S&P 500, Dow Jones Global ex-US, Gold, Bloomberg Commodity Index returns exclude reinvested dividends (gold does not pay a dividend) and the three-, five-, and 10-year returns are annualized; and the 10-year Treasury Note is simply the yield at the close of the day on each of the historical time periods.
Sources: Yahoo! Finance; MarketWatch; djindexes.com; U.S. Treasury; London Bullion Market Association.
Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Indices are unmanaged and cannot be invested into directly. N/A means not applicable.
THE POWER OF STORIES. Nobel-prize-winning economist Robert Shiller and his colleagues researched what they call “Narrative Economics” and found that popular stories affect our decision-making. In 2023, we witnessed the phenomenon firsthand as the story of the “Magnificent Seven” gathered steam.
For movie buffs (and people of a certain age), the name brings to mind the star-studded 1960s film with a reputation as one of the greatest Westerns of all time. The seven gunmen of the film are the reason pundits adopted the moniker to describe seven technology-related stocks that delivered double-digit returns in 2023.
“Shares of the so-called Magnificent Seven…individually soared between around 50% and 240% in 2023, making them among the market's most rewarding bets… Because of their heavy weightings in the S&P 500…the seven were responsible for nearly two-thirds of the benchmark index’s 24% gain this year,” reported Lewis Krauskopf of Reuters.
If the goal of investing is to buy low and sell high, investors would have been better off investing in the Magnificent Seven in 2022 when they delivered a less-than-magnificent performance. Combined, they lost 39 percent that year, according to Joseph Adinolfi of Morningstar, and all seven finished 2022 with double-digit losses.
When the narrative focuses on a broader time horizon and individual share price performance, the story looks quite different. Three of the Magnificent Seven stocks have a negative average annual return over the last two years, three have a positive return, and one delivered a flat performance, reported Matt Krantz of Investor's Business Daily.
The Magnificent Seven narrative offered investors an invigorating story. When reading stories about stocks or other investments that are performing well, it’s tempting to jump on the bandwagon. If an investment narrative captures your interest, give us a call. We can discuss the pros and cons of the opportunity.
Weekly Focus – Think About It
“Some narratives go viral because they contain real truth and knowledge and are useful. I’m more concerned with the other kinds of narratives that are story-quality, interesting, stimulating, fun—and travel person to person. They have a high contagion rate. Changes in public thinking are revealed by them and changes in public thinking are important causes of major economic events.”
—Robert Shiller, economist
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