To be honest, I don't do much factor investing. I don't look at catalysts A & B and think it's a good time to buy into asset classes C & D, but sell asset class E. I just watch overall trends, whatever the causes are.
The S&P 500 is down 25% from its ATH, even after adjusting for dividends. Historically when it'd go down that far it'd go down at least 30%. The question is, will it go down further? In 1987 and 2020 the answer was No. In 2000 and 2008 the answer was Yes (49% in 2000, 56% in 2008). IMHO the main determining factor is the speed it goes down. In 1987 and 2020 it went down sharply 33%, then rose back up sharply. I had been out of stocks in 2020 and was waiting for a 49+% drawdown until I saw it go down quickly -- so I jumped back in during the first week of March.
This year's drawdown has been going on for 9 months -- it looks more like 2000 (which took 2.5 years to drop 49%) or 2008 (which took 1.5 years to drop 56%). So I'm staying out of the S&P 500 until it's down 40%.
Three tech funds I like to invest in are down 67% (PRGTX), 56% (PRSCX), and 48% (PRMTX) from their ATH's, each of which was in 2021. It's tempting to go back into those, until you realize how low the NASDAQ went during the dot-com bubble bursting and it took 13 years IIRC to come back up to what it had been in March of 2000.
The same kind of story with all 36 mutual funds I like to invest in. They're down, but not down as far as each of their asset classes trended to go down in the past. Whatever causes each one to go up and down, it's the trends I try to follow.
I get it. But you do realize that in the Great Depression, no fund/stock was exempt. A few survived (movies, bras) because they were cheap.
I see a serious deterioration ahead, eventually reaching the “safest” stocks.
We’ll see.