Archive for July 2014
Is A Market Crash Imminent?
Posted on: July 30, 2014
Yesterday I received an email from a doctor client of mine telling me how he had a conversation with some fellow doctors, and all of them are pulling their money out of stocks because they feel that with the market breaking new high after new high, a crash is imminent. He wanted my opinion.
First of all, while all of his doctor friends might feel a market crash is imminent and certain, there is simply no such thing as certainty in the stock market. All we can work with are odds. The following are the odds of market corrections:
| Magnitude of market decline | Frequency of occurrence (out of 64 years from 1950-2013) |
| >5% | Every year (94%) |
| >10% | Every two years (58%) |
| >20% | Every five years (20%) |
| >30% | Every ten years (10%) |
| >40% | Every fifty years (2%) |
My study also shows that the market breaking a new high does not substantially change the odds of returns. In other words, the odds of the market dropping over 20% in the next twelve months are still about one in five; the odds of the market dropping over 30% in the next twelve months are still about one in ten.
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The Investment Scientist 