Six years ago, I was a neophyte (2 months) corporate bond manager, also doing mortgage bonds, and nominally Chief Investment Officer of a medium-sized life insurance company. I was leading our asset management team through a merger with another firm as well. On 9/11, I was going to have a meeting with my new bosses and the management of our one and only life insurance client.

I was running a little late, so I got to the office as the first tower fell. I talked with a few of my brokers, and concluded that nothing would be trading today. After the second tower fell, our offices were crowded from people in the insurance company watching the spectacle on CNBC. I told my staff to prepare a broad threat report, describing what parts of our portfolio would be harmed by the events; after that, they could go home and grieve. (Our KBW coverage died that day; he was a good fellow.) I went to the meeting, where we canceled our agenda, and I gave a brief threat report, and told them they would have full threat report every day at 4PM until the markets normalized. Aside from owning part of a mortgage on a building near the World Trade Center (One Liberty Plaza) which was rumored to be leaning (not true), the problems were pretty light; liquidity was adequate.

That evening I showed my family video clips from the Internet, and explained what had happened. We’re a pretty matter of fact bunch, so they took it in stride, and realized that the world had changed for the worse.
Because of the merger, the portfolio was relatively high quality. Good thing, too. The markets were closed for the whole week, and reopened the next week. Bond markets are networks, and so, they come back proportionally to the square of the nodes. After one week, the bond market was half functional. After two weeks, 80% functional. After three weeks, 100% functional. We started trading sooner than most, and offered liquidity in exchange for good deals. When our merger closed on 9/30, was began a massive down-in-credit trade, buying bonds in sectors most affected by the disaster. Our logic was that the terrorist event was a “one off” matter where the highjackers got really lucky, and that the odds of a second event were nil, now that the US was on alert.

When I went to a Chief investment Officer’s forum in October, there was a “closed door” meeting with “peer companies” to discuss problems and strategies. One of the early questions was how investment strategy had changed since 9/11. I was the odd man out. We were the only one in the room taking more risk. Everyone else was running up-in-credit trades, and avoiding affected sectors. Not only did I get a “you’re weird” look from the other participants, but I got the “you’re irresponsible” look as well. Not fun.

We continued the down-in-credit trade for another month until we had gone as far as we thought prudent. Then our client came to us and said that the ratings agency heard what we were doing, and told us to knock it off, or face a downgrade. We were done, so we agreed. By this time, it was mid-November. By December, a little more willingness to take risk took hold, and by the first quarter of 2002, there was a full-fledged scramble for yield. We sold into it, doing a massive up-in-credit trade that left the portfolio higher quality than it was prior to 9/11, and giving us room for the upset that would happen as Worldcom went down, and the corporate bond markets doing a double dip in late July and early October. We played the risk cycle very well.

There are four investment points here:

• Don’t follow the crowds during panics.
• Don’t follow the crowds during manias.
• Know your limits. No matter how good an idea will work out eventually, don’t overplay it, because the market can be crazy longer than you can stay solvent.
• After a panic event, analyze what has truly changed, and ask what things will be like when the next steady state comes, and how long it will likely take to get there.

It was not a consensus view at the time, but the idea that not much had changed permanently proved to be a valuable idea. Capitalist economies tend to be resilient, bending but not breaking. With that, guard your emotions, and try to be analytical toward investing, even when times are abnormal, and people think you are nuts.