The economic calendar is normal, with an emphasis on inflation data. The week will begin with analysis of the annual Berkshire Hathaway meeting, the wisdom of Buffett and Munger, and a multi-hour CNBC program including Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, and Bill Gates.

The traditional 60/40 model no longer can be expected to deliver the same type of results. A new model is for investors to move toward more of a risk-parity portfolio, with assets more equally divided among stocks, bonds and these new alternatives.

Christopher Mack is a co-manager of the Harding Loevner Global Equity Fund (HLMGX). Over the 15-year period ending 4/20/18, its annual return has been 10.46%, outperforming its benchmark by 160 basis points. Over that 15-year period, it ranks in the 15th percentile of its Morningstar peer group. I interviewed Chris last week.

Equity volatility, the prospect of rising interest rates and an uptick in issuance may bode well for the asset class.

This morning's employment report for April showed a 164K increase in total nonfarm payrolls, which was worse than forecasts. The unemployment rate dropped to 3.9%. The Investing.com consensus was for 189K new jobs and the unemployment rate to drop to 4.0%.

Spring is taking its sweet time arriving on the East Coast of the US – much of April was cold and wet. There were several “head fakes” – days when the temperatures rose and the rains dried up. But just when it seemed safe to put away the winter coat, another cold front would blow through and the cycle would start again.

The economic calendar is huge, including the most important monthly data and plenty of earnings reports. With a Fed meeting on the calendar and Tuesday’s decline attributed to the ten-year note touching 3%, the punditry will be asking: Will economic data drive interest rates higher?

Commodity prices have picked up steam recently, particularly in energy and metals. How long could the surge last?

Spikes in volatility levels can impact returns on a fund’s portfolio. The relatively low leverage point (1.25X) for Portfolio+ ETFs provide less impact of negative compounding over time for long-term investors.

We believe The New Neutral of lower-for-longer equilibrium policy rates remains a valid anchor over the medium term. The key drivers of low equilibrium rates – including demographic trends and the high level of leverage in the global economy – have not substantially changed since the financial crisis.

As the Federal Reserve (Fed) tightens monetary policy further, we expect to see default rates higher next year. Loan recovery rates averaged 70 percent between 1990 and 2017 as a result of their secured status and seniority in the capital structure. Senior secured bond recovery rates averaged 58 percent over the same period, while senior unsecured bond recovery rates averaged 43 percent. We are concerned about distressed exchanges as the risk of re-default is high. About 7 percent of high-yield corporate bond issuers have defaulted in the past.

While novice investors typically stumble onto the concept of trend following in the context of stock-market timing, professionals know that trend following is not about using trends to time one or two individual markets. Modern professional trend followers often trade dozens of futures markets across equities, bonds, currencies, commodities and more obscure markets like carbon offsets.

I’m bullish, but I don’t expect bitcoin to test $20,000 again in the short term, especially before July. That’s when G20 finance ministers are scheduled to present their recommendations on how cryptocurrencies should be regulated.

The accompanying chart is a way to visualize real GDP change since 2007. It uses a stacked column chart to segment the four major components of GDP with a dashed line overlay to show the sum of the four, which is real GDP itself. Here is the latest overview from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Note: The NYSE has suspended their NYSE Member Firm margin data as of December 2017. We have replaced our Margin Debt data with FINRA data, which includes data for all firms, not just NYSE member firms.

FINRA has released new data for margin debt, now available through March. The latest debt level is virtually unchanged month-over-month (up a mere 0.03%). The March data gives us an additional sense of recent investor behavior.

As his 60-year tenure attests, Dan Fuss is one of the most respected bond investors. In my interview with Fuss last week, he explained why it would take either a geopolitical crisis or an economic collapse to drive rates lower. Fuss also said investors should exercise caution in bond ETF markets that are exposed to liquidity shocks.

In their second-quarter (Q2) 2018 outlook, K2 Advisors’ Research and Portfolio Construction teams share their views on why investors should not fear the return of market volatility—and why it may unlock opportunities for active managers. We believe offering these insights will help investors better understand the rationale for owning retail mutual funds that invest in hedge strategies.

With sky-high valuations in the US stock market, and what we believe is a tech bubble that has dangerous implications for other areas of the market, we suggest four actions investors can take now to avoid the inevitable bursting of the bubble, and which will likely benefit their portfolios’ long-term performance potential.

The yield curve has flattened significantly recently and has elicited headlines of impending doom, heightened recession risk and investor consternation…is the worry overdone?

Hedge funds, as represented by the Barclay index, can effectively be viewed as equity replacements. Further, the proper benchmark for equity hedge funds is target volatility strategies.

Professional athletes are among the most coveted clients for advisors – and present unique financial challenges that those athletes are typically ill-equipped to handle themselves. Paul Franklin leveraged his role as a high-school football coach to pursue a career serving those clients.

This year, China is in the headlines because President Trump wants better trade terms. That’s important, but it’s only one piece of a much larger Chinese story that has been unfolding slowly for decades. Periodically, I check in on the latest developments. Today, we’ll see where we are, with the help of my trusted sources.

In this issue, the Northern Trust economics team explores the challenges facing Ireland in Brexit, the continuing demand for eurozone debt, and wage growth within U.S. states.

Franklin Equity Group Vice President and Portfolio Manager Matt Quinlan explains why he thinks US banks could benefit from a more favorable economic and regulatory environment. Given this healthy backdrop, he believes select large-cap bank stocks may increase dividends and stock buybacks in the next two years.

Consumer spending and business fixed investment remained strong, pointing to continued domestic economic growth. Notably, business fixed investment growth, represented by private domestic investment, accelerated to 5.4% year-over-year growth in the fourth quarter of 2017, from a low of 0.71% in the third quarter of 2016.

"Travel on all roads and streets changed by -0.1% (-0.2 billion vehicle miles) for February 2018 as compared with February 2017. Travel for the month is estimated to be 226.7 billion vehicle miles." The 12-month moving average was unchanged month-over-month and 1.1% year-over-year. If we factor in population growth, the 12-month MA of the civilian population-adjusted data (age 16-and-over) is down 0.06% month-over-month and unchanged year-over-year.

This is the fourth of a five-part series presenting 50 dividend growth stocks that I have screened for current fair value. With this article, I will be covering 10 additional dividend growth research candidates with moderate to higher yields...

There’s been a lot of discussion in the fixed income world about the end of the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) and what might replace it. But what hasn’t been as widely discussed is an important consequence for investors in this space: changes to LIBOR language in new-issue and amended credit agreements—particularly how these changes are implemented.

Nearly nine years into the current economic expansion Federal Reserve policy actions appear to be benign, as even after six increases, the federal funds rate remains less than 2%. Changes in the reserve, monetary and credit aggregates, which have always been the most important Fed levers both theoretically and empirically, indicate however that central bank policy has turned highly restrictive.

Rising rates are adding new risks to equity markets. Stocks of companies that are saddled with debt have underperformed recently. And leverage is especially high in sectors widely seen as safe havens.