The 5 Best Investments You Can Make in 2019

Everyone is looking forward to 2019 if only because 2018 has been so ugly.

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Everyone is looking forward to 2019 if only because 2018 has been so ugly. But investors will have to mentally sturdy themselves: Before we can talk about the best investments to make in 2019, we have to quickly explore what has gone wrong in 2018.

The year started with a bang. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index returned nearly 6% that month following an epic 2017 that saw the index pop by 22%. But after that, it got rocky. Stocks stumbled in the first quarter, rallied for most of the second and third quarters, then rolled over and died again in October. It hasn’t gotten better since, and investors have had plenty to digest the whole way.

“Since January, I’ve talked about investors pricing the equity market for perfection,” writes Rodney Johnson in the November issue of The Cornerstone Report. “Unburdened by the tax man, corporations have booked exceptional gains throughout 2018, regularly posting earnings 20% or more above what they earned in 2017. But now it looks like the good times are coming to an end.”

Much of the massive gain in 2017 was likely powered by investors looking forward to the profit windfall following the corporate tax cuts at the end of last year. But that’s a year in the past. Going forward, we’ll be comparing post-tax-cut profits to post-tax-cut profits as opposed to higher post-cut to lower pre-cut. Meanwhile, stock prices are still priced for perfection. At 2 times sales, the S&P 500’s price-to-sales ratio is sitting near all-time highs, and the cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings ratio, or “CAPE,” of 29.6 is priced at a level consistent with market tops.

Fortunately, the new year provides an opportunity to wipe the slate clean. So what might we expect in the new year? Today, we’ll cover five of the best investments you can make in 2019, come what may in the stock market.

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Charles Lewis Sizemore, CFA
Contributing Writer, Kiplinger.com

Charles Lewis Sizemore, CFA is the Chief Investment Officer of Sizemore Capital Management LLC, a registered investment advisor based in Dallas, Texas, where he specializes in dividend-focused portfolios and in building alternative allocations with minimal correlation to the stock market.