Still, his contrarian philosophy is likely to keep his clients in the black when everyone else is in the red when the bears take over, Spangler claims.
In the late 1990s when he committed to this approach, Spangler was having problems signing up new clients. But the world has turned since the glorious late 1990s, and so has Spangler's reputation. Today, he says, clients are now delighted. And Spangler is having few problems attracting new clients.
So how did Spangler go from laggard to star?
Three years into the bear market, Spangler now appears to be a master of the universe. His clients are obtaining strong returns during dreadful markets. None of them has been in the red.
"My worst clients have gotten strong returns over the past three years," he said. Spangler's clients have had cumulative returns of "from 28.2% to 52.9%" over the past three-and-a-half years, according to a second quarter update in a Spangler newsletter. And this positive performance-at a time when many advisors brag that they have been able to limit their losses-includes expenses. This also comes in the same period that the S&P 500 lost 11.19% annualized, according to Morningstar.
Advisors are divided about what this proves.
"There are periods when benchmarks work and there are periods when they don't," says Louis Stanasolovich, a Certified Financial Planner licensee with his own practice in Pittsburgh. An example of that, he notes, is the period from 1966-1982. In that time, the S&P was only up about 6.3% a year, lagging the Consumer Price Index by about a half-percent. Stanasolovich has mixed feelings about Spangler's stand. There are indexes that are reliable, he believes, and others that are flawed. But, as with most other advisors, he believes that is difficult to ignore them.
Nevertheless, Spangler is the advisor who has racked up big gains for his clients when many of his peers have been deep in the red.
But his critics say that the last three years is too short a period to measure his absolute returns philosophy, and that benchmarks, with all their faults, still remain relevant when used carefully.
Despite his record, and despite the suggestion by some that planners should consider adopting Spangler's philosophy as a way of escaping what one called "the tyranny of benchmarks," several of Spangler's colleagues disagree.