As The World Turns, Sometimes Quickly
Last week, I said that the stock market had three big questions for the Federal Reserve and its chair Jay Powell. You can read the full article here, but the questions were as follows: What is the course of interest rates? What will happen with the Fed’s balance sheet? Will the Fed support the stock market, as it has in the recent past? This past week saw a major market… Read More
The Market to the Fed: We’ve Got Three Big Questions
Stocks have been rocky since the start of the fourth quarter, and while investors are worried about a few things from tech stocks to crude oil to junk bonds, but I think the primary concerns are interest rates and the Federal Reserve. There are three huge questions on the table. First, how high will the Fed raise short term interest rates? Second, what is the Fed going to do with… Read More
Participant Insights 3Q 2018
Click here to view Participant Insights 3Q 2018
Stocks Enter Correction
A correction is usually defined as a peak-to-trough decline of 10- percent using closing prices. Under that definition, we’re not quite at a correction, since the S&P 500 is ‘only’ down -9.28 percent since the recent high on September 20th. I think that such a strict definition is a little bit silly, so I’m calling it a correction since we’re very close using closing prices, and we crossed the 10-percent… Read More
Interest Rates and Equities: A Selloff Explained
Somewhat like Hurricane Michael, the stock market selloff last week seemed to come out of nowhere quickly, and it hit hard. The question on everyone’s mind is what caused the sharp move? In truth, nobody really knows the answer, but that also means that my guess can’t be wrong. There are several broad themes that could explain the selloff, including further weakening of US relations with China expressed in the… Read More
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 Remembering Lehman Brothers As Good As It Gets? The Big Picture & Fast Facts Click here to read the issue: Q3 2018 Portfolio Insights
What Ever Happened to Bitcoin, Anyway?
Around this time last year and in the months to follow, you’d be hard pressed to find a news site, especially in the financial realm, that did not have an article about bitcoin or some other form of crypto currency or blockchain. Today, you’ll still see an article here or there, but by in large, the hype has subsided. As we approach the 10-year anniversary of the publishing of bitcoin’s… Read More
Remembering Lehman Brothers: What Have We Learned?
Five years ago, at the five-year anniversary weekend remembering the collapse of Lehman Brothers, I wasn’t ready to deal with the bad memories of that terrible time. Granted, what happened 10-years ago in financial markets was not like being in a war, a natural disaster, sick with a terrible disease or the victim of a terrible crime, but it was still upsetting to me (no doubt because I live in… Read More
How Much Will Retirement Cost? The WSJ May be Wrong
One of my favorite writers and thinkers is a behavioral economist named Dan Ariely. I heard him speak at a conference years ago, read his first book Predictably Irrational and am about half way through his most recent book, Dollars and Sense. It may be a little hard to tell from the photo, but if you look closely, you can see that his face is disfigured from a third-degree burn… Read More
Just How Rich Are You?
According to a Gallup poll last year, almost two-thirds of Americans identify themselves as middle class. Despite identifying as such, most Americans can’t define ‘middle class,’ which isn’t too surprising because the definition varies so broadly. I found a nice calculator on The Washington Post’s website that allows you to type in your income and your location to find out where you stand. Before going any further, I should note that I… Read More