- My 9-month, 5.1% interest CD just expired.
- With rates falling and stocks at record highs, I’m conflicted on where to invest now.
- 4 financial experts offered their advice — including a way to capitalize on both rates and stocks.
At the start of 2023, I looked at my uninspiring (fine, depressing) savings account and set a goal to bulk it up a bit more.
That can be a difficult thing to do living in New York City, but I came up with a plan to diligently set aside money every month. By the end of the year, I had hit my goal, and in January, I started to think about how I could invest it.
While I already had some exposure to stocks via ETFs and mutual funds in my brokerage account and Roth IRA, I was conflicted on where to invest my new cash pile. Stocks had just surged 22% in 2023, and recession fears were still floating around the market. Meanwhile, rates on safe cash equivalents like certificates of deposit, or CDs, were over 5%.
Figuring I’d buy myself some time to see how the macroeconomic picture evolved, I opted for the latter, getting into a 9-month CD at a 5.1% annual percentage rate and reinvesting the monthly interest payments.
Fast forward to today and I swim in a pool of regret. The economy has largely held up, and the S&P 500 has continued on its tear, rising another 22% so far this year. Sure, 5.1% return hasn’t been bad. But who among those of us keeping cash on the sidelines hasn’t yearned for a taste of that sweet equity market nectar this year?
And yet, not much has changed about my apprehension to get into stocks, even with 9-month rates from my credit union having fallen to a less-attractive 4.65%.
The labor market has cooled to an almost-worrying degree, with the Sahm Rule recession indicator being triggered in August and statistics like quits, hires, and the year-over-year change in full-time employees all falling significantly, as they have in prior recessions. Payroll revisions have also been significantly to the downside.
All the while, the market has stamped even higher highs, and some measures show market valuations rival the most expensive levels in history. Both Goldman Sachs and Bank of America have warned of a decade of dismal returns ahead, with Goldman saying the S&P 500 is likely to underperform the 4.2% yield on risk-free 10-year Treasurys on an annualized returns basis.
Hoping not to lose my money in a potential stock-market reversal, but also hoping to not miss out further on what have been ridiculously good returns (I want it all, what can I say), I called up a few financial advisors and market experts and solicited some free advice under the guise of writing this article.
Probably the most important variable of coming up with an investing plan is establishing a timeline. I just turned 30 years old, so I’ll probably keep my money invested for a few decades. That is, unless I need it for a down payment or something in five years — like I said, I want it all.
Robert Johnson, a professor of finance at Creighton University, was quick to remind me I can’t, telling me that my timeline isn’t, in fact, decades if I really need the money in a few years.
But if I was serious about keeping my money in the market for the long-term, Johnson said, then there’s no real bad time to enter the market. In another 30-years’ time, the market is very likely to have gone up.
With that in mind, he said it’s probably a good idea to commit the entire small chunk of change I’ve saved up to the market right now, let it sit, and continue adding money every month going forward.
Still, I wasn’t fully convinced. On my beat, I cover the outlooks of well-known market minds like GMO Cofounder Jeremy Grantham, top 1% fund manager Bill Smead, and many more. Some of them lay out bearish arguments, and like Goldman and Bank of America have pointed out, Grantham and Smead have also said that the S&P 500 is set to deliver abysmal returns in the next decade if you were to invest now.
That’s because starting points matter a lot when it comes to valuations. Bank of America says they determine 80% of the market’s return over a decade. If you had bought at the top of the dot-com bubble in 2000, you would have suffered a 28% loss going out exactly a decade to August 2010. And you still would have had the same amount of money you started with all the way in 2013.
I want to buy low and sell high, not buy high and eventually sell higher!
At the same time, multiple decades down the line, the returns are likely to be good no matter what. Today, the S&P 500 is 285% from the height of the dot-com bubble. But, if you had waited until market lows in 2002 to buy, your position would be up 587% today.
Expressing my concerns about valuations and what appears to be a deteriorating labor market, Johnson stopped me and reiterated in a tough-love tone my long-term timeline. He also said there’s no way of knowing where the top is, and reminded me of the 22% returns I’ve missed out on so far this year.
Touché.
“You can play the what-if game all the time,” he said. “When you go to cash or you go to less risky assets, your opportunity loss in returns is huge.”
But there is a way for me to play both sides, according to Ryan Marshall, a financial advisor at Wealth Enhancement Group, which manages upward of $96 billion.
I could put a portion of my money into stocks right now, while also laddering the other part in different CD durations. So, for example, I could plug 25% of the money into stocks, 25% of it in a 3-month CD, 25% in a 6-month CD, and 25% in a 9-month CD. As each of those CDs expires, I could then put that money to work in stocks.
If the market goes up during that time, oh well — at least I had some exposure, and I was still collecting pretty decent interest in the CDs. If the market goes down, even better — I can buy in at a cheaper entry point, plus I made some interest in the meantime.
Jason Browne, the founder of Alexis Investment Partners, went even further. Instead of buying CDs, buy the duration equivalents in Treasury bills. They’re more liquid, so I can sell them in the blink of an eye if I need to, while also keeping the interest paid up to that point. With CDs, usually you have to give back the interest if you exit it before the expiration date. Plus, you don’t need to pay state tax on interest from Treasurys.
A man can have it all.
I’m still not entirely decided on my strategy. But Chikako Tyler, the CFO at California Bank & Trust, said that I should probably act quickly if I want to buy bonds or CDs, as the Fed is likely to cut rates further at their November and December meetings.
“Right now, you have a window of about two weeks before you may start to see banks move,” she said about CD rates.
So, like in January 2023, it’s time to sit down, come up with a plan, and execute it.
If you have a personal investing story or dilemma you’d like to share, feel free to reach out to William at wedwards@businessinsider.com.
