Weekly Commentary

  On my recent visit to China, my goal was to learn much more about an economy we are invested in. It’s impossible to summarize China in any one post. It’s a country that is complex and so different than the United States, not just culturally but economically. I’m going to give it my best […]

  As expected last Wednesday, the Fed removed the word “patient” from its interest rate policy statement, moving us one step closer to potential interest rate increases, perhaps as soon as the Fed’s June meeting. However, the Fed will still be cautious and consider the merits of a rate increase on a meeting-by-meeting basis. While […]

  On Wednesday, the Fed will meet to discuss the future of interest rates in the United States. Most commentators don’t anticipate a rate increase at the March meeting, yet they do expect more certainty around rate hikes in the near future. With the removal of one word (“patient”) from its official statement around rate […]

  US equity markets sold off sharply on Friday driven principally by a very strong jobs report showing the US economy added 295,000 jobs in February.[i] This very strong news spooked equity investors as they awakened to the reality of higher US interest rates from the Federal Reserve Board. Higher interest rates impact stocks because […]

  We seem to be at another inflection point in the US economy and perhaps US equities. The US stock market has rallied for the last 72 months since the financial crisis and is up over 187%.[i] Valuations are moving to the upper end of their range compared to where they were in March of […]

  Now that we have mostly concluded earnings season (over 85% of S&P 500 companies have reported earnings), we enter a quiet period of data and investors shift their focus back to macro events.[i] Before I address the “quiet period”, let’s quickly review a summary of Q4 earnings. As you can see we exceeded on […]

  On the face of it, most investors don’t really care about what happens to Greece. Foreign conflicts and domestic issues were the top concerns in a recent survey of what concerns US high net worth investors.[i] However, most of our allocated portfolios contain some form of global equity diversification. You most likely have some […]

  Aside from your health, it’s hard to imagine any endeavor other than investing where the outcomes can change so rapidly and matter so much. If you examined equity performance before last week, you might have felt like you were exploring the depths of another major pull back. With the instantaneous media, access to so-called […]

  With a large sigh of relief, we watched January fade to black. The US equity markets were down over 3% in the month.[i] Underlying their decline is some telling data that should come as no surprise to investors. First, S&P 500 corporate earnings growth expectations were about 1.7%.[ii] Very meager compared to the 8.8% […]

  It’s not often I “go political” in the weekly commentary and certainly this edition has the potential to be misconstrued as political. The President was at the top of the list for major events with The State of The Union speech this week. Skipping the political posturing, there were some very specific recommendations the […]