Kevin M. Wilson, ChFC, PhD President/CEO/CIO Dheenu Sivalingam, MBA AVP/CCO/Senior Analyst 1405 Medical Arts Building 324 W. Superior Street Duluth, MN Office: Toll Free: Fax: Monthly Market Review “Come On In, The Water’s Fine!” February 21, Ted A. Pavlovich, WMS VP Wealth Management

INTRODUCTION TED A. PAVLOVICH 2

WALL STREET IS CONFUSED ABOUT RISK KEVIN M. WILSON 3

Wall St. & the Fed Both Ignored the Risk of a Stock Bubble in … …And They Also Ignored The Housing Bubble In

5 Banks Were Over-Leveraged VaR Underestimated Risk

6 Market Still Uses Risk Measures That Failed in 2008 Fat Tails Still A Problem Bimodal Data Also Ignored By Many

7 Modern Portfolio Theory Has Failed Investors MPT Actual Data

8 Diversification Strategies For Stocks Alone in Failed, But Adding Bonds Worked Very Well

9 Fed’s Response to Crisis = Massive Additions to Balance Sheet Central Banks Practicing Financial Repression

10 Markets Have Responded to Easy Money Policy Dramatically Making a Molehill Out of a Mountain

11 No One Likes Bonds, But Surprise! (They’re Still Doing Well)

THE SHORTEST DISTANCE TO YOUR GOALS IS NOT A STRAIGHT LINE TED A. PAVLOVICH 12

No Reason To Think This Pattern Is Over 13

14 Timing Strategies Work Because Losses Are Much Smaller …And Bond Gains Offset Stock Losses

15 Investor Euphoria Denotes Tops

16 Feb Valuations Suggest A Reversal Could Happen

MARKET RALLY DRIVEN BY P/E EXPANSION 17 DHEENU V. SIVALINGAM

Price/Earnings Ratio or PE  The price/earnings ratio or PE is a unit cost, much like the cost of a pound of coffee or a gallon of gas, which allows one to assess a price by comparing it with a typical, historical unit cost. You can certainly tell if a pound of coffee or gallon of gas is higher or lower than normal in price. In this case, it’s the cost of one dollar’s worth of that company’s earnings. PE expansion is an increase in that unit cost. 18

Assuming (Heroically) That All Things Stay The Same… 19

Market Cycles Defined By Valuations 20

 Most investors do not see P/E expansion as the lion's share of the market's gains; Instead, they credit a robust economy, technological advances, productivity gains, and (of course!) earnings improvement. And all those elements did have an obvious impact, but they were responsible for a small portion of the performance. The biggest contribution these four elements had was not to the bottom line; rather, it was to investor psyches that gradually became willing to spend more per dollar of earnings than they had before. These factors allowed investors to rationalize higher prices. Now =

 Bull markets are periods of P/E expansion. During Bulls, investors are willing to pay increasingly more for each dollar of earnings;  Bear markets are periods of P/E contraction. Investors demand more earnings for each dollar of share price they are willing to pay.  History shows that when the inflation is very low or very high, or interest rates decline, or when the deficit goes down, the P/E usually expands. 22

GROUND HOG DAY IN THE MARKETS 23 KEVIN M. WILSON

Ground Hog Day For Speculators Over-Confidence Typical of a Top 24

25 Serial Fed-Induced Bubbles Look Similar

26 Stock Buybacks Have Supported Markets Also

27 Déjà Vu

28 Treasuries Will Offset the Risk of Stocks

SUMMARY/Q & A 29 KEVIN M. WILSON 1)Don’t Listen to Wall Street – They Always Tell You To Buy 2)Bond Performance Has Matched Stocks But Is Reciprocal in Nature 3)Timing Strategies Work By Managing Losses 4)P/E Expansion Has Driven the Rally Lately 5)Don’t Forget How the Last Fed-Induced Bubble Ended 6)When the Next Decline Ends, A Huge Opportunity Will Follow

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