Weekly Commentary

Weekly Market Commentary 11-29-10 With official earnings season concluded, market participants are clearly re-focusing their attention back on to macro economic data. GDP, Income, Savings, European Financial Crisis, and Jobs; all were part of headlines that moved the markets. The data noise can almost be mind numbing particularly when everyone is trying to find a […]

Weekly Market Commentary 11-22-10 I rarely write about local issues here in Oregon as this blog is received by thousands of people throughout the United States. Generally, Oregon issues aren’t that relevant to the macro picture in the economy. However, something very interesting took place in Oregon this week that did not pick up very […]

I gave a brief explanation last week to a group of employees here at Phillips and Company on why the recently announced Quantitative Easing policy by the Fed is not inflationary in its primary essence. I think it’s worth discussing here, as I believe alignment around outlook is critical if we want to improve our […]

Sleep Well Money Money that helps me to sleep well tonight is probably not going to help me live well tomorrow. The 5% return many have received in the last ten years of investing is not going to be enough for the next twenty years (Trailing Returns, as of 3Q 2010, for an investment portfolio […]

November 1st 2010   The GDP numbers that were reported this week were not as bad as most think. Sure, at 2% GDP growth for Q3 (initial) we are not going to quickly put more people back to work. However, on a rolling 12 month basis the 2% added to the prior 3 quarters puts […]

  Macro Economic Outlook: No double-dip, but no “W”, or “V-shape” recovery either. “It won’t look like any letter in the alphabet, it will look more like punctuation marks (e.g. ! ? – : )” There are still more opportunities in the distressed debt market. The American consumer (70% of GDP) lost 11 trillion in […]

Consistent downgrades from Wall Street analysts have set us up for a very smooth start to the earnings season. “Of the 132 companies in the S&P 500 that reported results since Oct. 7, more than 85 percent have topped analysts’ per- share earnings estimates, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg predict […]

This weekend in the Northeast corner of the United States a very interesting conference took place. It was titled ‘Revisiting Monetary Policy in a Low Inflation Environment: Remarks at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s 55th Economic Conference,’ and the speaker was Eric S. Rosengren, President & Chief Executive Officer of the Boston Federal Reserve […]

I was having a recent conversation with a well respected lawyer and very intelligent investor in my community (his specialty is timber- which is in a bit of a recession itself). After some pretty good discussion on a range of topics he asked me the obvious question- why is the stock market up? I gave […]

Some people say the craziest things to grab headlines. Jeff Hirsch the Editor of the Stock Almanac made such a prediction calling for Dow 38,000 by 2025. What’s interesting about the prediction isn’t the prediction itself. It’s the reaction it received. It was met worldwide with skepticism, disbelief and contempt. This is the mental state […]