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…
The first quarter of 2013 was strong for US stocks, however, outside of our country, or across other asset classes the returns were much more sporadic and muted than one would usually expect given the strength of our market. For example, when you look at the returns of exchange traded funds for some of the…
Last week the Dow Jones Industrial Average (Dow) surpassed its prior record high from October of 2007. As we reach this milestone it’s a good time to evaluate if this milestone is a significant positive development, or if we should be increasingly worried because of the high levels that the market has moved to while…
In our January market insight, Michael Ball, Lead Portfolio Manager addressed the topic of how international markets have underperformed the U.S. since 2010. In addition, Michael pointed out how the U.S. was currently valued very close to its historical median valuation while other countries are significantly undervalued. Rightfully so, sitting near the bottom of the…