22
May
2023
Debt Ceiling Crisis in Perspective
Chris and Cliff forwarded me an article last week asking: what would you do with your portfolio if you knew what was coming? The article referenced the still unresolved debt-ceiling situation and proceeded to list many pretty lousy events over the past 30 or so years. It made me think of a chart we made when we started Acropolis with small images depicting awful news with the growth of a… Read More
15
May
2023
America & the PIIGS
A little more than ten years ago, Greece almost left the European Union (EU) because the longstanding structural weaknesses of the Greek economy were hit hard by the 2008 global financial crisis. The crisis was called Grexit, which should sound familiar since it was adapted a few years later for the Brit’s departure from the EU. Greece wasn’t alone, though. Several EU countries were in trouble: Portugal, Italy, Ireland, and… Read More
8
May
2023
Stock Buybacks: Finding Common Ground Amid Controversy
Companies’ capital decisions aren’t usually very controversial, like paying down debt, paying another quarterly dividend, or upgrading the facilities. Stock buybacks, however, are another story: they generate a lot of controversy. Before getting into the debate, let me take a minute to describe a buyback. When companies have extra capital, they sometimes go into the open market and buy back their own stock, hence the name (although they are sometimes… Read More
1
May
2023
How to Avoid Disaster
September will mark the 25th anniversary of the failure of the massive hedge fund, Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM), and my podcast feed is filling up with retrospectives. One podcast featured Roger Lowenstein, the author of When Genius Failed, which is considered the definitive work on the subject. I read it when it came out in 2000 and once again in subsequent years, and it’s a great book that I thoroughly enjoyed…. Read More
24
Apr
2023
ChatGPT Did Not Write This Insight
I resisted downloading ChatGPT until last week because I’m increasingly skeptical about the benefits of technology. Don’t get me wrong; I love technology. I use my iPhone more than I care to admit and have to be mindful about not using it too much (and I still do). The problem isn’t technology – it’s people. It’s like food – we need it to live, and the right foods in the right amounts… Read More
17
Apr
2023
The March Towards Exchange-Traded Funds
Acropolis was an early adopter of exchange-traded funds (ETFs). As the name implies, an ETF is a fund that trades on an exchange. It’s like a mutual fund in that it is generally diversified, but like a stock, it trades throughout the day. When we got going in 2002, ETFs were about ten years old. The first version was State Streets Spyder, which still trades today with the ticker SPY…. Read More
11
Apr
2023
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 Value Stocks are a Good Value Inside the Economy We Need to Talk About Cash The Big Picture Click here to read the issue: Q1 2023 Portfolio Insights
3
Apr
2023
Successful Trading at Acropolis
For nine years now, Acropolis has hired a third party to evaluate the market impact of our trading. Whenever we talk to clients about rebalancing, tax-loss harvesting, raising cash for withdrawals, or putting new money to work, our traders work with the portfolio management teams to figure out what trades ought to occur and then the traders take those trades to market. Last year, our traders went to market almost… Read More
27
Mar
2023
Cash Matters
After the market closed on Friday afternoon, I was sitting at my desk at the office, wondering what I was going to write about this week. I’m sort of tired of the banking crisis for the moment, even though it’s not over: Deutsche Bank was in the hot seat Friday. In any case, a terrific longtime client (and reader!) called to ask some questions about money market funds, and it… Read More
20
Mar
2023
Banking Crisis: Swiss Edition
Even though the US banking system is still under strain, I said last week that the current circumstances were not like what happened in 2008, and I stand by that view today. The 2008 financial crisis started because banks, in the aggregate, made bad loans that couldn’t be paid back. We all remember the easy lending standards that went beyond subprime loans. Who can forget the NINJA loan? No Income,… Read More