Are US markets, once again, in a bubble? Are AI stocks overvalued or are they discounting a new age of prosperity driven by big gains in productivity? What about gold? It's up over 50% this year, signaling...what exactly? Gold is a fear asset that usually shines when the economy is bad and stocks aren't doing so well. So, why is [...]
All my economists say 'on one hand' then 'but on the other'. Can't someone bring me a one-handed economist? Maybe Harry Truman but on the other hand maybe Charles Frederick Carter or on the other hand maybe it was a one-armed economist Jerome Powell's speech at Jackson Hole last Friday was widely perceived as a capitulation, an admission that rate [...]
If, at the beginning of the year, anyone had predicted what actually happened in the first half of 2025, they would have been ridiculed and dismissed as delusional. If you were told that... Between January and April, the average US tariff rate will rise from 2.5% to 27% Among the Trump administration's first moves on trade will be to impose [...]
As is my usual practice, this will be my last commentary for the year barring big news (and most "news" isn't, especially that of the market variety). While I won't be writing for the next month, that doesn't mean I won't be working. I use the month of December to catch up on my research reading (books and academic papers) [...]
As we enter the final quarter of 2024, there are a lot of questions facing investors. There are, of course, always a lot of questions because investors are always dealing with the future, but today's environment does seems to have more than usual. Some of these questions concern short-term considerations and while they are important, it is more important to [...]
You're going to hear a lot of talk about the yield curve soon and what it means for "the" yield curve to uninvert (which isn't a real word but will get used a lot). The difference between the 10-year Treasury note yield and the 2-year Treasury note yield is about to turn positive, the 2-year note yield recently falling a [...]
Conventional wisdom: US growth stocks continue to dominate the US stock market. Growth stocks have outperformed value stocks for a long time and the last year of AI driven gains shows that isn't changing. US stocks have outperformed the rest of the world and that isn't going to change because we have the best companies. The dollar is strong and [...]
"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." - Maybe Mark Twain but could be Josh Billings or someone else entirely The Great Rotation from large cap stocks to small cap and value stocks that started a few weeks ago, continued unabated last week. There's a lot [...]
There's been a pretty remarkable turnaround in markets over the last 10 days. At the end of June, market returns were dominated by large cap growth stocks. The Russell 1000 growth index was up 20.5% while the value index was up a mere 6.5%, a spread rarely seen over such a short period of time. The Russell 2000 index of [...]
Special Note On Hurricane Beryl: As thousands of people in coastal Texas remain without power after Hurricane Beryl devastated the region last week, relief groups on the ground are asking for donations to aid their efforts. Here are a few organizations that can put monetary gifts to use right now. - "Where crisis strikes, hunger follows." The U.N. World Food [...]
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