Does the ‘Trump Rally’ Have Legs?
Before we discuss the Trump rally and if it has legs, it is instructive to recap 2016 and how our views and portfolio positioning played out relative to the markets. One of the things our firm does differently than most is how we proactively manage risk in client accounts. When we see red flags beginning […]
Trump’d
What happened? Last night Donald Trump won a surprise victory in the US presidential election. The victory initially shocked global markets, which had been pricing in the likelihood of a Clinton victory. The initial reaction was heavy selling in overnight markets. At one point, S&P 500 future were down -5%, the downside limit in overnight […]
Are We In The Late Innings Of This Business Cycle?
The current bull market (which began in 2009) will soon be entering its 9th year of expansion. That is quite a long time for a bull market to run without interruption, actually one of the longest on record. This has some investors worrying that we are getting into the late innings of this business cycle, […]
How Will This Central Bank Experiment End?
Market volatility: The volatility investors witnessed in the global financial markets at the beginning of the year has certainly lessened in intensity recently, but various issues and events persist that will likely continue to cause flare-ups in market volatility for the remainder of the year. Whether it is the Brexit vote, FOMC meetings, or the […]
“Brexit” Fallout
Markets were caught leaning the wrong way Thursday night when the UK referendum on whether to stay in or leave the European Union (EU) went in favor of the “Brexit” (i.e. – leave) camp by a 52% – 48% margin of victory. In the week leading up to the vote, several respectable polls had come […]
Has The Storm Passed?
Market volatility: If you only looked at how the stock market started and finished the first quarter of 2016, you would probably wonder what all the fuss was about. After all, stocks were basically unchanged, right? But zooming in from the forest to the trees shows a much different picture. Stocks began the year in sell […]
A Rough Start to The New Year
Stocks started out the New Year with a bang, though not in the direction investors were hoping for. As for 2015, it certainly ended on a whimper. For all of 2015, the S&P 500 Index closed lower by -0.7%. On the surface that looks like a small decline, but since a handful of market leaders […]
2016 – Early Market Volatility
Many of you are probably wondering what caused all of the volatility in the stock market this week, and how it factors into our outlook for the remainder of the year? Before we get into that, we want to remind clients that we had talked (and written in our newsletter) about getting more defensive in […]
Is This Aging Bull Getting Tired?
For the past 6+ years we have been hanging onto this bull and trying to ride it as long as possible. That strategy has served us in good stead as we helped investors’ not only recoup their losses from 2008 but continue to grow their assets. But now in its 7th year, the bull market […]
The Fits and Starts Economy
The most recent employment report came in much weaker than expected and left some investors scratching their heads and wondering about the strength of this prolonged economic recovery. The US economy added only 126,000 new jobs in March, down from 264,000 in February. This was the smallest increase since December 2013 when 109,000 jobs were […]