I have noticed recently that the daily performance of the S&P 500 Index and the Nasdaq 100 Index have not always been consistent with one another. This is probably due to the evolution of the Covid economy in the US. Since the onset of Covid, the Nasdaq 100 has outperformed the S&P 500 because more of the “stay at home” or “work at home” stocks are in the Nasdaq 100. During the past month, however, the S&P 500 has outperformed on some days on the hope that some industrial, financial and retail sectors are about to reawaken as Covid restrictions are loosened. To test my hypothesis, I went to a site I have used in the past: etfscreen.com. I found that the correlation coefficient between the two etf’s that represent the respective indexes – SPY for the S&P 500 and QQQ for the Nasdaq 100 – is 0.90. This is high, meaning that my hypothesis that the two etf’s could represent hedges against one another is not valid.

Correlation

Correlation is a calculation that determines the returns of securities over time relative to the returns of different securities over the same time. To do the calculation involves calculus – go ahead and Google “Correlation Coefficient” if you want to see the equation. A correlation coefficient of 1.0 means the returns of the two securities that you are testing are perfectly correlated, and a coefficient of 0.0 means the two’s returns are not correlated at all. Correlation coefficient sounds a lot like Beta, perhaps because the values are typically between 0 and 1. However, whereas correlation is about how two different securities perform relative only to one another, beta is about how one security’s volatility relative to the entire rest of the market, so correlation and beta represent different concepts.

A Handy Tool

The purpose of my post today, however, is to encourage you to use the same tool that I used to calculate how well your portfolio of etf’s are correlated. The website etfscreen.com can do the calculation for you. Once on the website, click Tools, and then Correlation Data. You will see a chart with the correlation data of some of the most actively-traded etf’s, including SPY and QQQ. There is an entry field right below the chart. In the entry field, you can customize the chart by entering the ticker symbols for etf’s that you want to explore. Hit Enter, and it will calculate the correlation coefficients for your portfolio of etf’s. Unfortunately, this will not work for individual stocks or mutual funds; only for etf’s. However, if you are curious how one sector of the economy is performing relative to another sector, use the etfscreen.com website to find sector index etf’s that represent the sectors that you are curious about (unless you already know those ticker symbols), plug them into this Correlation calculator tool, and it will calculate the coefficients. For instance, are you curious how the financial sector performs relative to the consumer discretionary sector? Plug the Vanguard Financial Sector ETF (VFH) and the Vanguard Consumer Discretionary ETF (VCR) into the chart and it calculates their correlation coefficient to be 0.79 – pretty high, but not perfectly correlated.

Why Is This Important?

Knowing the correlation coefficients of various investments within your portfolio is important because of diversity. Not “diversity” in the current sense of gender, race, or identity. Rather, diversity of returns. If one sector of the economy surges ahead, will another sector likely follow, and to what extent? You should seek a portfolio that is diverse from the standpoint of asset class as well as diversity of returns. Different asset classes should have different return prospects, but not always and not entirely. Similarly, you may have different assets within the same class of assets (i.e., stocks or etf’s), but because they may have low correlation coefficients, you may have a portfolio that is relatively diverse. A rising tide doesn’t necessarily lift all boats at the same time, to twist an old saying.

IMO

ETFScreen.com’s correlation data tool is very helpful and one you should use if you want to see how diverse your portfolio really is, even if you are invested in a limited number of distinct asset classes. Though this particular site is only helpful with respect to etf’s, because there are so many etf’s available, it can give you a good idea of what returns to expect across the spectrum of sectors out there.

No, I am not advocating that you go and take pictures of yourself in flirty or provocative poses and post them on Instagram in an effort to draw social media attention to yourself. However, I am advocating that you adopt an “Influencer” state of mind with respect to your investing and personal finances. Pick someone or a group of people that you love and/or respect in the field of finance and conduct your own finances such that you want to influence their own such conduct in a good way.

What Is An Influencer?

Pop culture influencers can get a bad reputation because they can seem self-centered, trendy, and/or not too deep. Yet, while there are bad influencers, there are also good influencers. Someone out there who is advocating a universal good such as being kind and respectful to other people is a good influencer. At their core, and influencer is someone who wants to use the example of their own life experience to attempt to sway other people to act in a similar fashion to their own.

Financial Influencer

Most people have an idea of what good financial advice consists of and who may have given them some good financial advice in the past. It may be someone in the media, a personal financial advisor or planner, or maybe an older relative such as a parent. Why might you have taken a financial influencer’s advice to heart? Probably because their words or actions over the years have earned your respect. If that is the case, maybe you should try to earn the respect of other people in your own lives, perhaps your own children, and conduct your finances in a way such that they will respect you and that you might influence them to do the right thing when the time comes and a decision has to be made.

Less Self-Centered

In a way, by thinking about how others might look to you as an example when you make financial decisions, as long as you hope that people think of you in a good way, is a less self-centered approach. Rather than thinking just about yourself and what benefit you might accrue by making a new, big purchase, for example, perhaps you should think about what others may think, or even how you want to be a good example to your own kids when you make that purchase. Being more outward-thinking might help to temper your own rashness and make a better decision, which in turn might influence others to think and act more like you.

Example: A New Car

Let’s say you and your spouse need a new vehicle, but you also have multiple children who also have needs. You have ogled at the fancy new German crossover and you try to convince yourself that it would be practical for your family’s transportation. However, the kids are getting more expensive and you know you don’t really need the expensive crossover when a minivan will do the job just fine, maybe even better, at a fraction of the cost. At this point, consider what your own kids might learn if you do go for the German crossover. The kids might take it as a sign that there are no limits or other issues to consider when making spending decisions. The result might be that your family is headed for financial hardship for years to come. On the other hand, if you opt for the minivan, perhaps you might influence your own kids to make practical decisions within their own budgets when they grow up.

IMO

A number of social media addicts today see the Influencers that they follow on their platforms and think maybe they take a few of their own selfies that maybe some clothing or makeup company might sign them to a contract to peddle their wares. This isn’t inherently a bad type of influence, but it is not quite what I have in mind when I advocate that you become an Influencer yourself. Instead, I say that you should consider the people you most respect or love and act or make decisions such that you will gain their respect and perhaps be able to influence them now or in the future. Don’t make decisions or take actions in a vacuum. Instead, consider your decisions and actions as to what others will think about them. Such a mindset might cause you to make a better decision for yourself.

“Disruptive” is another common buzzword, albeit one that has been around for a while. In business, “disruptive” mostly relates to new processes or technologies that emerge and are either superior, less expensive, or superior and less expensive than existing processes or technologies. The late, great Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen made “disruptive” a buzzword when he wrote about the process of disruption in his 1997 book “The Innovator’s Dilemma.” In today’s economy, hydraulic fracturing in the oil industry is an example of a disruptive process, and the Tesla is example of a disruptive product.

Are You Disruptive?

Are you a disruptive person by nature? Do you like to cause trouble, or stir the pot? Whether you are or not may be a function of your stage in life. Younger people tend to like to be more disruptive, whereas older people tend to conform just to make it easy on their lives. It is neither good nor bad to be disruptive as long as you follow the rules and don’t hurt other people unfairly.

Do You Invest in Disruptive Companies?

However, even if you don’t view yourself as a disruptive person, as an investor, you need to understand the nature of disruption, which companies are the disruptors and which are being disruptive, and invest somehow in those disruptive companies. Why is that so? Because disruptive companies are leaving “old technology” companies in the dust. According to this article from The Street, the top 10 companies in the S&P 500 Index account for all of its growth this year, and the remaining 490 companies’ stocks are cumulatively underwater. All of the top 10 are disruptive companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, and Alphabet/Google. On the other hand, ExxonMobil, though still part of the S&P 500, was dropped from the Dow Jones Industrial Index of 30 stocks because XOM has not kept up with the pace of the disruption in the energy sector. An investor these days has to invest in disruptive companies just to keep up and not fall behind in meeting their financial goals.

The Good News

The good news is that there is a relatively easy way to invest in disruptive companies, and that is just by investing in index funds, especially the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 Index. You don’t have to be an electrical engineer working at a venture capital company and be a seed investor in start-up companies in order to invest in disruptive companies. Disruption has now gone mainstream. Even the traditionally anti-tech, stick-in-the-mud Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway invested an estimated $730 million in the Snowflake IPO earlier this week. So, even if you just own the S&P 500 Index through your IRA or 401k account at work, you own Berkshire Hathaway through your ownership of that index, and you in turn own a part of the new hot IPO Snowflake.

Covid-19

Currently we are in the middle of the pandemic which is an agent for even more disruption. Consider that companies are trying to make do with their employees working from home and how that disrupts many aspects of our economy such as the future need for traditional office space as well as the need for the technical infrastructure to make the work-at-home economy happen. Companies whose processes or products enable the Covid economy to transact are doing well but companies that depend on the pre-Covid world are in great difficulty.

IMO

“Disruptive” is a buzzword for a good reason, and that is because disruption is the driving force behind all of the growth in today’s economy. Because of Covid, the pace of disruption will likely accelerate even more. If you want to grow or even just maintain your portfolio to meet your financial goals, then you need to be investing in disruptive companies, even if it is through index funds.

Options trading is booming. People are bored sitting at home during quarantine and are turning their attention to the stock market and specifically options trading. Easy to use platforms such as Robinhood have helped to facilitate significant growth in options volume. It has emerged that Japanese giant SoftBank bought $4 Billion of options during recent weeks and that helped fuel the approximately 75% rise in the Nasdaq 100 index since the depths of March 2020.

Options Prices

If the volume of options trading is up, what do you think that means for the price of the options being traded? As with any other product, if the demand rises, then the price rises, all other things being equal. If the number of bidders for a particular call option at a particular strike price and expiration goes up, then the price to buy that call option will go up. The opposite is true as well. Quants will point you to the Black-Scholes Option Pricing Model to figure out what a call option is really worth, but in reality an option is worth what someone else will pay for it on the open market, and that goes back to simple supply and demand. If you believe that the stock or index that underlies the option stands a good chance of going up, then it may make sense to buy the call option. But, at present, you will pay a premium to do so.

Buy or Sell?

Consider this, however: If the sales price of a product is inflated, as option prices currently are, does it make sense to be a buyer in an inflated market or to be a seller? What I am saying here is that now is a great time to be a covered call seller, or writer, because option premiums are inflated. “Covered” calls involve owning the underlying stock or index and then selling calls at inflated prices and pocketing the premiums that you get from the sale. Typically a call seller will sell calls with strike prices at or above the current price of the underlying stock. For instance, you may want to sell a call with a strike price that is 1% higher than the current price of the underlying security. You pocket the premium that you sold the call option for no matter what happens next. At the expiration of the option, if the price of the underlying is below the strike price of the option, then you keep your stock as well as the option premium. If the price of the underlying at expiration is higher than the strike price, then you still keep your option premium but you have to “put” the underlying stock to the call option owner at the strike price, not at the actual price of the underlying. That’s your risk: you give up some potential upside in return for current cash in the form of the option premium. With option premium prices inflated presently, selling sounds like a good deal to me.

Don’t Be Naked

Don’t be naked, by which I mean don’t sell option premiums, either calls or puts, without owning the underlying security. Naked selling is very risky. If you like to be naked, then go ahead and buy options – don’t sell them naked.

IMO

Right now, options are like the new, hot restaurant that just opened. All of the beautiful people are there hanging out and it is tough to get a seat. Since the restaurant is in high demand, it boosts its prices up. Do you believe it is a good investment to try to “buy” a seat at this hot new place called the options market? Or might a be a good idea to avoid it for now and wait until the hype dies down a bit so that you can partake at a more reasonable price? My restaurant analogy falls short with respect to my covered call strategy (you can’t “short” future seats at the restaurant, at least not yet). However, I hope you get the picture: Be fearful when others are greedy. Be careful if you decide to trade options if you are new to the game, and please don’t jump in naked.

“Sustainability” has been a buzzword for many years. It comes from the effort to save the environment – don’t be wasteful, be sustainable – and it now is applicable to many aspects of our economy and our society. Colleges and college students are big on sustainability. Investors search for companies whose business models are economical, sustainable with respect to their ability internally to generate sufficient capital to maintain operations, and not wasteful.

Volatility

Volatility is another word that has become en vogue especially for the stock market and especially this year. The VIX Index, which measures stock market volatility, spiked to 80 in March, a level last seen during the 2008 Financial Crisis. While the VIX has trended down since then, it has not broken below 20, and it has jumped back up during the last week.

Can’t Have Both

One of the reasons the stock market has been volatile this year is because the economic situation that we currently find ourselves in is not sustainable. Business shutdowns, working from home, no travel, extended furloughs and unemployment benefits, wearing masks, children unable to go to school – none of these are sustainable. We can all make a go of it all temporarily in the spirit of remaining healthy and saving lives, but this is not something we can abide by for the long term. Because the current situation is not sustainable and because there is so much uncertainty about treatments, vaccines, and their efficacy, investors don’t know when the economy will emerge on the other side and find its own water level, or if it ever will.

The Interim

In the interim, investors have moved forward by plowing money into companies that do well in the “stay at home” economy and by avoiding stocks that need the pre-Covid economy to return. For instance, Amazon has soared while traditional retail has hit the skids or even, like Lord & Taylor and Saks, filed bankruptcy. However, I view the “stay at home” economy model as something that is temporary, and though perhaps we will not go back to 100% the same model we had just back earlier this year, we will need to get back to a great extent in order to grow our economy and to “sustain” all of the derivatives that feed on a growing economy such as large government-run institutions.

Not Sustainable

We citizens are trying to make the best of this bad situation, but it is not sustainable with respect to the way civilization conducted its business from the dawn of such up until March 2020. Landlords need tenants to move back into their buildings and pay rent so that mortgages are paid. Online school is perhaps nice for some but doesn’t offer the social interaction that in-person school does and is not the answer for all of society in the long run. Working parents need their kids to go back to school so that they can get a move on with their own lives.

IMO

Millennials have taken to the concept of sustainability through their environmental predisposition now want it in all other aspects of their lives. The problem with life is that stuff happens, and Covid is “stuff” that is anything but sustainable. Covid means uncertainty in all aspects of work and life and that leads to volatility. I believe that as long as Covid is a factor in our economy, we will have volatility in the equity markets. Investors will need to get comfortable with this higher level of volatility if they want to invest in equities. The alternative asset classes of cash or bonds don’t offer adequate returns. We need to return to a society and an economy that substantially resembles pre-Covid so that it and we can sustain what it had become.

Investing these days is not for the faint of heart! After going nearly straight up since late March, stock markets have tumbled over the past week. Yesterday, the S&P 500 Index closed 2.8% lower and the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 Index closed about 4.8% lower, touching its 50-Day moving average in the process.

50-Day Moving Average

Rather than to delve into the reasons why I think the stock market does what it does, let’s discuss the 50-Day moving average and why it may be significant. The “simple” moving average is calculated by taking the closing price over the previous 50 trading days, dividing that number by 50, and plotting the result over time. The moving average gives you a better sense of the direction of a market than does looking at day-to-day data. The 50-day moving average is a technical indicator of strength or weakness. An upward-sloping line indicates strength, and vice-versa. The exponential or logarithmic moving averages are variations that some believe are more useful than the simple moving average.

Buy, Sell, or Hold?

Does this mean one should buy a stock (or an index or index fund) if its current price is above an upward-sloping moving average, or sell if is below the moving average? What if the moving average is downward-sloping? What should an investor do then? There are no hard and fast answers to these questions, but you could backtest all of those possibilities and perhaps come up with a killer trading algorithm.

Resistance or Support

Another “use” of the 50-Day moving average is as an indication of support or resistance. In the current case of the Nasdaq 100 Index falling to touch its 50-Day moving average, we can look over the next few trading days to see if the moving average becomes a support level. Some investors may see a dip to the 50-Day moving average as a buying opportunity. If enough investors see it as such and buy, then one could view it as a support level and drive the price higher. On the other hand, if the Nasdaq 100 index falls significantly below the 50-Day, then it will have breached an important support level and it could fall significantly more. It would mean that the markets are so weak that there are not enough buyers that want to buy the stock even at the key support level.

IMO

In the chart of the Nasdaq 100 Index above, the 50-Day moving average is the blue line. Let’s watch over the next several trading days to see if the index moves up or down from here. If it moves up, we can conclude that the 50-Day will have provided support to the index and that the upward trend continues. If not, then we might say, “Watch out below!”. It could get ugly if that is the case.

Earlier this week, ExxonMobil (XOM) was jettisoned from the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Chew on that for a bit! Only 7 years ago, Exxon had the largest market cap in the country. Now? Their current market cap of about $163 Billion puts them in about 44th place. The DJIA is for the top 30 stocks only, so out you go, Exxon! (The Dow doesn’t solely consider market cap for the components of its index but it is important).

Oil Sector Woes

XOM’s removal from the DJIA is due mostly to its main product, crude oil. The price of oil has been depressed because of a number of factors, including:

• Stagnant demand for oil and oil products pre-Covid;
• Plunge in demand due to Covid economic shutdown and slow reopening;
• Improved drilling technology that has led to easier access to proven reserves; and
• Geopolitical issues among major oil countries such as Russia and Iran.

All of these have worked to keep the price of oil down. Currently the spot price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate Crude is about $42. XOM doesn’t make money selling oil at that price; it needs oil to be 50% higher or more according to some estimates.

XOM-Specific

XOM has a higher per-barrel breakeven cost because it has a higher overhead cost than other major oil companies. Translation: XOM’s management ranks are bloated and other costs such as pension obligations mean they need oil to be a lot higher than it currently is in order to make money. Old-industry companies such as XOM with ageing and large bureaucracies don’t fare well in today’s stock market because they are large supertanker companies that are difficult to adapt to change.

Future Technology

Investors on the whole look to the future more than to the past. “What have you done for me lately?” fits where XOM shareholders are now. It is no accident that XOM’s fall from the DJIA has coincided with Tesla’s skyrocketing stock performance. Investors look to their crystal balls and see highways filled with electric (non-gasoline-burning) cars. Younger investors in particular are concerned about the environment and the narrative that XOM is part of the old economy which is bad for the environment while Tesla is part of the new economy which will be more environment-friendly is another reason XOM’s stock has hit the skids and it has lost its place in the DJIA.

New Economy

I view XOM’s move from #1 to #44 more from the standpoint that the US economy has transformed a great deal just in the last 10 years. Apple’s iPhone really has changed everything. It allows users to search anything (think Google) in the palm of their hand. It allows users to purchase what they need (think Amazon) and have it delivered to their front door. Except perhaps for the diesel oil that the trucks use to deliver what you order to your door, none of this is bullish for the price of oil. These “new economy” stocks have soared while oil majors such as XOM have remained stagnant or trended downward.

Covid

The last nail in XOM’s coffin may be Covid and the economic shutdown. (I am grossly overexaggerating here: Oil isn’t dead, XOM isn’t dead yet, and not everyone is driving a Tesla). If we are moving now toward a work-at-home economy, that is not good for gasoline consumption and hence not good for XOM. Oil demand forecasts are in flux now because the forecasters don’t know what the post-Covid economy will look like or how long it will take to get there. Unsure demand forecasts will work to keep the price of a barrel of oil depressed. As commuters return to their cars and as travelers return to the airlines this crystal ball may become more clear but that ball is pretty cloudy right now.

IMO

Some investors might see a falling XOM as an opportunity. I don’t, and I would not recommend speculating on XOM as an individual stock. I see other oil majors as more appealing. On the other hand, I believe the “demise of oil” narrative as inaccurate in the long term. Oil will be an important part of our economy for years to come and companies in the oil sector, including XOM, will figure out a way to make money. Oil is not dead, XOM is not dead, but they both have major issues that need to be dealt with by management teams that aren’t afraid to make difficult calls. Time will tell if XOM can get back on the right track even with the issues within its sector.

Major League Baseball has been back in play for about a month now, with a little more than a month to go in the regular season. MLB’s restart has not been without incident: Many players have tested positive for Covid, and most teams by now have had games, perhaps several games, postponed due to positive Covid tests either by players on their own team or by players on opponents’ teams. Yet, rather than shut down the season entirely for all teams, MLB has opted to continue to play through the positive tests, and to make up games previously postponed by positive Covid tests by playing future “doubleheaders”, or two games in one day. This mentality has allowed MLB to soldier through and have a so-far successful season despite the setbacks. Therein lies a lesson for the rest of sports and the rest of the economy.

Play On Despite Setbacks

The lesson is that you need to keep playing on despite the setbacks. In your career, with your children, with your investment portfolio, and in your life, there will always be setbacks. Rather than to shut everything down when a setback occurs, you have to deal with it and keep moving on toward your goal. Your life is about more than just one thing. If the one thing isn’t working right for the time being, then walk on your other three legs while the fourth one heals. In MLB, rather than to shut down the entire league as Covid cases presented themselves, they shut down only the players and the teams directly affected, and then only for a relatively short period, like a week or less, depending on the severity of the outbreak. Plenty of available Covid tests are key to this strategy. Once the affected team heals, they are back on the diamond.

Compartmentalize

For us, another lesson is that we all have to be able to compartmentalize, meaning that we have to deal with the various aspects of our lives in different ways according to their order of importance at that particular time. Struggling with something at your job? Perhaps you can put that on hold for a bit while you go and work on a different task. You have young kids at home running amok and you are still trying to earn a paycheck? Unless you need to, which is a big Unless, put the job on hold at least until you get your kids back into some routine so that you can work. Took a hit in your investment or retirement portfolio due to the Covid shutdown? Hopefully your portfolio has recovered somewhat s the indexes have risen, but if not, then think about why you have lost money and make some adjustments to the way you invest. And, as difficult as it might be, if you are mentally down due to one aspect of your life, you cannot let that bad taste affect everything else in your life. Otherwise your entirety will suffer.

Play Doubleheaders

Back to the MLB analogy, if you have put an aspect of your life on hold, go back and double up for a short period of time so that you get that aspect back on track. For instance, if you took time off from work to deal with your family during Covid, maybe you can go back and finish what you put on hold once you return, or at least you can get back up to speed quickly and hit the pavement running. Making up for past negligence often don’t take nearly as much time to make up as it would have taken in real time. Perhaps you already know what the final score is and you just need to get your task to that final score.

IMO

Perhaps now is the time for you to address your address your financial planning needs, or perhaps even to create a financial plan for the first time. If so, it might really help to signal to your bullpen and call in a Certified Financial Planner® such as me to help with the planning process. In any event, the point of this blog is to exhort people to keep pushing forward despite the obstacles life puts in our way. The process by which Major League Baseball has held this very strange season is just the latest real life metaphor for this piece of advice.