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Income and Volatility: Paid to Ride Out a Storm

January 15, 2020 | David Adler

Instead of staying invested for the long-term, investors may react to short-term volatility by rushing to the exits. Unfortunately doing this and realizing losses can cause damage to one’s financial health. Dividend or other income producing investments can help investors with the volatility “problem” as income creates incentives for investors to stick with their long-term investment plan and weather a storm.

Warren Buffett, in his 2014 Berkshire Hathaway annual letter, explains “…volatility is almost universally used as a proxy for risk. Though this pedagogic assumption makes for easy teaching, it is dead wrong.”1

Economist John Cochrane, former President of the American Finance Association notes:

If you see bond volatility go through the roof, you would be foolish to call your broker and cry, “We’ve got to sell! I can’t take any more losses.” If bond prices go down more, bond yields and long-run returns will rise just enough that you face no long-run risk…The same logic explains why you can ignore short-run volatility in stock markets.2

The real danger to the long-term investor comes not necessarily from volatility, but from investor behavior. Investors may exit the market during a volatility period, missing potential price rebounds. JP Morgan Asset management research has found that just missing the ten best days of the market during the last twenty years would have halved returns. Furthermore, the best trading days tend to be closely clustered with the worst trading days.3

Performance of a $10,000 Investment (1/1/98-12/29/17) in the S&P 500

This chart is for illustrative purposes only and does not represent the performance of any investment or group of investments. Source: J.P. Morgan Asset Management 20-year analysis using Bloomberg data. Returns are based on the S&P 500 Total Return Index, an unmanaged, capitalization-weighted index that measures the performance of 500 large capitalization domestic stocks representing all major industries. Performance data quoted represents past performance. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Current performance may be lower or higher than performance data quoted. Data as of December 31, 2017.

Income can be a substantial source of return from an investment, particularly during volatile periods. In the long run income may smooth out and boost total returns.

Income producing investments can help overcome investors’ worst behavioral biases, such as the urge to time the price movements of markets. The reason is that income producing investments are inherently stickier and give investors a financial incentive not to sell.

Income producing investments may pay investors to ride out a storm. The bar chart below compares income producing asset classes.

Comparison of Asset Class Distribution Rates by Representative Index1,2

Sources: us.spindices.com; JP Morgan CLOIE; alerian.com; massmutual.com; morganstanley.com; fred.stlouisfed.org.
1 All index data as of 12/31/2019
2 Corporate Bonds are represented by the Bloomberg Barclays US 5-10 Year Corporate Bond Index. High-Yield Bonds are represented by the Bloomberg Barclays US Corp High Yield 2% Issuer Capped Index and reflect yield-to-worst. Senior Secured Loans are represented by the S&P/LSTA U.S. Leveraged Loan 100 Index and reflect yield-to-maturity. Energy MLPs are represented by the Alerian MLP Index (MLP distributions may consist primarily or even exclusively of returns of capital rather than income). BDCs are represented by the S&P BDC Index. CLO Debt is represented by the JP Morgan CLOIE BB Debt Index.

Risks

The information in this article is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute legal, tax, investment or other professional advice on any subject matter. Further, the information is not all-inclusive and should not be relied upon as such. An investment in CEFs involves risks, including loss of principal. Performance data quoted represents past performance. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Current performance may be lower or higher than performance data quoted. Diversification does not eliminate the risk of experiencing investment losses. You should not use this communication as a substitute for your own judgment, and you should consult professional advisors before making any investment decisions. This information may contain “forward looking” information that is not purely historical in nature, including projections, forecasts, estimates of market returns, and proposed portfolio compositions. There is no guarantee that any forecasts will come to pass. This information does not constitute a solicitation of an offer to sell or buy any specific security offering. Such an offering is made by the applicable prospectus only. A prospectus should be read carefully by an investor before investing. Investors are advised to consider investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses carefully before investing. Financial advisors should determine if the risks associated with an investment are consistent with their client’s investment objectives.

1 Berkshire Hathaway Inc., 2014 Annual Report, page 18.

2 Cochrane, J. H. “Is now the time to buy stocks? The Wall Street Journal.” November 12th, 2008.

3 JP Morgan Asset Management, “Get invested, stay invested: Navigating volatile markets.” November 9, 2018.

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