Is this normal? I haven't made any money in like two years. - Question from a recent acquaintance upon hearing what I do for a living Let's get this out of the way quickly. The answer to his question is yes, this is painfully normal. When you have a bear market - or you have two in four years like [...]
It's an election year and you know what that means. Yes, every four years we gather as a nation, a democratic nation, to decide which of the two candidates for President available to us is the least offensive. It isn't very democratic with just two options but that is the system that the politicians built to benefit...themselves and it's all [...]
There were some very smart people a year ago saying that you couldn't kill inflation without a big rise in unemployment. Last October, Larry Summers - former Treasury Secretary and President of Harvard - said we'd need a recession and an unemployment rate of 6% to kill inflation. In the summer of last year, he said we'd need 5 years [...]
The hardest thing about investing is the patience it requires. Markets can and do go through long periods of stagnation that test every investor's commitment to their strategy. The last year has been a tough one for investors but the frustration actually extends back further than just 2022. The total return of the S&P 500 since June 1, 2021 is [...]
Stocks had a rip snorter of a rally last week and a lot of people are pondering the question in the title over this long weekend. The S&P 500 was down 20.9% from intraday high (4818.62, January 4th) to intraday low (3810.32, May 20th). From that intraday low the market has risen 9.1% in just six trading days. That still [...]
As I write this, the S&P 500 futures are down over 80 points, apparently in response to some rather harsh comments from Vladimir Putin concerning Ukraine. Russia recognized the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk, two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine that border Russia, and is apparently deploying troops in these regions. This is seen by the west as a precursor [...]
The economic news recently has been better than expected and in most cases just pretty darn good. That isn't true on a global basis, as Europe continues to experience a pretty sluggish recovery from COVID. And China is busy shooting itself in the foot as Xi pursues the re-Maoing of Chinese society, damn the economic costs. But here in the [...]
April 15th was the two-week anniversary of the day my wife and I got our second Moderna shot. We have spent the last 13 months being very careful about the virus, limiting our contacts, social distancing, and generally doing anything that seemed helpful. I am certainly aware that others took a more liberal attitude as is their right. But, for [...]
The answer to the question, "What should I do to my portfolio today (this week, this month)? is almost always nothing. Humans, and especially portfolio managers, have a hard time believing that doing nothing is the right response....to anything...or nothing. We are programmed to believe that success comes from doing things, not not doing things. And so, often we look [...]
Markets continue to move based on the expectation of a post-virus boom. At least that is the dominant narrative right now. The economy, boosted by another round of stimulus, will surge once the virus is under control and things return to normal. President Biden last week offered his version of optimism by saying that families would be able to gather [...]
Stay In Touch