U.S. equities advanced yet again last week with the S&P 500 Index climbing 0.7%. Economic data continued to come in better than expected. Consumer confidence reached its highest level since 2001 last month while the ISM non-manufacturing index, which measures business activity and employment trends, showed its strongest reading since late 2015.
Emerging Markets rebound after post-election "Trump slump," indicating that Trump’s economic policies may benefit some emerging markets countries and assets.
Research has shown that individual and household spending declines in real-dollar terms upon and following retirement. Yet most financial advisors still use traditional retirement planning approaches that target constant real-dollar spending for the client’s planning period.
DALBAR’s method for calculating average investor returns unfairly understates these returns. DALBAR does not properly calculate an internal rate-of-return for an ongoing series of cash flows, which renders its results meaningless. DALBAR’s response to this article is also provided.
Russell Investments’ Chief Investment Strategist, Erik Ristuben explores global investing against 2017’s altered political backdrop.
2017 is off to a remarkably similar start to 2013. No two years are ever exactly the same, so there's no reason to suggest that 2017 will repeat the 30% gains achieved in 2013. But many of the technical and fundamental similarities between these years suggest that 2017 may continue to be a good year. There are two watch outs, however, that make 2017 much higher risk than 2013. It's also worth recalling that equities fell 3-8% at six different points in 2013. Expecting 2017 to continue to ride smoothly higher will probably prove to be a mistake.
The stock market's rally resumed following the President's comments on tax reform and investor optimism continues to rise. There are solid economic supports for the market's surge, but gains may have gotten a bit ahead of themselves and a pullback should be expected at some point. As lovely as "melt-ups" feel while they're happening, a healthier pattern for stocks is to consolidate gains after significant rallies. Fundamentally, earnings have been solid, supporting the rally, but there are risks there as well as doubt about the "stickiness" of pricing power increases. Stay patient, diversified, and remember the power of rebalancing. We believe this secular bull market still has legs, but discipline is essential.
40 percent of companies now in operation around the world will not exist “in a meaningful way” sometime within the next two decades. To survive, companies will need to reinvent themselves by integrating digitization into the fabric of their business strategy.
j2 Global (JCOM) was founded in 1995 and went public in 1999. During their first few years as a public company, j2 Global generated operating losses; however, since 2002 the company has strung together an impressive record of rapid growth.
Is inflation finally back? There are certainly signs that it is – at least in some countries – and it appears that both central bankers and investors have already picked up the early signs. We argue why investors should worry more about the US and UK and less about the Eurozone, where higher inflation more recently is all non-core.
Why Europe’s banks may be on a sounder footing in 2017.
This letter turns out to be the penultimate installment in my now five-part series on tax reform.
While the majority of the financial world has its focus on every move in Washington D.C., there is another very important development happening in the German bond market.
US economic policies have always mattered to international investors. While President Trump’s agenda is still taking shape, equity investors can already map out broad guidelines for identifying winners and losers among companies outside the US.
I recently penned a blog on opportunities within leisure and entertainment in emerging markets, including the travel industry. With improved infrastructure and more access to reasonably priced flights, more travelers have been able to explore exotic locations they had previously only read about or seen on television.
Two recent articles caught our attention discussing growing worries in Germany about a post-American Europe. These reports are indicative of rapidly changing views on how the US manages its superpower role.
Most keynotes speeches are 30 minutes or more, leaving time for only a few questions. That is the wrong approach, especially if your goals are to engage the audience, have them remember what you said and get invited to speak again.
Jesse Livermore was one of the legendary icons of Wall Street speculation. Known as the “boy plunger,” because he began trading at the tender age of 14, he was subsequently banned from many “bucket shops” for winning too often. Therefore, he moved to New York City to swing in the big leagues.
Dramatic growth offers significant opportunity for the index fund industry, but not without its risks. As assets move from active to passive management, what systemic danger lurks? What market disruptions might occur with a concentration of assets backed by monolithic indexes on autopilot?
All of the US equity indices made new all-time highs again this week. Treasuries were the biggest winner. A drawdown of at least 5-8% in SPX is odds-on before year year end, but there are a number of compelling studies suggesting that 2017 will probably continue to be a good year for US equities.
This week I was in beautiful Argentina with a diverse team of investors and mining executives. Together we toured various natural gas and crude oil mining projects in Tierra del Fuego, Mendoza and Santa Cruz, where we had the opportunity to speak with Governor Alicia Kirchner, elder sister to former Argentinian president Néstor Kirchner.
Investors often ask us which of the two primary bond market risks—interest rate or credit—they should focus on in 2017. Our answer? Both of them—and the interaction between the two.
Thursday morning, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told CNBC that we could expect “significant” tax reform by August, including tax cuts for middle-income Americans and corporations. Like clockwork, the major stock indices rallied to all-time highs in intraday trading.
Equity markets have increased since the U.S. elections for two principal reasons: optimism over a pro-growth legislative agenda from Donald Trump and improving U.S. and global economic and earnings growth.
After lagging the market for years, US financial stocks surged after Donald Trump’s surprising win in the US presidential election. Investors can still profit from investing in banks; in our view, many of the best opportunities now lie in the micro-cap banks the rally left behind.
We sipped the QE juice and loved the taste. Now we’re full… the game has changed. The Fed had assets worth $858 billion on its books in the week ended August 1, 2007 just before the start of the financial crisis, and the same stood at $2.24 trillion at the end of 2009.
When advisors ask me to help them set up systems for their business, I put on my professional organizer hat. One area that is always a big issue is paper – both the physical and electronic kind. Here’s a system to ensure you will easily find the information you want and always get to the tasks that are important.
Nearly all analysts who write about the housing bubble have focused on the purchasing madness that occurred. While this is important, it overlooks the refinancing insanity of 2004-2007. This refinancing lunacy will devastate mortgage and housing markets for years to come.
Inflation just got another jolt, rising as much as 2.5 percent year-over-year in January, the highest such rate since March 2012. Led by higher gasoline, rent and health care costs, consumer prices have now advanced for the sixth straight month. In addition, January is the second straight month for rates to be above the Federal Reserve’s target of 2 percent.
Today we come to part 3 of my tax reform series. So far, we’ve introduced the challenge and begun to describe the main proposed GOP solution. Today we’ll look at the new and widely misunderstood “border adjustment” idea and talk about both its good and bad points
The rally in value stocks may have stalled, but Russ discusses why the trend still has further to go.
Frontier markets were mixed in 2016, with most of the Middle East and Africa lagging the rest of the universe and a few markets surging ahead 30-40% on the year.
When investing for dividend growth there are several key attributes that I consider crucial for long-term success.
Market nerves in anticipation of the French presidential elections in April and May 2017 have driven a spike in 10-year French and Italian government bond spreads, which have climbed 30 to 40 basis points (bps) in recent weeks (to 75 bps and 195 bps over bunds, respectively).
There’s value and opportunity in European high-yield bonds today. But if you’re considering using an exchange-traded fund (ETF) to tap into the market, you may want to think again.
While China celebrates its Lunar New Year, the reform-minded President Xi is likely polishing up his next Five Year Plan, says Neil Dwane, Global Strategist for Allianz Global Investors. Perhaps he will put his own twist on a predecessor’s strategy and look to strengthen China in four key areas: agriculture, science and technology, defense and industry.
Back in November, I wrote that domestic carriers are likely to see the new president—himself the former owner of the now-defunct Trump Airlines—as a strong partner in several key areas. Although a couple of airline CEOs have recently expressed strong opposition to some of Trump’s protectionist immigration policies, yesterday’s meeting appeared to be constructive, with the president telling the group he would soon be announcing something “phenomenal in terms of tax and developing our aviation infrastructure.”
Fresh concerns about Greece’s debts have prompted new worries across Europe. But another compromise looks likely—European leaders can ill afford a full-blown Greek crisis amid so much regional political uncertainty.
Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) is much broader than the Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) of the past.
If President Trump’s promise to increase defense spending comes to fruition, it would sharply reverse the trend of the past five years—and have important implications for the outlook on US growth and inflation.
The 2016 presidential election has brought about widely anticipated changes in fiscal policy actions.
After last year’s oil-price rebound, many investors wonder whether the recovery is over. Probably not. As global demand increasingly relies on US shale, we think oil prices could touch $80 by the end of the decade.
The usual thrust of this letter is economics, finance, and investing. Lately, however, the political process has been invading my normal domain – sometimes to the dismay of some of my readers.
There’s one area where you can add value – and where even the most sophisticated software cannot succeed. It’s largely ignored and often misunderstood. It’s also a subject few want to confront, which is why you can play such an important role.
Last week I shared a chart with you that’s done a good job at signaling inflation. We tend to react slowly to news and, over time, we wake up. Then we herd in and out. In the “waking up” category, we better keep rising inflation on our radar.
After little more than two weeks, President Donald Trump’s honeymoon with Wall Street appears to have been put on hold—for the moment, at least—with major indices making only tepid moves since his January 20 inauguration. That includes the small-cap Russell 2000 Index, which surged in the days following Election Day on hopes that Trump’s pledge to roll back regulations and lower corporate taxes would benefit domestic small businesses the most.
Investing always involves some risk. Right now, US macro is not one of them.
This month's Absolute Return Letter is a follow-up to last month's letter. In January I argued why investors could be facing a much more hostile Fed this year than generally perceived, and this month we look at the implications of that; why beta risk should be de-emphasized in 2017, and where we spot better opportunities.
Earlier this month, David Zahn, head of European Fixed Income, Franklin Templeton Fixed Income Group, set out some thoughts on the political and economic landscape for Europe in 2017.
