Weekly Commentary

Diversification Finally!Weekly CEO Commentary 1-14-13Tim Phillips, CEO—Phillips & Company For the last couple of years, investors that followed the easiest thing in finance, diversification, were not properly rewarded. In fact, a heavy emphasis on US Large Cap stocks was a fairly rewarding experience. From January 2009 to December 2011, the S&P 500 had an annualized […]

  Precisely InaccurateWeekly CEO Commentary 1-7-13 Tim Phillips, CEO—Phillips & Company This is the time of year when firms roll out their predictions for 2013. Honestly, if they were so accurate they wouldn’t need clients, nor would they share their information. It would be too valuable. However, firms understand one thing about investors; they love […]

  All The Times I Thought I Should Sell: PanicWeekly CEO Commentary 12-31-12Tim Phillips, CEO—Phillips & Company As of this writing (Sunday Night) the Political Class in this country has failed to come to terms with over 500 billion in tax increases and spending cuts that will take place throughout 2013. This chart below from […]

  Really? Weekly CEO Commentary 12-24-12Tim Phillips, CEO—Phillips & Company While I was traveling through India in April I snapped the photo you see on the header of this blog. I’ve looked at it several times over the course of this year and I finally figured out what his expression suggests: Really?! I can only […]

Don’t Look Down: The GDP Growth Cliff Weekly CEO Commentary 12-17-12 Tim Phillips, CEO—Phillips & Company This week the Federal Reserve took another step in encouraging risk taking by shifting their communication policy. They effectively went to a rules-based approach to managing interest rates. In short they said as long as unemployment was above 6.5% […]

It’s Never Quite What You Expect Weekly CEO Commentary 12-10-12 Tim Phillips, CEO—Phillips & Company If you followed your instincts and sold out of your equity positions 3 weeks ago, you would have missed a 2.25% return. Certainly you would have been reacting to your instincts that tell you the political class in this country […]

Stock Buybacks: Headline Investing or Looking Under the Hood? Weekly CEO Commentary 12-3-12 Tim Phillips, CEO – Phillips & Company Stock buybacks are expected to be on the rise, according to a report in the New York Times. We have already seen Starbucks, Procter & Gamble, and Chipotle announce buybacks, and ADT has announced both […]

  The All Consuming Fiscal CliffWeekly CEO Commentary 11-26-12Tim Phillips, CEO – Phillips & Company It’s clear that Thanksgiving dinner could barely wrap up as the shopping began. Stores opened as early as 8 PM on Thursday to get a jump on the most important tradition Americans share: consumption! CNN reported that shopping was up […]

Fear or Rationality Weekly CEO Commentary 11-19-12 Tim Phillips, CEO – Phillips & Company With the markets down 3.7% in the last three weeks, it’s easy to think investors are fearful. Or, they could also be rationally pricing in some legitimate issues. Let’s take the fear side first. It’s easy to be fearful of the […]

  The Emotional Cliff: Jumping is not a StrategyWeekly CEO Commentary 11-12-12Tim Phillips, CEO – Phillips & Company Before I get into my market commentary, I want to take a minute to extend a thank you to all of our veterans and active duty military personnel for all of the grueling hard work and sacrifices […]