Most believe we are destined for a recession, if not already in one. Between the negative sentiment and the stock price valuation reset that needed to take place, it’s not surprising that the markets have meaningfully softened. While the economy is clearly slowing, we do not foresee an imminent recession.

Our recent mantra has been “Sell the rallies” not “Buy the dips” because we’ve been expecting much more than a dip. That’s not to say that we’ve been expecting a recessionary-based bear market—prolonged and pronounced negative returns while underlying values are falling. We’ve been anticipating a correction, albeit maybe a substantial one, since prices started falling from levels that were above our estimate of fair market value (FMV).

We sleep well at night knowing that we are partially hedged and that our holdings are growing, high-quality companies that, unlike the overall market, trade at substantial discounts to our estimates of FMV. We remain concerned about several factors, primarily high market valuations, which could trigger a market decline and reestablish a wall of worry.

On rare occasions the market takes on a speculative bent as animal spirits run amok. For us value investors, during these periods, it’s always hard to believe that the others, whose behaviour is so odd to us, are competing in the same field. Why would anyone ignore fundamentals, buy purely on price, chase what’s already gone way up, use highly-speculative instruments, assume extreme leverage, or worst of all, purchase something that’s hugely popular—gone viral—a ‘meme’ stock?