30 Jul 2018

Trade Wars and Interest Rates

Every day brings another headline (or Presidential tweet) about escalating trade tensions between the US and the rest of the world. What impact could these tariffs have on the bond market? The most popular narrative is that prices may increase due to tariffs being passed through to US consumers. Higher inflation should lead to higher long-term rates and the potential of a more hawkish Fed. This “cost-push” view of inflation… Read More

By David Ott Tags: , , , , ,
23 Jul 2018

Whither Value? Ask Warren Buffett

I feel as though I’ve written this article a few too many times: value investing is struggling. Pioneered by Warren Buffett’s mentor Benjamin Graham, value investing is the method of buying stocks inexpensively, with the hope that the current problems that’s causing the cheapness pass, and the stock will rebound sharply. Decades into Buffett’s illustrious career, finance academics found that the process of buying cheap stocks led to higher than… Read More

By David Ott Tags: , , , ,
16 Jul 2018

What’s Your China Exposure Amid the Trade Skirmish?

One of the interesting things about the current trade skirmish (I’m not willing to call it a war yet), is that we are fighting on multiple fronts. Even though we have tariffs on aluminum and steel from Canada, Mexico, and the European Union, we all know that the primary combatant in this altercation is China. Even more interesting, perhaps, is that we have more exposure to China than ever before,… Read More

By David Ott Tags: , , , ,
10 Jul 2018

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 Changes Coming to the S&P 500 The Risk of Recession The Big Picture & Fast Facts Click here to read the issue:  Q2 2018 Portfolio Insights

By David Ott Tags: ,
9 Jul 2018

Bond Yields: Still Crazy After All These Years

To my surprise, it’s been more than three years since I wrote about negative yields on bonds throughout the world.  In my article, which can be found here, I wrote that bond yields could go a lot lower than I ever thought since I thought that they were ‘zero-bound.’ A year later, I returned to the topic when the yield on 50-year Swiss bonds had a negative yield.  The article… Read More

By David Ott Tags: , , ,
18 Jun 2018

What Happened to International Stocks?

As we approach the halfway point of 2018, some things are looking very different from last year. Although it has been a bumpier ride compared to last year, US stocks are on track to have another good year as the S&P 500 is up more than 4.5 percent and the Russell 2000 Index is up more than 10 percent. But unlike last year, international stocks have effectively been flat, flipping… Read More

By tim side Tags: , , , , ,
4 Jun 2018

Changes are Coming to the S&P 500

In the old active-versus-passive debate, the S&P 500 serves as the champion fighter in the passive corner.   That’s funny, because the S&P 500 is hardly passive. For example, it’s not a list of the largest 500 companies, but a curated list of stocks chosen by the index committee at Standards & Poor’s.  Most of the differences between the index and the actual list of the largest 500 companies are relatively… Read More

By David Ott Tags: , , , , ,
9 Apr 2018

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 Tariffs and Trade Wars New at Acropolis The Big Picture & Fast Facts Click here to read the issue: Q1 2018 Portfolio Insights

By David Ott Tags: ,
13 Feb 2018

Stock Market Correction: The Early Autopsy

While I think it’s far too early to say that the correction is over, the sharp rallies over the past two days are welcome signals that suggest the forced selling that characterized last week’s sharp daily losses may be over. My view of the recent market selloff has two components.  First, as I outlined on last Monday, February 5th (click here for the article), I believe that the initial cause… Read More

By David Ott Tags: , , , ,
5 Feb 2018

What the Heck Just Happened?

What the heck happened?  Stocks were rolling along, picking up steam even, when all of a sudden, out of the blue, ‘POW!’, the index hit a wall. In reality though, while the move lower was a surprise, it wasn’t really all that surprising.  It’s true that I couldn’t have told you the week before that stocks would have fallen sharply last week, but a move like this really isn’t out… Read More

By David Ott Tags: , , ,