Death care stocks down 18% Year to Date

June 27, 2022/Finance/

I read this interesting article on Saturday morning from Yahoo Finance’s Morning Brief entitled “What to expect from a recession everyone sees coming“. The author of the article makes this statement, “. . . recessions can be mild and short if the causes are anticipated and less systemic, and more severe and longer if they are unexpected and less intertwined with the core economy“.

The article and the recent turbulence in the stock market gave me reason to look at death care stocks and take a peek at where they are as we end the 2nd Quarter of 2022 this week and will be having quarterly reports coming out in the not so distant future. As you are well aware of if you listen to the news or look at your 401k account market indices are down on the year to date. The Dow Jones Average is down 13.4%, the NASDAQ down 23.6%, and the S&P 500 down 18.0% year to date as of Friday, June 24.

I also looked at all seven of the death care stocks that comprise the Funeral Director Daily Death Care Index (DCI) and as a group they are down 18.1% year to date. Only StoneMor LLC, which has agreed to a buy out offer to take the company private, has a positive stock return year to date.

Here’s a chart that I compiled which lists stock prices on the first day of the year for 2020, 2021, and 2022, as well as Friday’s closing prices. It is interesting to note that except for the aforementioned StoneMor situation this calendar year, all stocks and indices have negative returns year to date, but looking over the past 30 months from January 1, 2020, to Friday’s (June 24, 2022) close stocks, in general, and especially some death care stocks have had a pretty good run. . . . . . It gives meaning to the old saying that it is “time in the market and not market timing” that can make the difference.

In any regards, I thought you might enjoy this chart that includes stock prices from different dates and gains or losses from certain periods in time.

*The table was put together by the author and he believes all numbers to be accurate.

By the way, I suggest reading the article linked at the beginning of this article for one person’s unique perspective about the difference in recessions over our lifetimes. I found it very interesting and, possibly, a look at what is to come.

Disclaimer— The author of this article currently holds stock positions in Service Corporation International, Park Lawn Corporation, and Security National Financial Corporation.

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