What Is A Full Market Cycle And Why Should I Care?

Updated August 08, 2023

When investors come to assess the performance of money managers, they should bear in mind the aphorism famously popularized by Mark Twain, "there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." For while the statistics appearing in fund prospectuses always tell a good tale, the horror stories come to light later on, by which time it is too late to take corrective action. Yet by putting the alluring numbers of marketing brochures into a wider context, the danger of not seeing the forest for the trees can be avoided. In similar fashion, absolute returns tell only half the story. No performance appraisal is complete without an assessment of risk.

Drawdown is the peak-to-trough decline in value of an investment during a Correction or Bear Market.

Time & Tide

The idea that an investment should be evaluated against the backdrop of a full market cycle is a simple but potent one. The intuition is basic and might be explained by comparing money managers to cross-country runners who traverse a diverse terrain. Sometimes the course goes downhill and then it is easy for the runners, who may take the opportunity to increase their speed. A little later, the course ascends steeply and the going gets tougher. Some runners may start walking or even drop out of the race entirely. Clearly, running an uphill course is an entirely different exercise from cruising one that slopes gently down.

Full Market Cycle Defined

“Unfortunately, the SEC does not mandate that funds provide historical drawdown statistics in fund literature and prospectuses” -- Earl Adamy

In investing, time horizons matter as much as chance does; so it’s important to consider full market cycles. If you were running a course, wouldn’t you set a strategy that took into account the entire passage? In investing terms, that is a full market cycle. A full market cycle is typically defined as the period between two peaks which includes both a Bear Market and a Bull Market. A 20% change in weekly closing price provides a conservative approach to delineating bull and bear markets. Since January of 2000, the S&P 500 has experienced four bear markets and four bull markets.

Your portfolio gains little if it has terrific Bull Market returns only to give much of it back during the next Bear Market. Your first question when considering an investment should always be “what is the drawdown?”. Drawdown is the peak-to-trough decline in value of an investment during a Correction or Bear Market. In other words, insist on knowing what you are going to risk before listening to the potential rewards.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was created to protect investors. The SEC mandates that funds provide 1, 3, 5, and 10 year returns in their literature; however such metrics do not provide all of the information you need. This is the performance disclosure required by the SEC and provided by the SPDR® S&P 500® ETF Trust Fact Sheet dated June 30, 2023:

• 10 Year CAGR: 12.73%
• 5 Year CAGR: 12.15%
• 3 Year CAGR: 14.51%
• 1 Year CAGR:19.38%

Looks like a great long term investment, right? Unfortunately, the SEC does not mandate that funds provide historical drawdown statistics in fund literature and prospectuses. However that does not mean that the information is unavailable, it is just inconvenient to compile because it requires consulting longer term charts to identify drawdowns. Here are the unpublished drawdowns for the same periods:

• 10 Year Max Monthly Drawdown of 23.9%)
• 5 Year Max Monthly Drawdown of 23.9%)
• 3 Year Max Monthly Drawdown of 23.9%)
• 1 Year  Max Monthly Drawdown of 12.9%)

While these drawdowns might not faze a 20 or 30 something with decades to recover drawdowns, this is critical information for those who are nearing retirement or retired. Worse, the lookback periods do not adequately convey the historical risk of much higher drawdowns.

In the case of the TAAStrategies, we do the work for you. For over a decade now, we have published month by month Compound Annual Growth Rates (CAGR) and Maximum Monthly Drawdown updates on our website for the TAAStrategies and their benchmarks. A year or so ago we introduced additional performance information according to economic condition.

We are proud to introduce new graphics which bring our full market cycle data for the TAAStrategies and their benchmarks to life across four market cycles beginning in 2000.

The Full Market Cycle disclosure paints a far more realistic picture of the long term risks and returns.

Why the huge improvements in CAGR and reductions in Max Monthly Drawdown? It is not due to some magic in creating high returns. The out-performance is almost entirely due to minimizing the drawdowns. This means that each “new gain” starts earlier and from a higher price level. 

Portfolio growth is not only stronger and smoother, but investors are relieved from the considerable stress of steep losses.

Importance Of Understanding Drawdowns

Measuring investment return and Maximum Drawdown over a Full Market Cycle significantly improves the assessment of portfolio performance. There are six key reasons why Maximum Drawdown is a critical piece of information:

• Drawdowns must be fully recovered before the portfolio can return to growth.
• Investors approaching, or in retirement, may not have the luxury of the time required to recover losses. The most important measure of portfolio performance for those approaching or in retirement is return relative to drawdowns. The higher this ratio, the higher the withdrawal rate the portfolio can sustain.
• Drawdowns are a key measure of investment risk relative to the investor’s risk tolerance. Is your tolerance for portfolio loss before throwing in the towel: 10%? 20%? 30%? 40%? 50%?
• If you sell out when the drawdown exceeds your tolerance level, how and when will you get back in?
• Drawdowns are a key measure of the portfolio manager’s effectiveness in controlling risk.
• Drawdowns play a key role in calculating what I refer to as the Sustainable Withdrawal Rate for a portfolio

A portfolio that has suffered through a 50%+ Maximum Drawdown, as last seen for the S&P 500 during the 2007-2009 Bear Market, must more than double in value to restore portfolio value. Further, you must have the time available to wait for the market to recover which becomes particularly challenging if you are retired and making regular withdrawals.

Conclusion

Avoiding large drawdowns will do more to improve portfolio returns over a full market cycle than racking up better than average gains. You will also sleep better during Bear Markets. -- Earl Adamy

While investors generally understand that markets rise and fall, the concept of investing for a Full Market Cycle is often lost in the focus of the Financial Services industry on selling market returns. In fact, the marketing focus of the Financial Services industry is to entice investors into chasing short term performance.

While the SEC requires every prospectus to include an eye glazing list of "risks", it fails to require disclosure of the simplest and most understandable risk of all: historical drawdown statistics. One wonders how many investors would rush into equity index funds if the prospectus clearly stated that the index (including dividends) lost 50%+- in 2000-2002, another 50%+- in 2007-2009, 19%+- in 2000, and 24% in 2022-2023. Those are just the most recent Bear Markets.

Human beings are optimists, and rightly so. Optimism drives progress; however there is little advantage in being optimistic about recovering from Bear Market declines when the risks can be mitigated with loss reducing techniques such as a Market Conditions Model and Tactical Asset Allocation.

Avoiding large drawdowns will do more to improve your portfolio returns over a full market cycle than racking up better than average gains. You will also sleep better during Bear Markets.