Unloved Bull Markets

Your empowerment tool to consistently winning in the stock market

In Unloved Bull Markets: Getting Rich the Easy Way by Riding Bull Markets, a seasoned, award-winning professional money manager delivers an eye-opening and insightful take on a frequently overlooked—and critically important—investing strategy. The author walks readers through a crash-course in how to take full advantage of the greatest opportunity for wealth accumulation: a bull market.

With an emphasis on seizing investment opportunities when they actually arise, instead of just watching them recede in the rearview mirror, Unloved Bull Markets explores:

• The economic indicators that can disguise, fuel, or end a bull market, including inflation and interest rates, the Fed and monetary policy, and unemployment
• Six common pieces of bad information that lead investors astray and can result in missing out on some of the best market opportunities to come along in decades
• The perennial discussion and debate between proponents of active management and passive, index investors

Unloved Bull Markets is the perfect book for investors who seek to base their decisions on data and logic, rather than fears and intuition, and want to focus on the profitable climb instead of distressing worries.

Preface vii

Acknowledgments ix

About the Author xi

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 “Unloved” Bull Markets 7

Chapter 2 Was the Bull Market Sensible? 25

Chapter 3 News and Stock Prices 39

Chapter 4 Economic Setting 47

Chapter 5 Inflation and Interest Rates 55

Chapter 6 The Federal Reserve and Monetary Policy 73

Chapter 7 Unemployment 89

Chapter 8 Betting on a Lackluster Stock Market and Higher Interest Rates 101

Chapter 9 Volatility Events 105

Chapter 10 Six Pieces of Bad Information 117

Chapter 11 Active-Passive 143

Chapter 12 Strategies 161

Chapter 13 Human Behavior 177

Chapter 14 And Then It Ended with a Crash 187

Chapter 15 I Want My Money Back 193

Chapter 16 Conclusion 215

Index 221

CRAIG CALLAHAN, DBA, is the Co-Founder of ICON Advisers and the creator of ICON’s valuation investment methodology, the winner of seventeen Lipper awards. He received his doctorate in finance from Kent State University in 1979.

Make hay while the sun shines” is a cliché for a reason. And it holds true in the markets, where opportunities for investment gains arise unpredictably yet repeatedly. Despite this, many investors find themselves staring wistfully at bull markets in the rearview mirror as they quickly recede into the past.

In Unloved Bull Markets: Getting Rich the Easy Way by Riding Bull Markets, a seasoned and award-winning professional money manager explains a straightforward and incisive set of strategies for exploiting a frequently disguised – and critically important – feature of the market: bull markets. The book offers a crash-course in taking full advantage of periods of rising stock prices, helping you seize opportunities immediately as they arise instead of regretting a lack of action in the future.

You’ll learn to effectively weigh risk and reward, focus on the profitable climb instead of worrying about what could go wrong, and discover how to grab onto market advances before they plateau.

The author explores the economic indicators that disguise, fuel, start, and end a bull market—including inflation, interest rates, the behavior of the Fed and monetary policy, and unemployment— as well as six common investing tropes that lead investors astray and result in many of them missing out on some of the best market opportunities to come along in decades. He also discusses the perennial debate between proponents of active management and passive, index investing.

Unloved Bull Markets: Getting Rich the Easy Way by Riding Bull Markets is an indispensable exploration of one of the least appreciated—and most lucrative—skills in investing. Discover the value of timely action and make some hay while the sun shines.

“Unloved Bull Markets should be required reading for all financial advisors and fiduciaries. Dr. Callahan’s in-depth research and analysis provides valuable insights into understanding what has driven this most recent and incredible bull market. More importantly, it highlights what to focus on when evaluating the next one. This book provides an academic’s perspective on how he saw through the distracting noise and banter to focus on what really mattered. Sharing his insights empowers us all to do better work.”
—Steve Rogers, CEO, Shelton Capital Management

“Callahan’s non-emotional approach to investing encourages everyone to ignore the headlines and focus on the fundamentals. Using this mentality, this book helps make the complicated appear simple and intuitive.”
—Zach Jonson, Chief Investment Officer, Stack Financial Management

“There is no shortage of controversy in Unloved Bull Markets as Craig Callahan throws direct punches at some established Wall Street beliefs that interfere with maximizing returns. There were so many reasons investors missed the last two unloved bull markets. One by one, the author picks those reasons a part and makes the case that the unloved bull markets were sensible and proper. It can be difficult to be both educational and entertaining, but Callahan succeeds with real examples, stories and graphs, driving home important concepts in a convincing manor.”
—C. Thomas Howard, PhD, CEO and Chief Investment Officer, AthenaInvest