Keeping Eyes Peeled for a Bearish Turn 

Markets and economies move through multi-year periods of expansion and contraction. However, at 54%, secular bull markets have occurred only about half the time historically.¹ Furthermore, the U.S. equity market has spent 70% of its time either in a bear market or recovering from one.²

The chart below highlights the secular bull and bear markets, where the shaded grey areas are the bull markets and the white areas are the bear markets. The S&P 500’s average gain per annum during these secular bull periods was 13.8% vs. -4.0% annualized during the secular bear periods.

A Look at Secular Trends

Monthly Data, January 31, 1900 – March 31, 2018

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Source: Ned Davis Research. Data as of March 31, 2018. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Data plotted to logarithmic scale. Copyright &Copy; 2018 Ned Davis Research, Inc. Further distribution prohibited without prior permission. All Rights Reserved. See NDR Disclaimer at www.ndr.com/copyright.html. For data vendor disclaimers, refer to www.ndr.com/vendorinfo.

Where the market is in the secular cycle becomes an important financial planning consideration for investors, especially as they near retirement and would begin to need investment income. An investor’s approach to investing would typically vary depending on which secular period the market is in.

The Need to Navigate Secular Trends

The chart below helps illustrate the importance of navigating secular trends and, in particular, bear cycles. During bear periods, the greater the loss, the greater the gains needed just to break even. Managing the risk of deep and extended periods of loss is critical for long-term success and peace of mind. Limiting losses can help increase market participation by potentially reducing the amount of time and return needed to recoup such losses.

Gains Required to Recover from Losses

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Source: VanEck. For illustrative purposes only. The figures shown above were achieved by means of a mathematical formula and do not reflect results of any one investment. They help illustrate how, for example, a 50% loss requires a 100% gain to recover that loss.

Prudent Asset Allocation

When you buy a stock, you are really buying its future earnings. Each share’s price can be viewed as the discounted present value of its expected future earnings. Prices change when expectations change, which can happen for many reasons. However, the market’s overall health may be gauged by measuring the trend and magnitude of industry-level price changes.

Different indicators can be applied to assess market health in order to help determine prudent equity allocations. One simple example of such prudence would be the aim to be fully invested when the overall health of the market is strong and rising and, as importantly, to reduce exposure to the market when it is weakening and declining.

An Investment Opportunity

Strategies that follow trends may be used to minimize downside market risk by, for example, signaling when to weight and underweight fully U.S. large cap equity market exposure. The Ned Davis Research CMG US Large Cap Long/Flat Index (NDRCMGLF) follows a proprietary model to measure market health and tactically allocate to U.S. equity to help perform with less risk than being fully invested 100% of the time. This guided allocation process is designed to help investors participate and preserve. Investors may complement their equity holdings by accessing this systematic trade strategy in a tax-efficient ETF.

VanEck Vectors^® NDR CMG Long/Flat Allocation ETF (LFEQ™) seeks to track the NDRCMGLF Index. The NDRCMGLF Index is maintained by NDR, whose technical research experts have been developing trade strategies for institutional asset managers globally for more than 35 years. The co-indexer, CMG, is a registered investment advisor specializing in managing and executing trend-following trading strategies since 1992.

Important Definitions and Disclosures
¹Source: Ned Davis Research. Data as of 3/31/2018. Secular bull and bear markets are based on the Dow Jones Industrial Average from 1900 to present. Secular trends are long-term periods of 10-25 years that can encompass shorter-term cyclical bull and bear markets. A secular bull market is a period in which stock prices rise at an above-average rate for an extended period and suffer only relatively short intervening declines. Secular bull markets are also typically accompanied by a favorable economic backdrop of low inflation and strong real economic growth. A secular bear market is an extended period of flat or declining stock prices, often accompanied by high or rising inflation and weaker real economic growth. New wealth creation opportunities are represented by the portion of returns that exceed those from market recoveries after market declines.

²Source: Ned Davis Research, S&P Dow Jones Indices. Data as of 3/31/2018. Based on price return, which excludes dividends. If calculated on a total return basis the figure would be 59%. Past performance is not indicative of future correlation or results.

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