The Federal Reserve reported last Thursday that US household wealth hit a new high of $108.6 trillion in the 1Q. As I reported two weeks ago, we knew the number hit a new high, but we didn’t know exactly how high until last week. As we now know, the increase in household wealth in the 1Q was the largest ever recorded.
Vehement opposition to nuclear energy has been a core tribal marker for 40 years, despite the consensus among scientists that it must be part of the solution to climate change. But that could be on the verge of a change. The asset management industry could play an important role in that change – but, first, it must end the practice of excluding nuclear energy from ESG and SRI mandates.
It doesn’t take much of a market downturn these days for investors to pull in their bullish horns; but more may be needed for market stabilization.
For the remainder of 2019, the evidence still leans bullish. That’s not a guarantee. This time could be different because the US is engaged in a seemingly unending trade war with two major trading partners. All the market technicals, sentiment and fundamental data available cannot predict what happens next.
Recent comments from Fed Chairman Powell with respect to corporate debt echoes what Bernanke said in 2007 about subprime mortgage debt.
One of the challenges municipal bond investors face when navigating the municipal bond market on their own, is accessing bonds in the new issue market. The advent of retail order periods for some larger issues has improved retail access.
Sales and earnings growth were 6% and 8%, respectively, in 1Q19. Margins rebounded from the end of 2018 but are still below the cycle high made in 3Q18. Looking ahead, analysts' expectations for 10% earnings growth in 2019 have been revised down to 3%. The key for share price appreciation in 2019 is likely to hinge almost entirely on valuations expanding.
Many companies are staying private for longer before deciding to go public—if they do so at all. But what does that mean for investors?
Part 2 in a series focusing on different types of alternative investments.
May’s “flash” index of U.S. manufacturers registered a sharp decline to 50.6. This is only a preliminary reading, but if it turns out to be accurate, it would mark the slowest growth in the domestic manufacturing industry since September 2009
Legions of CFPs face a choice: Either act as a fiduciary, as their CFP certification will require as of October 1, or surrender their credentials in order to work for firms that push products upon their customers that meet the weak “suitability” standard.
There is simply no proof that outcomes have improved, or that risks have diminished from the proliferation of new ETF products. Instead, this has been little more than marketing to appeal to over-saturated advisors who desperately seek the next “story.”
Another year of tax filings is now in the books. It’s the first official annual filing under Trump’s new tax law, which went into effect on January 1, 2018. Governed by new legislation, many individuals were impacted differently.
As advisors have expanded their suite of financial planning services and sought new ways to add value to their client relationships, they have also committed to solutions to streamline their investment management. One of those solutions is a model portfolio, which consist of allocations to a group of mutual funds that meet the goals and risk tolerances of their clients.
A collapse in the corporate bond market could rival the sub-prime debacle a decade ago, according to Jeffrey Gundlach.
Big-ticket, ultra-short notes force muni SMAs with low minimums to buy longer-term paper at rich prices, likely giving clients more heartburn than total return.
The services that advisors provide may not change much in the coming years, but you have lots of choices to make about which services to deliver and how to deliver them. Your choices will significantly impact your future success.
Global copper capacity could be short some 41,000 tons by as early as 2021, says one commodities research firm. Meaning: We could be looking at another commodities super-cycle, with the red metal leading the way.
Friends don’t let friends buy and hold. At a minimum, you need some type of hedging program on your equity portfolios. Using a simple 200-day moving average to signal the time for going to cash, while not the best, will help protect you from the worst of a massive bear market.
What is the value of a financial advisor in 2019? We break down the full value of an advisor’s services in this easy-to-follow equation.
The secret of a great success is a crime that has never been found out because it was properly executed. The crime of Jho Low, the shadowy figure behind the 1MDB sovereign wealth fund, was well-executed. But it was found out, only because it was just too big – including the most lavish networking ever done.
Emerging markets, particularly in Asia, remain one of our favored regions for several reasons including...
Non-fundamental demand shocks caused by naive retail investor fund flows help explain the momentum factor.
A new paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston explores the implications of the active-to-passive shift.
Investors were dour heading into 2019 and while the mood became sunnier in the first quarter, there’s still plenty for investors to ponder and many potential threats to the relative calm.
Surfing for opportunities while using vigilance to avoid wipeout.
Robert Kuharic, Investment Strategist, shares 3 key numbers tax-smart advisors should know that illustrate the tax pain reality of 2018.
Clearly I have been “sitting here in limbo” for the last few weeks relaxing in Key West, which is a profoundly different planet. I love it! We stayed at Casa Marina, a resort I would highly recommend to anyone. So while I was limbo, it would seem as though the stock market was in limbo, as well.
For the 20-year period, gold as an asset class had the second best annualized returns at 7.7 percent, according to JPMorgan. The S&P 500, by comparison, returned only 5.6 percent on an annualized basis, with bonds coming in at 4.5 percent.
Are investors paying too much in investment taxes? Can you help them create better after-tax outcome? Without a basic understanding of the individual tax forms, it can be challenging to critically analyze. Given this is the first tax year to reflect the Tax Cut and Jobs Act, there are a few changes advisors should understand to better prepare for reviewing clients and prospects tax situations relative to their investments.
A simple, but yet extremely effective way to help save clients money and gain their trust is to provide cheaper highly correlated ETF alternatives to their mutual fund investments. Raltin runs 2.5 Billion correlations on all combinations of 40,000+ ETFs, mutual funds and stocks to find the most correlated ETF to mutual funds. Just go to Raltin.com and and search for the mutual fund to find ETF alternatives. For example, Raltin’s page for T. Rowe Price Blue Chip Growth Fund Inc (TRBCX) shows that the iShares Russell Growth ETF (IWF) has a 0.97 correlation to TRBCX.
The corporate bond market has declined in quality when viewed through the lens of published ratings, and that has been transmitted to passive alternatives.
Research group Metals Focus released its Gold Focus report this week forecasting that global gold demand will climb to its highest level in four years. Plus, economist David Rosenberg shares what he thinks ballooning nonfinancial corporate debt means for investors.
Just because the market is celebrating the Fed’s policy u-turn doesn’t mean volatility is a thing of the past. Disconnects between fundamentals and assets prices don’t make for market stability.
The municipal and the Treasury yield curves are different. This is never more evident than when the Treasury curve inverts. There have been multiple historical incidences of Treasury 2's to 10's inversion in the last quarter century...
The Non-Energy Minerals Sector is mostly comprised of very cyclical and typically commodity-based companies. Consequently, very few companies in this sector offer the consistency and predictability that prudent and/or conservative investors might require.
U.S. stocks experienced their biggest quarterly gains in nearly a decade. The S&P 500 completed its best quarter since 2009, gaining 14%, while the S&P MidCap 400 and S&P SmallCap 600 gained 14% and 12%, respectively.
“Ark Invest” is a money management firm that manages money in ETFs, mutual funds, and separately managed accounts. Ark believes that innovation is the key to growth and alpha.
Qualified Opportunity Funds are a new investment opportunity designed to drive development in economically distressed areas. They come with significant tax benefits, but the holding requirements and other risks mean they aren’t suitable for all investors.
Worried about retirement but don’t know how to start building wealth? Dollar cost averaging allows you to put a long-term plan in place and let compound interest work its magic.
If you own the S&P 500 (or long-term bonds), you implicitly think one of several things is true…
Read Harold Evensky's latest NewsLetter.
Last Friday I spoke to a number of money managers. One of the attendees was Linda Bradford Raschke, a professional trader, who used to trade on the Pacific and Philadelphia Stock Exchanges, founded a number of hedge funds, well you get the idea.
Turns out price matters for excess returns, and that what’s worked before doesn’t necessarily persist into the future. “Many factors aren’t real.”
Today stocks erased their weekly gains and bond yields fell. Chief among the contributors were a Treasury yield curve inversion, the first since before the financial crisis, and continued slowdown in the pace of U.S. manufacturing expansion.
In a widely expected outcome, the Federal Reserve announced no change to the Fed funds rate but did leave open the possibility of a rate hike next year.
A long time ago in a galaxy far far away I began working on Wall Street. The year was 1971 and I had joined a small firm making markets in over-the-counter stocks and options. My salary was $100 a week and it was Camelot.
Through “harmonization” – the broker-dealer community, aided and abetted by the SEC, is destroying the fiduciary standard, while imposing only new “casual disclosure” obligations upon broker-dealers. At its very core, this is an effort to make RIAs/IARs and BDs/RRs look identical. Once this is accomplished, FINRA will swoop in to seek oversight over the “harmonized” broker and investment adviser communities.
Last week, I described the enormous challenges retirees face. One reason for that, aside from insufficient savings, is that markets haven’t delivered the returns many experts said we could plan on.
There has been a lot of commentary as of late regarding the issue of corporate share repurchases. Even Washington D.C. has chimed into the rhetoric as of late discussing potential bills to limit or eliminate these repurchases. It is an interesting discussion because most people don’t remember that share repurchases were banned for decades prior to President Reagan in 1982.
