Low interest rates, demographics, and a solid economy should provide staying power to a resurgent housing market. We are finding opportunities to capitalize on growth in the area while diversifying idiosyncratic risks in our portfolios.

Investor indifference toward strong balance sheets and cash flow has created opportunities in today’s market.

Small-cap stocks have been on a tear for several quarters. Conventional wisdom in this situation would be to shift assets away from small-caps, and reallocate them to other asset classes. The concept sounds reasonable, but is it well-grounded in fact? What is the state of small-cap valuations today? These questions merit a closer look.

As equity markets have pushed toward new highs this year, one of the worries lingering in the background has been the potential impact of Chinas economic slowdown on the U.S. weakening demand from that country, the thinking has gone, could hurt the broad range of companies that export goods to China.

Recently we’ve been seeing positive readings from the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), news that may seem as though it would be good for all stocks. In fact, though, a look at the performance of the S&P 500 and the PMI since 1995 shows that this is not necessarily the case.

Investors remain concerned about dwindling bond yields but still aren't rushing headlong into stocks, notwithstanding their recent market highs. We thought it might be interesting to take a look at the difference between the cash earnings yield of U.S. stocks (as represented by the MSCI U.S. Stock Index) and the yield being paid by intermediate-term investment grade corporate bonds. In looking at historical data, cash earnings yield can be a good proxy for free cash flows and an indicator of a company's financial strength.