Advisor Rand Spero of Street Smart Financial in Lexington, Mass., shares his views on the need for sustainable income, particularly among older investors.
My friend Mark Hulbert once had a philosophy professor at Oxford, who distinguished two ways of being wrong: “You can be just plain wrong, or you can be wrong in an interesting way.” In the latter case, Mark explained, correcting the wrong reveals a lot about the underlying truth.
Robert DiMella is an executive managing director and co-head of MacKay Municipal Managers team, overseeing approximately $20 billion in municipal bond assets. In this interview, he discusses the opportunities for muni bond investors and the outlook for the coming year.
Europe is back on the map. That was one of the main takeaways this week from the SkyBridge Alternatives (SALT) hedge fund conference in Las Vegas, where $3 trillion in assets was represented. Speaker after speaker touted European equities for their attractive valuations and as a means to diversify away from the volatile American market in light of rising U.S. geopolitical risk. France’s election of centrist Emmanuel Macron over far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen this month has especially eased investors’ fears that antiestablishment forces would challenge the integrity of the European Union (EU).
One of the most hotly contested debates in finance is the argument over which is better – active or passive investing. Moreover, this debate has spurred numerous academic studies that claim to identify whether passive outperforms active investing or vice versa.
Fund managers have become more bullish, but not excessively so. Cash balances at funds remains high, suggesting lingering doubts and fears. Of note is that allocations to US equities are near their lowest level in 9 years: this is when US equities typically start to outperform.
In this Q&A, Kathleen Gaffney and Henry Peabody share their outlooks for the bond market and the impact of stronger global growth, and how they seek to position the Multisector Income strategy.
Russ talks about why bond yields remain low this year, despite expectations of a rise.
Active management has the potential to provide diversification, generate income and mitigate the risks of higher inflation and rising rates.
No one said that the flight path to higher returns would be easy. With the increase in uncorrelated asset returns, there are many different sets of positive returns out in the market right now. You just need to set the right flight path to snatch some of those better return streams.
The recent stall-out in US bond yields has thrown equity investors into a funk. But, in our view, it’s a pause that refreshes. Remember, there are still powerfully supportive forces in play for the economy and stocks.
Invesco Fixed Income shares its views of rates around the world.
There is a really big crisis coming. Think about it this way. After 8 years and a 230% stock market advance the pension funds of Dallas, Chicago, and Houston are in severe trouble. But it isn’t just these municipalities that are in trouble, but also most of the public and private pensions that still operate in the country today.
China’s GDP rose 6.9% in the first quarter, but is a slowdown coming? Emerging Markets have been on fire this year, will the rally continue? U.S. GDP is forecast to grow to 3.5% in the second, but could the delay in tax cuts dampen the rebound?
Today I’m going to share a small sample of Peter Boockvar’s daily output. Below are three articles he published on one day – Thursday, May 11, 2017. And he does this every day, week and month and year in and out. He never fails to make cogent, interesting points about the day’s events. Think about the brainpower it takes to generate this sort of creative output every working day.
As you can see in the chart below, based on data provided by Moore Research Center, the five-year pattern, represented by the orange line, is diverging from the longer-term trends. Note that the index on the left measures the greatest tendency for the asset to make a seasonal high (100) or low (0) at a given time.
In this issue, Research Affiliates offers insight into its CPI-based secondary return benchmarks, its business cycle modeling and continued opportunities in emerging markets.
A review of last month’s market-moving events across countries and asset classes.
Driverless cars may be the wave of the future. But when it comes to bond investing, it’s best to keep your hands on the wheel. Anything less could do serious damage to your fixed-income portfolio.
As the VIX flirts with single digits, the S&P 500 has been flopping around like a live fish on deck. But for U.S. investors in foreign equities, the music continues to play as cheaper valuations overseas and a weaker U.S. dollar pushed fund flows into other geographies.
With markets seeking to avoid similar toe-stubbing in the policy arena, we examine the drivers of the fixed income markets for the near term. In doing so, we consider President Trump’s fiscal policy influence, Janet Yellen’s monetary policy impacts and evolving exogenous geopolitical dynamics. So, who or what will determine the market’s course moving forward?
Morningstar analyst Emory Zink says demand for municipal bonds has been strong so far in 2017.
Financial markets will welcome the election of centrist, pro-European Emmanuel Macron as France’s next president. Now that Europe has avoided a major political upset, all eyes will be on the ECB and its next move.
I presented at a recent advisor conference alongside a famous economist. He told a story about an investment manager who told him, “You know… it is easy to pick out the investment amateur in any room.” He said, “He’s the person who says, ‘it’s different this time’.”
Every episode in history has its own wrinkles. But investors should not use some “new era” argument to dismiss the central principles of investing, as a substitute for carefully quantifying the impact of those wrinkles. Unfortunately, because investors get caught up in concepts, they come to a point in every speculative episode where they ignore the central principles of investing altogether.
In the last 20 years, the U.S. stock market has undergone an alarming change that too few people are aware of or talking about. Between 1996 and 2016, the number of listed companies fell by half, from 7,300 to 3,600, according to a recent report by Credit Suisse. This occurred despite the U.S. economy growing nearly 60 percent over the same period.
A bottom-up look at major industries around the world reveals significant potential for productivity growth.
What fundamentals are important for growth and which industries call for caution? Rapid growth in the ETF industry and a surge in multi-asset funds are among the current news for capital-growth investors.
After a rousing start to the year, equity markets have been in a calmer state and bond yields have leveled off, leading investors to question whether global geopolitical and election concerns (and our own domestic legislative challenges) may be signaling that trouble lies ahead.
Russell Investments’ Chief Investment Strategist, Erik Ristuben examines the impact on US equities of U.S President Trumps’ first 100 days in office.
When it comes to credit investing, we believe passive investors are implementing a suboptimal strategy and may be leaving money on the table as active management offers several potential advantages.
Fixed-income closed-end funds (CEFs) should perform poorly when the yield curve flattens, according to Jeffrey Gundlach, because those funds borrow short and lend long. But DoubleLine’s CEFs have more than withstood the flattening of the yield curve over the last six years.
When investing, investment rules ensure long term success. I would even go as far as to suggest that those who don't follow certain rules, i.e. they invest more opportunistically, are bound to run into trouble sooner or later, but much more about that, and what my rules and principles are, in this month's Absolute Return Letter.
Municipal bonds have performed exceptionally well this year, but aspects of Trump’s proposed tax policies threaten to disrupt segments of that market. Here is the latest news and analysis on the likely impact on the municipal bond market.
I had the pleasure of listening to Pippa Malmgren speak last week at the Raymond James Financial Services National Conference. Philippa "Pippa" Malmgren, according to Wikipedia, is “an American policy analyst.
We wrap-up our three-part series on Behavioral Finance in this issue of the Outlook with a discussion of Emotional Biases, which often adversely affect investors’ outcomes. This discussion and the tie-in with Sir Isaac Newton is found in the second half of this quarter’s Outlook.
if you are overcome with fear of missing out on the next stock market move; if you feel like you have to own stocks no matter the cost; if you tell yourself, “Stocks are expensive, but I am a long-term investor”; then consider this article a public service announcement written just for you.
As we wait for details on the new tax plan proposed by President Trump and the impact it will have on investors, let’s review some current news for income-oriented investors.
A major anxiety amongst stock market participants revolves around two key factors that appear to be on a collision course. The first is an overvalued stock market. The second, is an emerging trend of rising interest rates.
I enjoy reading 720 Global’s research blog. Quick, crisp and to the point. The message in their most recent piece is about human behavioral tendencies and ego. Ultimately, it’s about how to weave behavior and ego into our investment thinking.
Morningstar analyst Emory Zink encourages investors concerned about taxable bonds to view their portfolio from a “holistic” perspective.
Lower correlations, coupled with greater dispersion of volatility across sectors, highlight the importance of asset allocation and could lead to more opportunities for outperformance by active managers over passive beta strategies.
Despite extreme valuations, investors’ fear of missing out is looking increasingly desperate. In market cycles across history, that has been an unfortunate impulse.
If Trump gets his way—and let’s be clear, it’s going to be an uphill fight—U.S. corporate taxes will decline from being the highest among fellow Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) economies to just a few degrees north of Ireland’s highly favorable 12.5 percent.
At the beginning of the year, most market strategists were in agreement that interest rates were going to rise in 2017. The reasons varied: some saw inflation climbing, pushing yields higher; others worried about bigger budget deficits; a few blamed the Federal Reserve, which was thought to be planning to raise short-term interest rates two or three times and shrink its balance sheet. Whatever the reason, interest rates were expected to head higher, so seeing the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield here at 2.3% is a surprise.
Recent market action has all the markings of a relief rally. The French vote in favor of centrist candidate Macron took "Frexit" off the table for now; a new tax cut proposal by the Trump administration, and the decreasing likelihood of a near-term U.S. government shutdown all appeared to play a part in the sharp rise in stocks and plunge in volatility.
Though uncertainties remain, we have a broadly positive outlook for commodities in the next year.
Investors in European stocks are facing multiple sources of risk. Applying the mindset of strategic business owners can help tune out the noise and sharpen investors’ focus on more resilient sources of return potential.
The Federal Reserve has initiated the fifteenth tightening cycle since 1945 (Chart 1). Conspicuously, in 80% of the prior fourteen episodes, recessions followed, with outright business contractions being avoided in just three cases.
Fund managers have become more bullish, but not excessively so. Cash balances at funds remains high, suggesting lingering doubts and fears. Allocations to US equities dropped to their lowest level in 9 years in April: this is when US equities typically start to outperform.
