Now that some of Europe’s most critical elections have been resolved, investors looking ahead to the second half of 2017 may want to redirect their focus. This may be the time to take a closer look at other market drivers like economic growth, rising inflation and global monetary policy says Ann-Katrin Petersen, investment strategist at Allianz Global Investors.

I will clarify four oft-used terms by defining them and providing examples: core purpose, mission, vision and values.

Another underwhelming rise in the U.S. core Consumer Price Index (CPI) reported on Friday increases the chances that Federal Reserve policymakers use the September meeting to signal they plan to abstain from additional interest rate hikes until next year.

It's hard to read the business pages or watch the business news without seeing a story about the death of the consumer. In particular, the business press continues to be obsessed by relative weakness among traditional brick and mortar stores.

Atop the “what matters most” list is debt. Specifically, global sovereign debt: U.S., Europe, Japan and China. We are at the end of a long-term debt cycle. Borrow, spend and grow is good for the economy. Credit is money. It is a multiplier that enables you to spend more than you have.

Dalio’s not the only one recommending gold right now. Speaking to CNBC this week, commodities expert Dennis Gartman, editor and publisher of the widely-read Gartman Letter, said that he believed “gold is about to break out on the upside strongly” in response to geopolitical risks and inflationary pressures. Gartman thinks investors should have between 10 and 15 percent of their portfolio in gold.

Well, I went to camp this summer, too. I go every year, and I always learn more than I can manage to remember. Camp Kotok is an invitation-only gathering of economists, market analysts, fund managers, and a few journalists. It takes place at the historic Leen’s Lodge in Grand Lake Stream, Maine. We fish, talk, eat, drink, and talk some more. It’s a three-day economic thought-fest (and more rich food and wine than is good for me or anyone else at the camp). For me, that’s about as good as life gets.

Supply and demand theories suggest worker scarcity would increase the price paid for labor. This has certainly been the case during recent American expansions, when annual wage gains topped 4%.

Outcomes from the most recent state budget season, which concluded for most U.S. states on 30 June, underscore the need for caution among municipal bond investors.

With critical policy pivots on the horizon, investors should approach asset allocation with full appreciation for downside risk and stay focused on relative value and security selection.

Receding political anxiety and a gathering economic recovery in Europe helped global equity markets advance in the first half of 2017. Yet Templeton Global Equity Group’s Cindy Sweeting and Tony Docal say investors should be somewhat cautious in the second half of the year.

If you’ve spent any time recruiting, you are painfully aware how hard it is to find good people. It’s even harder to keep them, particularly younger people. But those Millennials are not as unmotivated and unambitious as many claim.

When I started my coaching practice, my focus was on converting prospects into clients. That’s where most advisors needed help. Recently, however, advisors have asked for assistance in generating more leads. Let’s take a look at video, which should be a critical part of your marketing plan.

Now that the market is up significantly, our clients are asking why they aren’t seeing these gains in their portfolios. We do take the time to educate and we show them a blended benchmark so they aren’t measuring us against the S & P. What else could we be doing to give them comfort that we are acting on their behalf by not chasing returns?

On June 20t, the CFP Board released a draft of proposed revisions to its Code of Ethics. The draft and the pronouncements surrounding the release are merely the latest in the Board’s long history of feigning interest in consumer advocacy in order to advance the organization’s own ambition to seize control of the financial planning industry. Its actions serve as a sterling example of why the CFP Board should never be entrusted to be the standard bearer for the profession.

Ladies and gentlemen, investing is a lot like whaling. Investors are constantly searching for that whale of a stock with the “right stuff” . . . aka the “ambergris factor.” Indeed, there have been many such “whales” on the Street of Dreams since the Royal Bank of Scotland’s “sell everything” advice at the January/February of 2016 stock market lows.

For many years now a relatively large contingent of analysts, investors and journalists has been convinced the stock market was in a bubble because the "Shiller P-E" ratio was just too high. Back on 8/12/2013, in our Monday Morning Outlook, we made our case that the Shiller model was too pessimistic. Now that looks like a pretty good call.

U.S. equity indexes continue to post record highs and the proverbial "wall of worry" appears to be losing bricks. The high expectations for earnings season have largely been bested, the U.S. economy continues to trend in a "Goldilocks" zone—not too hot, nor too cold...

After Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reshuffled his Cabinet on 3 August, the big question is whether his administration can regain public support. In just the last two months, Abe's public approval ratings have plunged to around 30% – low enough to raise red flags.

Monetary Policy Rules: Revisited and Giving Japan Credit

In July, the Institute for Supply Management’s (ISM) Non-Manufacturing Index fell to an 11-month low of 53.9, 3.5 points below its June reading of 57.4. The index measures the non-manufacturing, services industries such as food services, education, real estate, health care and more.

The macro data from the past month continues to mostly point to positive growth. On balance, the evidence suggests the imminent onset of a recession is unlikely.

Today I am at Camp Kotok in a remote area of Maine where connectivity (the electronic kind) is limited. Rather than try to write a regular letter, I decided to hand the keyboard over to you – or at least to a few readers like you. I went through the feedback to my last few letters and picked some comments to share and respond to. These are a small fraction of the feedback we received, so forgive me if I omitted your brilliant submission! And because I want to get to the Camp Kotok opening reception in a bit, this letter will be shorter than usual.

In our last quarterly letter, we discussed seven transactions from early 2017: two buys and five sells. We also provided an update on our then largest position, Express Scripts. There was zero analysis of the economy, asset classes, and central banks. We have been relatively quiet on the transaction front since then.

Some argue that active management is a zero-sum game, so investing passively—relying on the wisdom of crowds—is better. How strong is that logic?

Our Summer Outlook comes a bit late this year as we were traveling in the weeks after July 4th. Our itinerary included the San Francisco area, the Washington DC area, Castle Rock and Colorado Springs. 

Ms. Myers has penned a piece about saving for one’s retirement with 9 concrete recommendations on how to save well.

The index-tracking trend is firmly entrenched. But do investors recognize the big differences between stock and bond ETFs? And do they appreciate that these can cause European high-yield ETFs to lag?

On July 12, credit card giant VISA announced that it will soon offer selected retailers $10,000 to stop accepting cash. No one seemed to pay much attention. The announcement received relatively little coverage in the press. Should it have? Yes!

I have had several readers request that I do an article on AT&T (T). Since the company has just reported earnings, which have thus far received a strong and positive reaction from Wall Street, I thought now would be a good time.

With uncertain market conditions, income investors can look to dividend investing as a strategy for different market conditions. This week’s news also looks at how income investors can deal with increasing interest rates.

Venezuela is sliding closer and closer toward the brink, and things look as if they’ll get worse, unfortunately, before they improve.

Today I will show you a simple indicator that has an excellent recession-forecasting record, according to research by the Federal Reserve itself. Though the Fed’s own wacky policies may have weakened this early-warning system’s reliability, an interpretive adjustment can restore its usefulness.

Five years ago this week, Mario Draghi’s landmark “whatever it takes” speech turned the tide of the euro crisis, the president effectively clarifying the European Central Bank’s role as a conditional lender of last resort to eurozone sovereign borrowers. 

As our regular readers are aware, we’ve been pounding the table all year arguing that foreign stocks are in a position to structurally outperform domestic stocks. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, we thought we would – in one post – review the setup that makes foreign equities relatively attractive at this juncture.

We demonstrate a smart beta that produces positive excess returns from sustainably faster growth in EPS. This simple, systematic strategy represents a significant improvement from today’s growth indices that fail to produce faster growth in EPS and have provided negative excess returns.

Much of the world has been waging a cold currency war since the autumn of 2016, and so far the winner is Donald Trump. The dollar rally that followed the U.S. election is over, and this past week the U.S. Dollar Index (DXY, which tracks the dollar’s value versus a weighted basket of major currencies) sank to its lowest level in more than a year.

Stock market volatility in 2017 has been so low that it’s been hard to miss. This unusual tranquility may be sowing the seeds of future turmoil.

I’m in the process of writing another book, going into great depth regarding one of the most important things discussed in my book The Most Important Thing: cycles, their causes, and what to do about them. It will be out next year, but this memo will give you a preview regarding one of the most important cyclical phenomena.

After a strong first half to 2017 for equities, the message for the remainder of the year is to look for returns more carefully in the second half says Neil Dwane, global strategist for Allianz Global Investors. The “country factor” will be key: We believe investors can no longer rely on a rising tide of cyclical data to lift all boats.

It is stinking hot and steamy on the East Coast these days, as the proverbial “dog days of summer” set in. Historically, this was a time of year when things slowed down, people went on vacation, and it was generally too hot to move fast, but not this year.

Supply and demand seems to have been placed on the backburner in today’s world of prognosticating inflation, employment, and GDP. The first point is the supply of publicly traded stock in the US. The second point is the supply of money.

When PIMCO professionals gather for our annual Secular Forum to discuss the long-term global economic outlook, views on Europe invariably gravitate on two themes: anemic GDP growth and political risk.

Here are some of my takeaways from this year’s weekend in Omaha.

At a conference in Chicago this week, following up on last week’s letter, Keep Dancing but with a Sharp Eye on the Tea Leaves, an advisor client asked me what my favorite “tea leaf” might be. When one of the greatest investors of our time, Ray Dalio, tells us to keep an eye on the exit door we should take note. But how? And when?

I am concerned that another major crisis will ensue by the end of 2018 – though it is possible that a salutary combination of events, aided by complacency, could let us muddle through for another few years. But there is another recession in our future (there is always another recession), and it’s going to be at least as bad as the last one was, in terms of the global pain it causes.