Weekly Commentary

  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 […]

  The world seems a bit confusing to the average investor. Generally, if the US economy is expanding you would anticipate inflation, especially if you consider all the money sitting on the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet. Inflation (dotted line) leads to higher interest rates (solid line) in most cycles.[i] It’s a bit counterintuitive to see […]

  While scanning several economic indicators this week, one indicator had a small hiccup, which gave me a bit of indigestion. Auto loans appear to be increasing in delinquency. The data suggests we are seeing acceleration in delinquency rates not only from Q2 2014 to Q3 2014 of 18.4%, but also 2013 to 2014 of […]

  One of the best returning asset classes this last year was the US Dollar.[i] It’s no surprise with so many things looking so good for the US Economy: Interest rates and inflation remain low. Consumers have more money to spend thanks to savings from low oil prices. Consumer sentiment is at an 8-year high.[ii] […]

  After declining during the first half of December, the Dow Jones and S&P 500 indices rebounded to close at new highs on December 26th, providing a nice holiday gift to investors. Historically, the month of December has performed very well with the S&P 500 averaging a 1.79% return over the 21-year period from 1990-2010 […]

  I know we have opined on the price of oil for the last couple of weeks and perhaps the topic is getting a bit tired. However, when the price of any asset class drops as precipitously as oil has, the topic merits continued examination. Those joyfully absorbed in the holidays perhaps haven’t realized the […]

  It appears market participants are growing more concerned about global deflation rather than focusing on the benefits of cheaper energy prices. Across the spectrum of commodities you can see noticeable drops in prices.[i] As most of these are industrial commodities, their prices certainly forecast a global slowdown. The steep price decline in oil, about […]