Markets Never Forget (But People Do)

Sir John Templeton, legendary investor, was famous for saying, "The four most dangerous words in investing are, 'This time it's different.'" He knew that though history doesn't repeat, not exactly, history is an excellent guide for investors.

In Markets Never Forget But People Do: How Your Memory Is Costing You Money and Why This Time Isn't Different, long-time Forbes columnist, CEO of Fisher Investments, and 4-time New York Times bestselling author Ken Fisher shows how and why investors' memories fail them—and how costly that can be. More important, he shows steps investors can take to begin reducing errors they repeatedly make. The past is never indicative of the future, but history can be one powerful guide in shaping forward looking expectations. Readers can learn how to see the world more clearly—and learn to make fewer errors—by understanding just a bit of investing past.

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xvii

Chapter 1 The Plain-Old Normal 1

Yes Sir, Sir John 1

The Normal Normal 5

The Jobless Recovery 14

The Always Feared, Rarely Seen Double Dip 23

Chapter 2 Fooled by Averages 31

Bull Markets Are Inherently Above Average 32

Viva the V 36

Normal Returns Are Extreme, Not Average 47

The Pause That Refreshes (and Confuses) 49

Getting Average Returns Is Hard—Really Hard 53

Chapter 3 Volatility Is Normal—and Volatile 57

What the Heck Is Volatility? 58

Volatility Is Volatile 61

The Daily Grind 65

Stocks Are Less Volatile Than Bonds? 67

Economic Volatility—Also Normal 69

Volatility Isn’t Inherently Bad 71

Never a Dull Moment 74

Chapter 4 Secular Bear? (Secular) Bull! 81

Seeing the World Through Bear- Colored Glasses 82

Two Secular Bear Markets? 84

Stocks—Up Vastly More Than Down 90

Chapter 5 Debt and Deficient Thinking 101

Deficits Aren’t Bad, but Surpluses Will Kill You 105

The History of Big Government Debt 110

Just Who Is at Default Here? 116

Chapter 6 Long- Term Love and Other Investing Errors 123

No One Category Is Best for All Time 124

Long- Term Love Is Like Long- Term Forecasting— Both Wrong 129

It’s Still Heat Chasing Even When It Seems Safe 134

Use History to Your Advantage 146

Chapter 7 Poli-Ticking 151

Enter the Ideology- Free Zone 152

Your Party Isn’t Better 153

Presidents and Risk Aversion 155

Perverse Inverse—It’s Four and One 160

Poli- Tics Go Global 170

Poli- Tics Versus Entrepreneurs 172

Chapter 8 It’s (Always Been) a Global World, After All 177

It’s Always Been a Small World 179

Seeing the World Right 186

Conclusion 194

Appendix 197

Notes 201

Index 211

KEN FISHER is best known for his prestigious “Portfolio Strategy” column in Forbes magazine, where his over 27-year tenure of high-profile calls makes him the fourth longest-running columnist in Forbes’s 90-plus year history. He is the founder, Chairman and CEO of Fisher Investments, an independent global money management firm managing tens of billions for individuals and institutions globally. Fisher is ranked #252 on the 2010 Forbes 400 list of richest Americans, and #736 on the 2011 Forbes global billionaires list. In 2010, Investment Advisor magazine named him among the 30 most influential individuals of the last three decades. Fisher has authored numerous professional and scholarly articles, including the award-winning “Cognitive Biases in Market Forecasting.” He has also published seven previous books, including New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers, The Only Three Questions That Count, The Ten Roads to Riches, How to Smell a Rat and Debunkery, all published by Wiley. Fisher has been published, interviewed and/or written about in many major American, British and German finance or business periodicals. He has a weekly column in Focus Money, Germany’s leading weekly finance and business magazine.

LARA HOFFMANS is a content manager at Fisher Investments, managing editor of MarketMinder.com, a regular contributor to Forbes.com and co-author of the bestsellers, The Only Three Questions That Count, The Ten Roads to Riches, How to Smell a Rat and Debunkery.

Why do so many investors make the same mistakes repeatedly—being too bullish or too bearish at just the wrong times? Because they forget. Forgetting pain is an instinct—humans have evolved that way to better cope with the problems of survival. But for the complex and often counterintuitive world of investing, it causes serious errors.

“This time it’s different” are the four most expensive words in the English language (according to investing legend Sir John Templeton). Yet many investors routinely fall into the trap of thinking “now” (whenever “now” is) is different somehow. In Markets Never Forget (But People Do): How Your Memory Is Costing You Money—and Why This Time Isn’t Different, four-time New York Times bestselling author Ken Fisher shows readers how their memories play (often costly) tricks on them—and how they can combat their faulty memories with just a bit of history.

This isn’t to say history repeats itself perfectly. It doesn’t—but a recession is a recession. Some are vastly worse than others—but investors have lived through them before. Credit crises aren’t new, nor are bear markets—or bull markets. Geopolitical tension is as old as mankind, as is war and even terrorist attacks. Understanding how investors have reacted to similar past events can help guide investors in shaping better forward-looking expectations. The past never predicts the future, but it can reduce guesswork about what’s ahead.

In this book, Fisher takes aim at some major market memory mishaps—like the idea stocks have become inherently more volatile or that wildly above- or below-average returns are abnormal. He shows how, early in every recovery, investors don’t believe in it—often at a huge cost. And he shows how, in investing, ideology is deadly. Most important, he teaches how you can use history as one powerful tool to help begin reducing your error rate and help begin getting better investing results.