Last Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average snapped an eight-day losing streak and successfully avoided a nine-day losing streak not seen since 1978. Was the eight-day loss simply a result of market noise of a back-and-forth tariff battle between the United States and China or is it a primer that a recession may be on the horizon?
According to Brent Schutte, chief investment strategist with Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management in Milwaukee, financial advisors should be having the talk their fixed income clients probably want to avoid–the one regarding a possible recession.
Related: Dow On Track to End 8-Day Losing Streak
“Most of the conversation that advisors need to have with their clients is to prepare them (that in) the not too distant future there will be a recession,” said Schutte. “As you move toward the end of a cycle in general, risk increases, and it increases across the board. I do believe that investors are going to have to stomach additional volatility.”
Schutte cited that rising interest rates, particularly since the Federal Reserve is hinting at possibly two more rate hikes before 2019 arrives, is causing fixed income investors to chase high-yield investments and their appetite to assume more risk is growing.
“I do in general agree that people can get lulled to sleep by lack of volatility, and it can cause them to take risks they otherwise wouldn’t take,” he says. “I want investors to be careful in the fixed-income (market) stretching for yield. You need to prepare them for the fact that risk is going to be rising, so they don’t do the emotional thing when it happens.”
Click here to read the rest of the discussion with Mr. Schutte.
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