19 Dec 2016

Bond Market Fascinations: An Interview

Since the election, interest rates have risen across the curve.  The Federal Reserve raised short term interest rates last week for the first time this year, but perhaps more importantly, longer term rates have also risen, which means falling bond prices. Right now, the Barclays Aggregate Bond index is still positive for the year, but the gains are muted, especially compared to the 5.8 percent gain that they enjoyed just… Read More

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12 Dec 2016

Dow 20,000

When I graduated from college in 1995 and started in this industry, I was told that the current saying for the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) was ‘10,000 by 2000,’ referring to the turn of the century. It seemed impossible to me because, at that point, the DJIA was trading below 4,500.  Just a few months before, one of my finance professors said the market was overvalued. Less than six months… Read More

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5 Dec 2016

Occasionally, the Unlikely Happens

One of the most notable market reactions to the election is the rally in small cap stocks. For the month of November, the S&P 600 Small Cap index gained 12.55 percent, compared to a 3.70 percent gain for the S&P 500 index of large cap stocks.  It was fourth best month for the S&P 600 Small Cap index since its inception in 1994. While the results were definitely a surprise,… Read More

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28 Nov 2016

Taxes: A Hint of What’s to Come

One of the immediately obvious results of the election is that the tax code is going to change. Republicans have had several plans in the works for years that differ from what Trump has proposed on the trail, so the final result won’t be known for a little bit even though changes are a priority for the President-elect and both houses of Congress. Income Taxes For the sake of simplicity,… Read More

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21 Nov 2016

Bond Rally and Rout to Nowhere

It’s not a stretch to say that 2016 has been full of surprises! One of the big surprises from our perspective up until the election was the decline in interest rates and corresponding strong return that bonds delivered. I wrote about the surprising decline in yields as early as February and was going a little bananas as yields throughout the world went negative (here, here and here).  We never went… Read More

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15 Nov 2016

Trump and the Reflation Trade

At this point, my view is that most of the market activity since the election can really be broken down into two distinct categories. The first category are stock sectors that clearly stand to win or lose from expected changes in government policy.  The most obvious winner is bank stocks, which will benefit from lighter regulation.  The big loser is hospital stocks that will lose Obamacare related revenue. The second… Read More

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11 Nov 2016

Small Cap Surge Continues

One of the interesting elements of yesterday’s trading was that small cap stocks continued to pop, jumping 1.59 percent. I don’t have a particular explanation for this movement, but it’s significant enough that I think it’s worth mentioning and it’s an example of positive volatility.  Too often we think of volatility to the downside, but the movement in small cap stocks in the past few days is a good reminder… Read More

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10 Nov 2016

Mr. Trump Meets Mr. Market

Most people probably caught the wild swings in the Dow and S&P 500, from a five percent drop in futures trading overnight to a 1.1 percent higher close, with most of the action in the 30 minutes before the market opened. Small cap stocks, which gained 3.1 percent during the trading session are particularly interesting because their relative performance to large cap stocks can be viewed as a signal of… Read More

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9 Nov 2016

What the Election Means for Your Portfolio

Just as markets were surprised when British voters elected to leave the European Union, markets wrongly expected Clinton to win last night. When it first became apparent that Trump had a credible path to victory around 10:30 pm CST last night, markets turned negative with futures on the Dow Jones showing a decline of -750 points. In addition to falling stock prices, bond prices rose sharply, with the yield on… Read More

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31 Oct 2016

Equity Risk Dominates Your Portfolio

When I describe ‘balance’ in a portfolio, here or in person, I am almost inevitably talking about an allocation that is somewhat evenly split between stocks and bonds.  I don’t have to specify that I am talking about how much money is in each allocation (forgetting for a moment all of the sub allocations). In recent years, however, some investment managers have pointed out that a portfolio that is evenly… Read More

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