The stock market has been remarkably resilient so far in 2023 despite a steady stream of challenging news.  Whether it has been persistently high inflation readings, a Federal Reserve continuing to raise interest rates longer and farther than expected, a set of sudden bank failures, or the lingering threat of arguably the most anticipated economic recession in history, the U.S. … Read More

Summary It has been a recently tough stretch for traditional asset allocation strategies.  Prior to the start of last year, an investor with a long-term time horizon seeking to manage risk in the short run could capture the appreciation potential of stocks while offsetting the potential downside by blending in a meaningful allocation to bonds.  While such an approach had … Read More

It has been an eventful start to 2023 for the economy and capital markets.  Many investors came into the year anticipating that the onset of a mild mid-year recession would finish the job of bringing inflation back down, providing the U.S. Federal Reserve with the flexibility to get back to the lower interest rates that the markets have come to … Read More

Meet the new bank crisis. NOT the same as the old bank crisis.  This is not the Great Financial Crisis II.  It’s not the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management in 1998.  It’s not the Great Depression either.  A lot of what is taking place today has some rhymes with various past episodes, but we are charting new territory with new lessons … Read More

Let’s trace the hints and check the file.  You’ve got to hand it to the U.S. stock market.  The U.S. Federal Reserve keeps throwing monetary policy haymakers, and the S&P 500 takes the hits in stride.  The cooling of inflationary pressures has ground to a halt, and in some respects pricing pressures are reaccelerating, yet U.S. stocks are largely unfazed.  … Read More

Summary After a blazing start to 2023, the U.S. stock market has cooled in recent weeks.  Looking ahead to the upcoming spring, the path of least resistance for stocks appears to be to the downside.  For while the underlying economy has remained solid in the face of aggressive monetary tightening from the U.S. Federal Reserve, this resilience in large part … Read More

Summary Capital markets remain turbulent as we make our way through the early months of 2023. Thus, the priority to manage investment risk through broad portfolio diversification remains as important as ever. And gold is an allocation that has distinctive characteristics in this regard. Doing Its Own Thing. One of the keys that differentiates gold from a portfolio diversification perspective is … Read More

Summary The latest reading on inflation was released on Tuesday morning.  On the surface, the report for the month of January seemed generally unmoving.  The annual rate of inflation did not come down as much as expected, but it still edged lower.  And this latest pricing data was not nearly as bad as some market watchers feared heading into the … Read More

Summary U.S. stock investors are at it again.  Outside of a tax loss harvesting blip at the end of last year, the S&P 500 has been moving steadily higher over the past several months since bottoming last October.   Over this time period, the benchmark index posted a more than +20% trough to peak bounce.  A primary driver of this recent … Read More

Summary Non-U.S. stocks have been on fire as of late.  After years of chronic underperformance relative to the United States, both developed international and emerging market stocks have been strongly outperforming over the last few months.  This recent development raises a worthwhile question – have we finally arrived at the point where non-U.S. markets are ready to take the sustained … Read More