2013 was a surprisingly good year for U.S. equity investors, and many investors are wondering if the positive returns will continue through 2014. I will say at the outset that predicting the likely return of the stock market has been more difficult than normal over the past few years, as the exceptionally low interest rates…
In my Market Insights column of December 2012 I discussed the two most likely paths that interest rates may take in the future. The first possible option would be following the path of Japan who since the late 1990’s has stayed below 2% on longer-term government bonds. The second possibility was to follow the path…
The vast majority of Americans have a hard time wrapping their heads around what the Fed is currently doing and how it affects them. I will try and lay their policies out in a basic and straightforward manner so you can walk away with a good understanding, and provide some good conversation pieces for you…
In late 2010 Meredith Whitney, who made her reputation by warning that large banks were in serious trouble long before the 2008 financial crisis, created quite a firestorm by stating that there was a coming financial meltdown in overleveraged state and local governments. Since that time, although there have been isolated incidents of bankruptcies from…
It has been said that content is not helpful without context, and at this time I felt it would be useful to put the continued advance of the stock market into historical context so that we can determine if stocks are likely to continue moving higher for an extended period of time, or if we…
The recent rise in mid- and long-term interest rates has left many fixed income investors who failed to position their portfolios accordingly with a despairing feeling that comes when something bad happens. Investors who tactically moved their portfolios out of longer-term fixed income securities and into short-term securities and cash are looking like Wall Street…
If there were a “Chinese dream,” the symbol of it would be undoubtedly housing—a decent (apartment) home in a city. For the past 10 years, China’s housing prices have surged, making the Chinese dream harder to accomplish. In order to make housing more affordable, the Chinese government has implemented a series of regulatory measures to…
2013 has been strong for the U.S. stock market as fears of a Fiscal Cliff and Government Sequester did not turn out to have the negative impact that many people had feared. However, most other asset classes have experienced a much more sobering performance profile so far this year, and could be sounding warning signs…
In the December commentary I discussed the challenges that we have in the current interest rate environment, namely that interest rates may stay low for an extended period of time similar to Japan over the past 20 years, or that we would see interest rates rise, which could push down the value of bonds, which…
The most recent monetary policy move by Japan to double their monetary base over the next two years is an “all-in” effort to rid the country of over a decade of deflation. Similar to the U.S. 2008 financial crisis, in the early 1990’s Japan experienced an asset bubble which they still have recovered from. Since…