With 2012 now in the books, I wanted to discuss some of the important macro events that shaped the past year and highlight a couple of the important risks and opportunities that are shaping up for 2013 in regard to the financial markets. As we moved into 2012 there was significant cause for concern about…
One of the lingering effects of our last financial crisis and recession is the historically low interest rates we are currently seeing. While the current interest rate environment is quite favorable for borrowers who are able to get loans, it is another story for savers and fixed income investors who are seeing the lowest levels…
As we move into the 4th quarter of the year, we are finally drawing near the end of a long Presidential Election campaign. While the election is grabbing most of the headlines, there are some other very important factors that are going to have a significant impact on the financial markets over the next year…
As we have been going through this year we have regularly discussed the challenges that we are seeing from an increasingly evident global slowdown. We have seen the risks steadily rising and several policy responses from Central Banks around the world. With the stakes for investors in equity markets being very high, I want to…
On June 4th, 2012 Bill Gross, aka the “Bond King,” tweeted: “Global Bond Markets are turning Japanese, I think they’re turning Japanese, I really think so.” Mr. Gross was referring to the similarities between the Japanese bond market and other international bond markets which include high debt levels, extremely low and at times negative real…
Imagine if you were on a trip flying in an airplane and the engines suddenly quit. Although the plane is still making forward progress it has become uncomfortably quiet and you are beginning to descend. You know that if the engines are not restarted soon that there could be disastrous consequences. The pilot comes on…
Fittingly, déjà vu is a French term meaning “already seen.” It is the experience of thinking that a new situation had occurred before.All was quiet on the western front for the first few months of 2012, and on the surface the global economy was on the mend. However, in early May, French and Greek elections…
Investing in higher risk assets has been rewarded as markets moved higher on the belief that Italy, Spain and Portugal would be able to roll over the large amount of bonds that were coming due in February and avoid triggering a Lehman-style liquidity crisis. The government bond auctions did go better than expected, and that…
Last month’s commentary looked at economic indicators that may be useful in determining the likelihood of which party will win the presidential election this year. This month I would like to share some sources that can help you cut through the day-to-day soap opera aspect of politics and get one of the most accurate pictures…
In recent months and years, the investment industry has been full of wild opinions and everyone seems to be a self-proclaimed soothsayer. So it’s easy, for example, to find predictions for gold to reach $10,000 per ounce, or treasury yields to explode upwards and for the United States to go the way of Greece, or…