Topic: How To Invest

What is Pat’s commentary for the week of January 7, 2014?

Article Excerpt

Here’s the text of the quarterly letter I recently sent to our Portfolio Management clients: “In my last couple of quarterly letters, I talked about my belief that we’re in a secular bull market. This is a long-term stock-market rise that carries the market to successively higher levels over a period of a decade or two, if not longer. Secular bull markets generally start after a period of financial distress, when many investors feel at least somewhat negative toward the stock market. This period of financial distress may have lasted up to a decade, or longer. It’s a time when corporate earnings are weak or irregular, and investors assume they will stay that way indefinitely. Investor sentiment becomes extremely negative, and investors take it for granted that the market may be headed for another big downturn. The secular bull market begins around the time when investors begin to swing back to a more positive view of the stock market. We entered a..