Author: Smead Capital Management

We at Smead Capital Management are in the camp of long-duration investors who believe we’ve entered an extended period of intermittent interest rate increases, a reversal from the 35-year era of intermittent declining rates we have experienced since 1981. The following chart shows that speculators have placed very heavy bets on rising interest rates in November. The placement of these heavy bets indicates that we could be close to the first temporary peak in the 10-year Treasury bond moving from the historically low rates around 1.5%. It looks to us like the first inning of a nine-inning game; the last game of this kind lasted 30 years.

As long-duration common stock pickers we seek to buy meritorious companies which fit our eight criteria for stock selection. However, as investors with a ten-year time frame and 36-years of observational experience in investing, we invoke Bernard Baruch who said, “The activity which made me the most money in common stocks was sitting on my hands.” For this reason, we have an interesting perch to watch the investors around us who are turning their portfolios over with regularity. How does an investor get a feel for shorter duration tops in the one-to-two year time range?