I Did Better in the Long-Term Than the Short Run in 2013

As 2013 nears its end, MoneyShow's Howard R. Gold, takes a look back at his hits and misses of the past year, and looks forward to the ups and downs he'll experience in 2014, and in many more years to come.

It's almost time to sing Auld Lang Syne again, so, in this, my last column of the year, I'm presenting my annual recap of how I did.

I've been doing this report card for a few years out of accountability to you, the audience. I try to be as forthcoming as possible about my hits and misses.

So, looking over my columns in 2013 (and slightly before, since some major moves started in late 2012), I can say I got the big themes right—a continuing bull market in stocks; the irrelevance of the budget crisis in Washington, DC; the imminent danger facing bonds, and the persistent weakness of gold.

Unfortunately, my short-term record was mixed. And when I departed from long-held views, I lived to regret it.

First, the good news.

Last September, I cited several market gurus who "are starting to think the unthinkable: We may be entering a new secular bull market...that could take the averages much, much higher over several years."

I don't know about the next several years, but since then, the Standard & Poor's 500 index (SPX) has risen 24%.

And it's up 20.5% since I declared, in February 2013, that "the calendar is in investors' favor."

My first column of 2013 laid out four big themes:

1. The US economy will continue to grow.

2.The worst of the Eurozone's debt crisis is over.

3. US stocks will rise, but not as much as in 2012.

4. Emerging markets will outpace the US once again.

I got two and a half of them right. US stocks did rise—but much more than in 2012—outperforming emerging markets.

One thing I consistently got right was telling you to "stop obsessing over the fiscal cliff" or other Beltway budget battles. As I wrote in November 2012: "When nobody knows anything, the best thing to do is nothing at all...This brouhaha over the fiscal cliff is just noise that investors can safely ignore."

And in March, I wrote: "After two and a half years in which political events repeatedly shook markets…we're finally at the point where politics don't matter." Now that the Ryan-Murray budget deal has passed, I think that will be even more true in 2014.

Top Low Price Stocks To Invest In Right Now

This column also correctly identified assets for investors to sell or avoid.

Last September, I called long-term US Treasury bonds, Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (which I bashed again in April), and high-yield bonds "the market's three most overvalued assets."

Read Howard's column on the market's three most overvalued assets on MoneyShow.com.

The iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT) has lost 14% of its value since then, while the TIP ETF has fallen 8%—big declines for supposedly "safe" bonds. The iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (HYG) has risen 7.9% since then, but has lagged stocks big time.

In May, I said real estate investment trusts (REITs) "have outperformed the S&P 500 for 11 of the last 16 quarters" and so "I'd be inclined to take at least some profits." That column ran pretty close to REITs' all-time high and the Vanguard REIT Index ETF (VNQ) has lost 11% of its value.

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