15 Dec 2025

One View of a Megatrends-Aware Portfolio

Last week, I outlined the views of Joe Davis, Vanguard’s Chief Economist, who argues in his recent book that the economic and market outlook for the next decade largely hinges on whether AI delivers meaningful productivity gains. In the bull case, AI performs as hoped. Productivity improves, economic growth remains durable, markets benefit, and the US is better able to manage the risks associated with large and growing deficits and… Read More

By David Ott Tags: AI, Artificial Intelligence, Economy, Forecasting, Markets, Wall Street

8 Dec 2025

Will Artificial Intelligence Tinker or Transform?

A few months ago, I read Coming into View: How AI and Other Megatrends Will Shape Your Investments by Joe Davis, Vanguard’s Chief Economist. It’s a thoughtful book that I recommend. It isn’t overly technical, and it frames the biggest questions investors face today: AI, debt and deficits, demographics, potential deglobalization, and—hardest of all to measure—geopolitical risk. The core question Davis keeps returning to is deceptively simple: can AI generate… Read More

By David Ott Tags: AI, Artificial Intelligence, Forecasting, Stocks, Volatility, Wall Street

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

By David Ott Tags: Acropolis, commentary, Federal Reserve, Forecasting, Inflation, Interest Rates, Investor Social, Markets, Wall Street

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

By David Ott Tags: Economy, Forecasting, Inflation, Markets, Wall Street

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

By David Ott Tags: Economy, Forecasting, Markets, Stocks, Wall Street

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

By David Ott Tags: Forecasting, Inflation, Investing, Shiller PE Ratio, Stocks

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

By David Ott Tags: Forecasting, Portfolio Strategy, Shiller PE, stock market

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

By David Ott Tags: Financial Planning, Forecasting, healthcare, Healthcare Costs, Healthy Aging, Retirement

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

By David Ott Tags: Bonds, Federal Reserve, Forecasting, Interest Rates, Portfolio Strategy

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

By David Ott Tags: Dow Jones Industrial Average, Forecasting, Markets, stock market, Wall Street

Insights

Our Knowledge, Straight to Your Inbox