I was all set to write about the headwinds and tailwinds impacting the markets going forward, when up popped an economic number that made me double take. I typically create a mosaic of economic indicators for a sense of the economy’s future direction, but sometimes a particular number moves so much that requires focused thought […]
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Top 10 Surprises in 2017 This year, I will follow the format of one of my favorite year-end forecasts—Byron Wien’s annual Top Ten Surprises list. For more than 30 years, legendary investment strategist Byron Wien has rolled out his annual list of predictions, starting while he was at Morgan Stanley. Though he often hedges his […]
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Public Versus Private Matters | A Conversation with Jason Portnoy This year we have seen the impact of the unstoppable force, named global systems (global trade, central bank policies, currency management, ect.) run smack into the immovable object, named local politics….both here in the US and abroad. The results have been a pendulum swing back […]
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The yield on the 10-year Treasury is the economy’s thermometer. The economy’s current growth rate, growth and inflation expectations, and the cost of debt financing are embedded in one number—the rate our government borrows money at for ten years. Our thermometer registered a feverish reading in the hyperinflation of the 1970s, and steadily fell for […]
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…THE INCREDIBLE LEVITATING MARKET This month we investigate the forces that drive the stock market higher in spite of weaker corporate earnings: Lower interest rates help discount a company’s future earnings to look more attractive than the rates investors can get on their cash and bond holdings. Thus, lower rates encourage investors to pay higher […]
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Corporate earnings estimates have been lowered for 13 straight quarters Corporate profits using GAAP are now only back to the level of earnings prior to the 2008 financial crisis Earnings “massages” are back in vogue, gimmicky accounting tactics not seen since the Great Recession. Stock prices have recently been driven by corporate actions and low […]
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“Greed is good.” —Gordon Gecko, the infamous mogul from the iconic 1987 film Wall Street “Growth is good.” —Nearly every Central Banker on the planet Stories of unbridled greed rarely end well. During the rampant real-estate speculation that led to the financial crisis, Mr. Gecko’s audacious theory was tested yet again in financial markets. The […]
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Opportunities in a slow growth/high volatility investment world… We all know the proverb about the three blind men and an elephant, in which the blind men come to completely different conclusions about the elephant’s characteristics because of their limited perspectives. So what happens when the three blind men perfectly describe the entire elephant? Call me […]
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The mutual fund industry has offered investors many benefits over the years: professional management, diversification, and market access. However, these benefits have come at a price of relatively steep fees and middling results. Unfortunately, a strong case can be made that some of the benefits of professional management have slowly eroded as mutual fund management […]
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Financial news is so ubiquitous that it has become financial noise. I will not add to that sound chamber. Instead, this blog commits to cutting through the cluttered jabber, and promises to never simply summarize the summaries. The opinions within pull from analysis of respected research, delivering insights and perspectives that inform investment decisions. Significant […]
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