6 Feb 2023

Acropolis Clients Market View

Since January, I’ve offered previews for the Investor Social, which we held last week to great success. Mother nature threw us a little snow, but we still managed to pack the house and will need to find a larger venue next year, and put it online. In the meantime, we’ll provide the presentation to anyone that asks. The highlight of the show for me is when we ask the audience… Read More

6 Dec 2021

Illustrating Inflation

For years now, inflation has been an afterthought in the investing conversation because it’s been so dormant. In fact, for a few years, the worry was centered around deflation. And yet, here we are, somewhere in a pandemic (I’d like to think near the end, but omicron is a good reminder that we just don’t know what’s around the corner), and we’re talking about supply-chain bottlenecks and looking at government… Read More

8 Nov 2021

Finally: Dow 36,000

Although I wasn’t yet in the wealth management business, I vividly recall the tech bubble in the late 1990s. I graduated from college in 1995, and remember the Investments professor saying that markets were overvalued. In my first few years on the job, I witnessed the Dow cross 5,000 and then 10,000 within just five years. I was working in foreign exchange and was going through a terrible bear market… Read More

30 Apr 2020

Economy Contracts, Stocks Surge. Surprised?

Yesterday, the Commerce Department announced that the economy contracted by -4.8 percent in the first three months of 2020, the worst reading since the last quarter of 2008. Analysts expect that next quarter, GDP will drop by more than 30 percent, the worst in our lifetimes. Stocks surged.  Surprised? One of the phrases that you see me write all the time is ‘better than expectations,’ or ‘worse than consensus.’ Investors… Read More

8 Jan 2018

Recession Risk in 2018 is Greater Than You Think

Last Thursday night, I attended a Financial Planning Association (FPA) meeting here in Chesterfield presented by William Emmons, an economist from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. His presentation, titled Recession Risk in 2018 is Greater Than You Think, was fascinating.  Despite what people say about government workers and folks from the Federal Reserve, I thought Mr. Emmons was smart, fair and thoughtful – important traits for an economist. Mr. Emmons… Read More

2 Jan 2018

My Prediction for 2018

One thing that you can count on at the start of every new year is a fresh set of predictions from those of us in the investment business. Last year, one of the most widely discussed and accepted views for 2017 was that the dollar would continue to gain strength, as it had for the previous three years.  Instead, our currency lost about 10 percent, widely defying the consensus views…. Read More

5 Sep 2017

New and Improved: The Shiller PE Ratio

Longtime Daily Insights readers are no strangers to the Shiller PE-ratio, a valuation metric that uses ten years of inflation-adjusted earnings to evaluate the cheapness or richness of the stock market – a search of the term on our website yields more than a dozen results. I’m very proud to say that our understanding of the Shiller PE is now greatly expanded, thanks to our own Ryan Craft. In the past,… Read More

6 Mar 2017

How to Think About the Market’s Valuation

The stock market since the election has brought all of the major indexes to fresh all-time highs.  I also noticed last week that the Shiller PE ratio is about to cross 30, which is far from an all-time high, but is still notable since the only two times in history this ratio has been so high was in the Roaring 20s and during the Tech Bubble. For those of you that… Read More

21 Feb 2017

The High Cost of Healthcare for Retirees

A study by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) released in January estimates how much savings people need just to cover out of pocket healthcare expenses.  (You can see the entire study here) Like our retirement planning software, the EBRI conducted Monte Carlo simulations to estimate the effect of varying mortality rates and portfolio returns. The EBRI found that for a 65 year old man to have a 50/50 shot… Read More

27 Jan 2017

2017 Forecasts: Part V

This is the last in a series of forecasts for 2017 and the last few questions are all about politics. What will happen in Washington with taxes?   Corporate tax rate is cut to 25 percent or lower. Top personal rate is reduced to 33 percent or lower. Estate tax is limited. Carried interest loophole is eliminated. None of the Above. Maybe I’m mixed up, but I think that this… Read More