’re electing a United States Congressman.
- Number two enact rank choice voting, which allows you to put in order the people that you prefer. You don’t just vote once. Let’s say you got five candidates running. You vote for your first choice, your second choice, and your third choice because that’s a way to say, “I don’t want this individual.” And by doing that, it automatically makes it more difficult for the extreme candidates, those on the fringes on the left or the right to win elections. That’s why Alaska is nominating centrists. It’s why Maine has done the same thing. They’ve changed their electoral system.
- And third is that the amount of money that’s in politics is absolutely positively insane. Now, this one’s the toughest, because the Supreme Court is ruled that money is voice, that money cannot, in some ways, cannot be kept out of the system. We need constitutional scholars to figure out a way so that the Democrats and the Republicans aren’t spending 70% of their time chasing after money and only 30% of the time getting their job done.
You make those three changes, open primaries, rank choice voting, and limits to how much money you can spend. And that, just those three changes will bring about a dramatic change in our political system.
Andrew Yang agreed. And added, there was an open primary rank choice voting ballot initiative in Nevada this past November. The Democrats and Republicans both came out against it, because they don’t like competition. But there was an advertisement with a military veteran looking straight to the camera, saying, “I went overseas to defend the country. I came home, and now I can’t vote in our primaries and I don’t think that’s right.” 53% of Nevada said, “Yeah, that guy should be able to vote.” That successful ballot initiative cost 17 million. Andrew suggested we get rid of the primaries.
- We are not going to get any better results unless we cure the incentives.
The addiction of social media:
- Frank Luntz, in some of his current research, starts off with moms. Social media is not pure evil but about the worst factor in American society of any that he can think of. We know what it’s doing to your children. And for those of you who have kids between the ages of 10 and 18, you know what it’s doing, and you’re letting it happen.
- He had moms crying in a focus group in a situation similar to this. He brought together about 20 moms to talk about the challenges of social media, and they’re in tears. Their children are addicted. They come home. They don’t go out. They don’t play outside. They turn on their phones. They start to scroll. They play video games. They watch stuff that’s hideous, that’s really offensive. And then at night, at 11 o’clock or 12 o’clock, they pull the blankets over their heads so their parents can’t see it and they’re still scrolling. They’re still on their phones. They’re getting up at six in the morning, not to go to school, not to study, not to exercise. They’re getting up just to go back on social media, it is absolutely, positively addictive. Moms are scared to death of this.
- So you now take that poison and add it to this already broken society, and we have a concoction that’s going to threaten our existence in the coming years. He added he really believes this.
On some of the mechanics to get a third party on the ballot:
- You need ballot access in all 50 states, which is difficult, expensive, and time-consuming. Let’s say if you had to take a price tag, it might be like 50 or 60 million dollars to get on all 50 ballots. So doable.
- It does take time, in some cases, and some of the states are going to try to challenge the legality.
- Once you have ballot access, you then need candidates that can appeal to folks all over the country.
Frank Luntz talked about the “No Labels” initiative that is making progress. Howard Marks is a part of this group. They are having some success. No Labels believes they’re going to be able to get a third-party candidate on all 50 state ballots.
Luntz concluded the is seeing frustration and anxiety. Frustration that nothing ever gets done and anxiety that the future will be even worse. Frustration that they come to office with such great promises, and a wonderful vision, and beautiful language, and after two years or four years or six years, they get nothing done. And anxiety because for the first time, this generation absolutely believes that their children are going to have it worse off than they are. He said, he can’t even sit down with 20 strangers to discuss the challenges of the day, without people taking each other’s heads off.
Yang concluded saying, We have to do what Americans have done since the beginning of the country and build our way out of this. If we just keep feeding into this dysfunctional system, we’re going to stay frustrated and angry and things are going to get worse. Let’s do something new.
There was a discussion on concerns around AI. It is the “single greatest threat right now,” according to Luntz. There are currently no guardrails and no limitations. He’s concerned about what China is doing. Yang added, This is one of the only instances anyone can remember where the tech guys are raising their hand saying, “Regulate us, please.” They recognize the hazards. And right now, our government is so dysfunctional no one even knows who’s supposed to regulate these guys. He said there should be an AI dedicated body that’s comprised of regulators and key technologists as well with the objective to try and install guardrails so we don’t destroy ourselves. All of the incentives are towards going as fast as possible with little development focus on putting in place fail-safes and guardrails.
That concludes my notes. Thus, the motivation for the personal section titled Peace, which you’ll find further below.
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Random Tweets
Top 5 Firms’ Share of the S&P 500 Index
The vast majority of the stock market’s 2023 gains are from just 5 stocks: Apple (up 36% this year), Microsoft (37%), Alphabet (39%), Amazon (44%), and the stock markets AI-manic golden child Nvidia, which has surged 159%.
- Without them, the overall market (including dividend payments) would be up 1.5% this year, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices.
- Top 7: If you also remove the contributions from the two other largest tech companies — Meta (up 120% in 2023) and Tesla (66%) — the S&P 500 would be slightly negative year-to-date. Source: Axios Markets and S&P Dow Jones Indices.
- Bottom line: All the gains in the S&P 500 Index are coming from just 7 stocks.
Here is a look at the five vs. the S&P 500 YTD
Super-duper Core Inflation is Trending Down
Watch Out For Bad Breadth
- NYSE advance/decline line below the 13-week average
- Fewer than 70% of stocks are above their respective 200-day average
- And More… see data in chart. Red lines represent prior signals
(Reminder: This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. My views may change at any time. The information is for discussion purposes only.)
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Trade Signals: A Rare –4 Zweig Bond Model Reading
“Extreme patience combined with extreme decisiveness. You may call that our investment process. Yes, it’s that simple.”
– Charlie Munger
Trade Signals is Organized in the Following Sections:
- Market Commentary
- Trade Signals – Dashboard of Indicators
- Current Stock Market Valuations and Subsequent 10-year Returns
- Charts with Explanations
Market Commentary:
A Rare –4 Zweig Bond Model Reading
It’s not often that the Zweig Bond Model reaches a –4 Sell Signal reading. The last time it registered a –4 reading was in 2007. Prior to that was in 1989. And, of course, there was the inflation era in the 1970s early 1980s.
The futures market is predicting a 69% chance of another Fed rate hike at the next Fed meeting in June. All of this suggests continued caution for both stocks and bonds.
For subscribers, the dashboard of indicators is next, followed by the charts with explanations.
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Trade Signals provides a weekly snapshot of current stock, bond, currency, and gold market trends. We provide a summary of technical indicators to help you identify where we sit in short, intermediate, and long-term cycles. We track important valuation metrics to determine the probability of future returns (i.e. when return opportunity is best/least). Trade Signals also tracks investor sentiment indicators and economic and select recession watch indicators. Trade Signals is now a low-cost subscription service, about the cost of two Starbucks lattes every month. You can find the archive of weekly Trade Signals posts (2008 through 2-15-23) by clicking here.
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Personal Note: Peace
Today’s intro quote about peace came from a card my daughter Brianna gave to me last year. I open it from time to time because of what she wrote on the inside: “I am so grateful to be your daughter and experience life with you.” I love that. But today, I found myself wound up in the enormity of the imbalance we all are facing in the world, and I thought about the message in the card’s text itself: “Be calm in your heart.”
I don’t see the same view as Frank Luntz sees from his in-person polling sessions. It’s real, yes, but I believe a great leader (and many other leaders within their own circles) will rise up at the right time, with the ability to pull human beings together in the same way a great coach can bring a dysfunctional team together. Sure, there are many differences between all of us, but talent and ego aside, no team can win if “me” is greater than “we.” We are better together, and I believe we will ultimately come together.
A good friend and client (hat tip to Rob S) told me he watched the National Memorial Day Concert. I’ve yet to watch the full concert, but I did catch the opening. It begins with country music star Trace Adkins, and boy, is he good. I do love me some country music. I intend to watch the rest of it soon. The picture below links out to the replay if you’re interested in watching it.
I want to conclude with the ending note Brianna wrote to me in the card:
“We’re so lucky. Wishing you joy, blessings, magic, and peace.”
I’m sending the same to you.
Have a great week,
Steve
Stephen B. Blumenthal
Executive Chairman & CIO
CMG Capital Management Group, Inc.
Private Wealth Client Website – www.cmgprivatewealth.com
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Stephen Blumenthal founded CMG Capital Management Group in 1992 and serves today as its Executive Chairman and CIO. Steve authors a free weekly e-letter entitled, “On My Radar.” Steve shares his views on macroeconomic research, valuations, portfolio construction, asset allocation and risk management.
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Investing involves risk. Past performance does not guarantee or indicate future results. Different types of investments involve varying degrees of risk, and there can be no assurance that the future performance of any specific investment, investment strategy, or product (including the investments and/or investment strategies recommended or undertaken by CMG), or any non-investment related content, made reference to directly or indirectly in this commentary will be profitable, equal any corresponding indicated historical performance level(s), be suitable for your portfolio or individual situation or prove successful. Due to various factors, including changing market conditions and/or applicable laws, the content may no longer be reflective of current opinions or positions. Moreover, you should not assume that any discussion or information contained in this commentary serves as the receipt of, or as a substitute for, personalized investment advice from CMG. Please remember to contact CMG, in writing, if there are any changes in your personal/financial situation or investment objectives for the purpose of reviewing/evaluating/revising our previous recommendations and/or services, or if you would like to impose, add, or to modify any reasonable restrictions to our investment advisory services. Unless, and until, you notify us, in writing, to the contrary, we shall continue to provide services as we do currently. CMG is neither a law firm, nor a certified public accounting firm, and no portion of the commentary content should be construed as legal or accounting advice.
No portion of the content should be construed as an offer or solicitation for the purchase or sale of any security. References to specific securities, investment programs or funds are for illustrative purposes only and are not intended to be, and should not be interpreted as recommendations to purchase or sell such securities.
This presentation does not discuss, directly or indirectly, the amount of the profits or losses realized or unrealized, by any CMG client from any specific funds or securities. Please note: In the event that CMG references performance results for an actual CMG portfolio, the results are reported net of advisory fees and inclusive of dividends. The performance referenced is that as determined and/or provided directly by the referenced funds and/or publishers, has not been independently verified, and does not reflect the performance of any specific CMG client. CMG clients may have experienced materially different performance based upon various factors during the corresponding time periods. See in links provided citing limitations of hypothetical back-tested information. Past performance cannot predict or guarantee future performance. Not a recommendation to buy or sell. Please talk to your advisor.
Information herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but we do not warrant its accuracy. This document is general communication and is provided for informational and/or educational purposes only. None of the content should be viewed as a suggestion that you take or refrain from taking any action nor as a recommendation for any specific investment product, strategy, or other such purposes.
In a rising interest rate environment, the value of fixed-income securities generally declines, and conversely, in a falling interest rate environment, the value of fixed-income securities generally increases. High-yield securities may be subject to heightened market, interest rate, or credit risk and should not be purchased solely because of the stated yield. Ratings are measured on a scale that ranges from AAA or Aaa (highest) to D or C (lowest). Investment-grade investments are those rated from highest down to BBB- or Baa3.
NOT FDIC INSURED. MAY LOSE VALUE. NO BANK GUARANTEE.
Certain information contained herein has been obtained from third-party sources believed to be reliable, but we cannot guarantee its accuracy or completeness.
In the event that there has been a change in an individual’s investment objective or financial situation, he/she is encouraged to consult with his/her investment professional.
Written Disclosure Statement. CMG is an SEC-registered investment adviser located in Malvern, Pennsylvania. Stephen B. Blumenthal is CMG’s founder and CEO. Please note: The above views are those of CMG and its CEO, Stephen Blumenthal, and do not reflect those of any sub-advisor that CMG may engage to manage any CMG strategy, or exclusively determines any internal strategy employed by CMG. A copy of CMG’s current written disclosure statement discussing advisory services and fees is available upon request or via CMG’s internet web site at www.cmgwealth.com/disclosures. CMG is committed to protecting your personal information. Click here to review CMG’s privacy policies.