Enrich Your Future 08: High Economic Growth Doesn’t Always Mean High Stock Market Return

Update: 2024-08-05

Description

In this episode of Enrich Your Future, Andrew and Larry Swedroe discuss Larry’s new book, Enrich Your Future: The Keys to Successful Investing. In this series, they discuss Chapter 08: Be Careful What You Ask For.

LEARNING: High growth rates don’t always mean high stock returns.

“Emerging markets are very much like the rest of the world’s capital markets—they do an excellent job of reflecting economic growth prospects into stock prices.”

Larry Swedroe

In this episode of Enrich Your Future, Andrew and Larry Swedroe discuss Larry’s new book, Enrich Your Future: The Keys to Successful Investing. The book is a collection of stories that Larry has developed over 30 years as the head of financial and economic research at Buckingham Wealth Partners to help investors. You can learn more about Larry’s Worst Investment Ever story on Ep645: Beware of Idiosyncratic Risks.

Larry deeply understands the world of academic research and investing, especially risk. Today, Andrew and Larry discuss Chapter 08: Be Careful What You Ask For.

Chapter 08: Be Careful What You Ask For

In this chapter, Larry cautions people to be careful what they wish for in investing. He emphasizes the daunting challenge of active management, a path many choose in the belief that they can accurately forecast market trends.

However, as Larry points out, the reality is far from this ideal. The unpredictability of the market makes it almost impossible to predict with 100% accuracy, a fact that investors should be acutely aware of.

High growth rates don’t always mean high stock returns

It’s important to note that high growth rates don’t always translate into high stock returns, underscoring the unpredictability of market outcomes. According to Larry, for today’s investors, the equivalent of the “Midas touch” (the king who turned everything he touched into gold) might be the ability to forecast economic growth rates.

If investors could forecast with 100% certainty which countries would have the highest growth rates, they could invest in them and avoid those with low growth rates. This would lead to abnormal profits—or, perhaps not.

Nobody can predict with that accuracy. Even if one could make such a prediction, they may still not make the profits they think they will. This is because, as Larry explains, experts have found that there has been a slightly negative correlation between country growth rates and stock returns.

A 2006 study on emerging markets by Jim Davis of Dimensional Fund Advisors found that the high-growth countries from 1990 to 2005 returned 16.4%, and the low-growth countries returned the same 16.4%.

Such evidence has led Larry to conclude that it doesn’t matter if you can even forecast which countries will have high growth rates; the market will make the same forecast and adjust stock prices accordingly.

Therefore, to beat the market, you must be able to forecast better than the market already expects, and to do so, you need to gather information at a cost. In other words, you can’t just be smarter than the market; you have to be smarter than the market enough to overcome all your expenses of gathering information and trading costs.

Larry emphasizes that emerging markets are very much like the rest of the world’s capital markets—they do an excellent job of reflecting economic growth prospects into stock prices. The only advantage an investor would have is the ability to forecast surprises in growth rates, which, by definition, are unpredictable.

Did you miss out on the previous chapters? Check them out:

About Larry Swedroe

Larry Swedroe was head of financial and economic research at Buckingham Wealth Partners. Since joining the firm in 1996, Larry has spent his time, talent, and energy educating investors on the benefits of evidence-based investing with an enthusiasm few can match.

Larry was among the first authors to publish a book that explained the science of investing in layman’s terms, “The Only Guide to a Winning Investment Strategy You’ll Ever Need.” He has authored or co-authored 18 books.

Larry’s dedication to helping others has made him a sought-after national speaker. He has made appearances on national television on various outlets.

Larry is a prolific writer, regularly contributing to multiple outlets, including AlphaArchitect, Advisor Perspectives, and Wealth Management.

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