"Our clients have been up about 5% a year over the past three years and most of them are thrilled," Martin notes. Their portfolios have been heavily weighted in various kinds of bonds in that period. However, he argues that his performance should have been much better, that he has not tried to take credit for easily outdistancing most benchmarks in that timespan.
There's another reason why Martin supports Spangler's stance. "I believe that many planners are really closet indexers, although it is hard for them to admit it," he says.
Enlightened advisor or eccentric crank? Clients, says Stanasolovich, can be very fickle. How will Spangler perform in the next bull market? Will he retain this maverick point of view when and if he starts to lag benchmarks again?
That will probably be the greater challenge for an advisor who has declared war on the conventional measures that mean so much to many advisors.