Weekly Commentary

It’s happened again! Expectations for a return to earnings growth are being postponed. According to FactSet, Q3 2016 earnings are now expected to shrink by -0.1%, thus extending the current earnings recession, which has already persisted for more than a year. During this week’s earnings reports, which covers the Q2 timeframe from 4/1/2016-6/30/016, forward guidance […]

  One of the best parts of visiting with your friends and clients is the fairly large dose of reality that you receive. For professional investors, getting used to the up’s and down’s of the market builds a certain level of emotional immunity. Those that make their living in the real economy, such as many […]

  With the start of the 3rd quarter under way, it’s customary for us to provide our readers and clients with our Look Ahead.   For a PDF copy, click here. For our audio and video presentation, click here.   The following are a few key themes in our Look Ahead: Earnings are poised to […]

  With all the recent turmoil around citizens of the U.K. voting to leave the European Union, it’s easy to get caught up in the emotions of the event and forget about the original ‘Brexit’. As yesterday was our nation’s birthday, let’s not forget that over 240 years ago, we as British Subjects chose to […]

  The U.K.’s referendum, which was a non-binding advisory vote, to leave the EU caught everyone by surprise. The surprise was that the decision to leave the European Union is so detrimental to the citizens of Great Britain. Why would they vote to leave? The famed author T.S Elliot once wrote, “We had the experience […]

  Last week, the Federal Reserve finally acknowledged that they can’t explain what’s happening in the economy. Their long anticipated interest rate hikes, estimated to increase twice in 2016, has been marginalized by the voting members of the Federal Reserve Board. In fact, they published their expectations for interest rates for the next couple of […]

  The U.S. and World economies are suggesting more challenges are ahead as indicated by the drop in the U.S. Treasury interest rates. Investors around the globe are driving down yields on the 10-year note by buying up U.S. Treasuries. This has led to the yield decreasing 27% since the start of the year with […]

  Friday was a seminal day which presented both investors and global Central Bankers with something to chew on. The U.S. economy added a meager 38K to jobs in May, well below the 158K jobs analysts had forecasted. Sure, there was a Verizon employee strike. But even when adding back the 35K idled Verizon employees, […]

  As part of our on-going discussion on how Central Banks throughout the world are controlling valuations across multiple asset classes, it appears that the U.S. investor has acquiesced on the inevitable rate increase coming this June or, at the latest, July. Janet Yellen said in a speech last Friday, “It’s appropriate…for the Fed to […]

  Credit in America is booming. There is simply no other way to say this. Let’s take a look at the recent data. Credit card debt is expected to top $1 trillion by the end of 2016, which comes close to the peak that was set prior to the 2008 Financial Crisis. [i] [ii] While […]