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Wall Street vs Main Street: The Stock Market is Not the Economy

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This infographic is available as a poster.

Wall Street vs Main Street

Wall Street vs Main Street

This infographic is available as a poster.

Wall Street vs Main Street

In 2020, the stock market and the economy had a very public break up. The Wall Street vs Main Street divide—the gap between America’s financial markets and the economy—was growing. By the end of the year, the S&P 500 Index closed at a record high. In contrast, 20 million Americans remained unemployed, up from 2 million at the start of the year.

Was 2020 an outlier, or does the performance of the stock market typically diverge from the economy? In this Markets in a Minute chart from New York Life Investments, we show U.S. economic growth and stock market performance over the last four decades, to see how closely the two relate.

GDP Growth and S&P 500 Returns

Here’s how annual GDP growth and S&P 500 Index returns stack up from 1980 to the second quarter of 2021. Both metrics are net of inflation.

YearReal GDP GrowthReal S&P 500 Returns
1980-0.3%13.9%
19812.5%-18.3%
1982-1.8%10.8%
19834.6%13.4%
19847.2%-2.5%
19854.2%23.0%
19863.5%12.9%
19873.5%-2.2%
19884.2%7.9%
19893.7%22.4%
19901.9%-12.4%
1991-0.1%23.4%
19923.5%1.4%
19932.8%4.4%
19944.0%-4.2%
19952.7%31.4%
19963.8%17.2%
19974.4%29.3%
19984.5%25.1%
19994.8%16.6%
20004.1%-13.5%
20011.0%-14.6%
20021.7%-26.0%
20032.9%24.5%
20043.8%5.8%
20053.5%-0.7%
20062.9%11.4%
20071.9%-0.6%
2008-0.1%-39.2%
2009-2.5%21.6%
20102.6%11.1%
20111.6%-3.1%
20122.2%11.6%
20131.8%28.3%
20142.5%10.9%
20153.1%-1.4%
20161.7%7.3%
20172.3%17.2%
20183.0%-8.1%
20192.2%26.8%
2020-3.5%14.9%
Q1 20211.5%4.5%
Q2 20211.6%5.8%

Note: For Q1 and Q2 2021, real GDP growth and inflation rates are quarterly rates and are seasonally adjusted.

More often than not, GDP growth and S&P 500 Index returns have both been positive. The late ‘90s saw particularly strong economic activity and stock performance. According to the White House, economic growth was bolstered by cutting the deficit, modernizing job training, and increasing exports. Meanwhile, increasing investor confidence and the growing tech bubble led to annual stock market returns that exceeded 20%.

In the selected timeframe, only 2008 saw a decline in both the stock market and the economy. This was, of course, caused by the Global Financial Crisis. Banks lent out subprime mortgages, or mortgages to people with impaired credit ratings. These mortgages were then pooled together and repackaged into investments such as mortgage-backed securities (MBS). When interest rates rose and home prices collapsed, this led to mortgage defaults and financial institution bankruptcies as many MBS investments became worthless.

Moving in Opposite Directions

What about when the Wall Street vs Main Street divide grows?

Historically, it has been more common to see positive GDP growth and negative stock performance. For example, real GDP grew by a whopping 7% in 1984 due to “Reaganomics”, such as tax cuts and anti-inflation monetary policy. However, the stock market declined as rising treasury yields of up to 14% made fixed income investments more attractive than equities.

On the other hand, in five of the six years with negative GDP growth, there have been positive stock returns. The most recent example of this is 2020. Real GDP declined by 3.5%, while the S&P 500 returned almost 15% net of inflation.

The Stock Market is not the Economy

There are a number of reasons why the stock market may not necessarily reflect what is happening in the economy.

  • The stock market reflects long-term views. A stock’s price factors in what investors think a company will earn in the future. If investors are confident in the likelihood of an economic recovery, stock prices will likely rise. In contrast, GDP growth is a hard measure of current activity.
  • Sector weightings in the stock market do not reflect their contributions to GDP. The stock market remained resilient in 2020 largely because technology, media, and telecom (TMT) stocks performed well. Despite making up 35% of the market cap of the largest 1,000 U.S. stocks, these companies only account for 8% of U.S. GDP. In contrast, hard-hit companies such as restaurants and gyms generate lots of jobs and contribute materially to GDP. However, many of these businesses accounted for a small portion of the stock market or are not even publicly listed.
  • Fiscal policy lags behind monetary policy. The U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) can act quickly. For instance, the Fed bought $1.7 trillion of Treasury securities between mid-March and June 2020 to stabilize financial markets. On the other hand, fiscal support requires legislative approvals. The U.S. government initially provided large-scale economic stimulus through the CARES Act in March 2020, but further relief packages were stalled due to political disagreements.

While many factors are at play, the above can help explain the Wall Street vs Main Street divide.

Wall Street vs Main Street: Together and Apart

Over the last 41 years, the economy and the stock market have moved in opposite directions almost as often as they have moved in the same direction. Here’s a summary of their movements from 1980-2020.

# of Years
Stock Growth, GDP Growth22
Stock Decline, GDP Growth13
Stock Growth, GDP Decline5
Stock Decline, GDP Decline1

Since 1980, these time periods of differing performance have never lasted more than three consecutive years. In fact, one economist described the stock market and the unemployment rate as two people walking down the street, tethered by a rope.

”When the rope is slack, they move apart. But they can never get too far away from each other.”
—Roger Farmer, University of Warwick economist

After their public breakup in 2020, the Wall Street vs Main Street divide appears to have healed. In the first two quarters of 2021, both the stock market and the economy saw growth. Perhaps it’s easiest to sum up their relationship in two words: it’s complicated.

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Markets in a Minute

How Small Investments Make a Big Impact Over Time

Compound interest is a powerful force in building wealth. Here’s how it impacts even the most modest portfolio over the long-term.

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This bar chart shows the power of compound interest and regular contributions over time.

How Small Investments Make a Big Impact Over Time

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Time is an investor’s biggest ally, even if they start with just a modest portfolio.

The reason behind this is compounding interest, of course, thanks to its ability to magnify returns as interest earns interest on itself. With a fortune of $159 billion, Warren Buffett largely credits compound interest as a vital ingredient to his success—describing it like a snowball collecting snow as it rolls down a very long hill.

This graphic shows how compound interest can dramatically impact the value of an investor’s portfolio over longer periods of time, based on data from Investor.gov.

Why Compound Interest is a Powerful Force

Below, we show how investing $100 each month, with a 10% annual return starting at the age of 25 can generate outsized returns by simply staying the course:

AgeTotal ContributionsInterestPortfolio Value
25$1,300$10$1,310
30$7,300$2,136$9,436
35$13,300$9,223$22,523
40$19,300$24,299$43,599
45$25,300$52,243$77,543
50$31,300$100,910$132,210
55$37,300$182,952$220,252
60$43,300$318,743$362,043
65$49,300$541,101$590,401
70$55,300$902,872$958,172
75$61,300$1,489,172$1,550,472

Portfolio value is at end of each time period. All time periods are five years except for the first year (Age 25) which includes a $100 initial contribution. Interest is computed annually.

As we can see, the portfolio grows at a relatively slow pace over the first five years.

But as the portfolio continues to grow, the interest earned begins to exceed the contributions in under 15 years. That’s because interest is earned not only on the total contributions but on the accumulated interest itself. So by the age of 40, the total contributions are valued at $19,300 while the interest earned soars to $24,299.

Not only that, the interest earned soars to double the value of the investor’s contributions over the next five years—reaching $52,243 compared to the $25,300 in principal.

By the time the investor is 75, the power of compound interest becomes even more eye-opening. While the investor’s lifetime contributions totaled $61,300, the interest earned ballooned to 25 times that value, reaching $1,489,172.

In this way, it shows that investing consistently over time can benefit investors who stick it through stock market ups and downs.

The Two Key Ingredients to Growing Money

Generally speaking, building wealth involves two key pillars: time and rate of return.

Below, we show how these key factors can impact portfolios based on varying time horizons using a hypothetical example. Importantly, just a small difference in returns can make a huge impact on a portfolio’s end value:

Annual ReturnPortfolio Value
25 Year Investment Horizon
Portfolio Value
75 Year Investment Horizon
5%$57,611$911,868
8%$88,412$4,835,188
12%$161,701$49,611,684

With this in mind, it’s important to take into account investment fees which can erode the value of your investments.

Even the difference of 1% in investment fees adds up over time, especially over the long run. Say an investor paid 1% in fees, and had an after-fee return of 9%. If they had a $100 starting investment, contributed monthly over a 25-year time span, their portfolio would be worth over $102,000 at the end of the period.

By comparison, a 10% return would have made over $119,000. In other words, they lost roughly $17,000 on their investment because of fees.

Another important factor to keep in mind is inflation. In order to preserve the value of your portfolio, its important to choose investments that beat inflation, which has historically averaged around 3.3%.

For perspective, since 1974 the S&P 500 has returned 12.5% on average annually (including reinvested dividends), 10-Year U.S. Treasury bonds have returned 6.6%, while real estate has averaged 5.6%. As we can see, each of these have outperformed inflation over longer horizons, with varying degrees of risk and return.

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What Were the Top Performing Investment Themes of 2023?

In 2023, several investment themes outperformed the S&P 500 by a wide margin. Here are the top performers—from blockchain to AI.

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The Top Performing Investment Themes in 2023

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

While the S&P 500 rebounded over 24% in 2023, many investment themes soared even higher.

In many ways, the year was defined by breakthrough announcements in AI and the resurgence of Bitcoin. At the same time, investors looked to nuclear energy ETFs thanks to nuclear’s growing role as a low carbon energy source and the war in Ukraine.

This graphic shows the best performing investment themes last year, based on data from Trackinsight.

Blockchain ETFs Lead the Pack

With 82% returns, blockchain ETFs outperformed all other themes in the U.S. due to the sharp rise in the bitcoin price over the year.

These ETFs hold mainly bitcoin mining firms, since ETFs investing directly in bitcoin were not yet approved by regulators in 2023. However, as of January 2024, U.S. regulators have approved 11 spot bitcoin ETFs for trading, which drew in $10 billion in assets in their first 20 days alone.

Below, we show the top performing themes across U.S. ETFs in 2023:

Theme2023 Performance
Blockchain82%
Next Generation Internet80%
Metaverse59%
FinTech54%
Nuclear Energy50%
Cloud Computing49%
AI/Big Data49%
Gig Economy48%
Digital Infrastructure & Connectivity43%

As we can see, next generation internet ETFs—which include companies focused on the internet of things and new payment methods—also boomed.

Meanwhile, nuclear energy ETFs had a banner year as uranium prices hit 15-year highs. Investor optimism for nuclear power is part of a wider trend of reactivating nuclear power plants globally in the push towards decarbonizing the energy supply. In fact, 63 new reactors across countries including Japan, Türkiye, and China are planned for construction amid higher global demand.

With 49% returns, AI and big data ETFs were another top performing investment theme. Driving these returns were companies like chipmaker Nvidia, whose share price jumped by 239% in 2023 thanks to its technology being fundamental to powering AI models.

Top Investment Themes, by Net Flows

Here are the the investment themes that saw the highest net flows over the year:

Theme2023 Net Flows
Robotics & Automation$1,303M
Nuclear Energy$997M
AI/Big Data$987M
Global Infrastructure$734M
Net Zero 2050$716M
Blockchain$357M
Cannabis & Psychedelics$270M
Emerging Markets Consumer Growth$203M

Overall, ETFs focused on robotics and automation saw the greatest net flows amid wider deployment of these technologies across factories, healthcare, and transportation actvities.

The success of AI large language models over the year is another key factor in powering robotics capabilities. For instance, Microsoft is planning to build a robot powered by ChatGPT that provides it with higher context awareness of certain tasks.

Like robotics and automation, AI and big data, along with blockchain ETFs attracted high inflows.

Interestingly, ETFs surrounding emerging markets consumer growth saw strong inflows thanks to an expanding middle class across countries like India and China spurring potential growth opportunities. In 2024, 113 million people are projected to join the global middle class, seen mainly across countries in Asia.

Will Current Trends Continue in 2024?

So far, many of these investment themes have continued to see positive momentum including blockchain and next generation internet ETFs.

In many cases, these investment themes cover broad, underlying trends that have the potential to reshape sectors and industries. Going further, select investment themes have often defined each decade thanks to factors like technological disruption, geopolitics, and the economic environment.

While several factors could impact their performance—such as a global downturn or a second wave of inflation—it remains to be seen if investor demand will carry through the year and beyond.

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