With the Covid-19’s stock market sell off in March, and subsequent rebound over the last few weeks, it is important to look at the metrics that might define the bottom of a market. Timing the bottom of a market correction is an exercise in futility, but it is important to understand some of the fundamental and technical metrics that can help investors contextualize the price of the market.

With volatility in the markets at an all-time high, individuals are looking for safe options to allocate their portfolio into whether it be bonds, CDs, or money market funds. Money markets have seen a large uptick of inflows. This year we have seen money market funds grow to $4.5 trillion in assets. In March alone, the U.S. Money Market Funds experienced nearly $1 trillion of new money entering into money markets.** The downside of being in cash right now is low yields make it difficult for accounts to keep pace with inflation.

How do you demonstrate timing and sequence of returns risk with your clients? The consumer-facing sales tool “The Hatfields and Mccoys” tells a simple yet effective story on sequence of return risk. In the piece, we examine two hypothetical families entering retirement at age 65, but under different circumstances. Both families retire with $500,000 of their nest egg fully invested in the S&P 500® index. They both withdraw 4% annually, with a 2.5% increase each year to keep pace with inflation. The McCoys experience the annual returns from years 1978 to 2008, while the Hatfields experience the same returns, but in reverse chronological order, with a key point being that the annual return for 2008’occurs during their first year of retirement and the return for 1978 is their last.

When I sat down in early February to reevaluate the piece, What’s Your Favorite Fixed Income Alternative, the 10-year treasury hovered near historic lows, by March, they had plunged further than many expected. March was the most volatile month we’ve seen since the Great Depression, not only in equities, but in bonds too. U.S. sovereign debt has traded at highest highs, with yields dropping to .318% on the 10-year and 1.34% on the 30-year*. Falling interest rates have resulted in gains for bond funds and bonds trading in the secondary market. With bonds trading at record highs, talk to your clients about potential bond alternatives for a few reasons.

Have you heard of structured annuities, buffered annuities, registered index-linked annuities or variable index annuities? With so many different names for the same product line it can become confusing but since LIMRA uses registered index-linked annuities (RILAs), I will use it to describe the fastest growing segment in the annuity space and give reasons why sales are accelerating so rapidly.

You are undoubtedly getting phone calls each and every day from your weary and worried clients about what they should be doing with their investments and how today’s events will affect their financial plan. You’ve helped navigate them through the ups and downs of the market in the past, but this is the first time guiding them through a worldwide pandemic. What do you tell them?

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