Blog

  Last week’s commentary focused on corporate borrowing and its relationships to the financial crisis, which can be viewed here. As history has repeatedly demonstrated, run-of-the-mill recessions are simply a reflection of a normal business cycle. These minor… More >>

  So much of investor focus has been on the dysfunctional trade negotiations between the United States and China.  This has caused investors to miss some critical pieces of data from our economy.  Before I get to what that data may be, allow me to remind you of the… More >>

  President Trump stepped up the pressure on China to resolve the current trade war by unexpectedly increasing tariffs on China’s exports to the United States. According to a tweet from President Trump, tariffs have increased to 25 percent on $250 billion worth of… More >>

  Investors have seen the Federal Reserve come full circle over the past five months.  The Fed went from a “hawkish” rhetoric and raising interest rates to a “dovish” rhetoric putting further interest rates on hold for the foreseeable future. [i]     Bond investors… More >>

  Last week the S&P 500 added a new notch to its belt.  For the first time since September 2018, the S&P 500 closed at a new all-time high.  [i]   This came on the back of the U.S. posting its best first quarter GDP since 2016.  According to the advance… More >>

    With just a few weeks’ worth of S&P 500 earnings reports released for Q1 2019, the earnings recession we have been talking about for many weeks is beginning to take shape. So far with 15 percent of companies reporting their Q1 2019 earnings, FactSet is… More >>

  To celebrate Earth Day almost 40 years ago, Walt Kelly wrote, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”  The essence of his work was to remind Americans we were all responsible for hurting the environment. [i] Oddly enough, we had a similar reminder during last week’s… More >>

  After completing the first full trading week of the second quarter, the market continues to rocket toward the all-time highs it reached last September.  With the market’s exuberance, we’d like to remind investors of the potential clouds headed our way, as we present… More >>

    Talks of a recession seem to be on everyone’s mind following the decision by the Federal Reserve to put a hold on further interest rate hikes in 2019.  During last week’s blog post, “A Stair Case Maze of Confusion,” we discussed the inverted yield curve and its… More >>

(Earnings Recessions, Inverted Yield Curves, and Economic Recessions)   Every few years I repurpose some old themes and remind our readers that, although past performance is not always indicative of future performance, cycles do repeat themselves.  Through 2015 and much… More >>