29 Jul 2024

Small Cap’s Revenge (…has a long way to go)

Take a look at small cap returns last week! Since July 9th, small-cap stocks have risen by about 10 percent, a remarkable run of 16 trading days. Better still, the S&P 500 fell during that time, highlighting the diversification aspect of small caps. One of the pillars of factor investing is that small-cap stocks should outperform large-cap stocks, a phenomenon known as the size premium. From an academic standpoint, there… Read More

22 Jul 2024

China vs. India

I saw a chart last week that caught my attention, and I recreated it below. It shows the market capitalization weight of Chinese and Indian stocks. Finding historical weights is a little challenging, so my chart shows the year-end weight of the two countries, except in 2024, where I show the market weight as of June 30th, 2024. The picture makes it appear that the last half-year is a complete… Read More

15 Jul 2024

Tech vs. the World

Last week, Minjung Son sent the Investment Committee some information showing that the total market value of all emerging market stocks was about $10 trillion. Ryan Craft chuckled and said that was about equal to the three largest stocks in the US. Although I’ve written about how concentrated the US market is and how emerging markets haven’t done all that well in recent years, I was amazed that three stocks… Read More

10 Jul 2024

Portfolio Insights

We are pleased to provide a digital copy of Portfolio Insights, our quarterly newsletter. Table of Contents: Stock Market Summary Bond Market Review The Anxiety of Private Markets Inside the Economy: Inflation The Big Picture Click here to read the issue: Q2 2024 Portfolio Insights

8 Jul 2024

When will we feel the benefit of higher interest rates?

One of my favorite long-time readers and clients asked me a good question last week, which was: As I recall, David, you said that eventually, higher interest rates would be a benefit. If my recollection is correct, when will that be? It’s such a great question, and I thought I would answer it for everyone, but unfortunately, my answer is a little mealy-mouthed: it depends. It depends on how high… Read More

1 Jul 2024

Want NVDA? You’ve already got it

I was having breakfast the other day, and someone said they missed not having the 3,000 percent gain on Nvidia (NVDA) over the past five years. Of course, I agreed, but then I returned to the office thinking that the return couldn’t have been that high. In fact, over the five years ending on June 28th, the cumulative return for NVDA was 2,926 percent, so I’ll give that to them…. Read More