Stocks are cheap. The question is: Are they getting cheaper? Steve Sjuggerud says it’s a strong possibility. He’s put together a table that shows how one generation becomes enamored with an investment trend and how that trend then goes bust. Right now commodities are the only game in town. This means we could be waiting a long time for stocks to pick-up…

A few years ago here in DailyWealth, I shared what I called the “Generation Switch” idea… You see, investment themes move in cycles – or “generations” – that last about 17 years or so.

One generation gets enamored with an investment idea, and it soars beyond reason. Then it busts, and the next generation gives up on it forever. You can see it in the table from a few years ago: Triple-digit profits one generation, losses the next:

100 YEARS OF INVESTMENT GENERATIONS Generation Commodities (CRB Index) Stocks (S&P 500) Years 1914-1930 -14% 159% 16* 1930-1947 244% -30% 17 1947-1965 -18% 503% 18 1965-1981 123% 35%^ 16 1981-1999 -9% 1054% 18 1999-2016 ? -? 17 * Data starts in 1914, so we don’t have 17 years of data ^ While stocks had a small positive return for 1965-1981, if you adjusted the number for inflation, it would be negative

This one simple table would have made you rich…

If you’d have sold your stocks and bought commodities at the end of 1999, you’d have made bigger profits than anyone you know this decade.

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Commodities are up by triple digits since the end of 1999, and stocks are down in that time. The scary thought is… if the pattern holds, we could see stocks underperform until as late as 2016.

In my newsletter True Wealth, we wait for opportunity… We buy things that are cheap, hated, and in the start of an uptrend.

I don’t think we’ll have to wait until 2016… but we haven’t seen the uptrends yet. It’s an understatement to say it’s an ugly market out there. We’re simply doing our best to avoid catching falling knives.

It’s best to wait for the falling knife to hit the ground and come to a stop before carefully picking it up. By waiting for the uptrend, we might miss the first 20%-25% of a move… but it’s completely the right way to go now. We can’t know where the bottom is.

Right now, I’m seeing more cheap and hated opportunities than I ever have in my career. That’s what I’m excited about. And that’s the positive thing about bear markets… They create value.

Many investments around the world are as cheap as I’ve seen them. Investors coming into the market in the next few years will get in at good values. And chances are, they’ll make money.

I can’t go back and save people who didn’t read my writings back in 2000, when stocks were expensive. (In my January 2000 newsletter cover story, I said, “We are at the peak of most likely the greatest financial mania that will ever be seen in our lifetimes and quite possibly the greatest ever witnessed.”)

But I can tell you today, in 2008, stocks are as cheap as they’ve been in a long time. While they can (and likely will) get cheaper, I am excited. For the first time in many years, we’re seeing once-in-a-generation values.

Source:  The One Positive Thing About This Bear Market