A collapse in the corporate bond market could rival the sub-prime debacle a decade ago, according to Jeffrey Gundlach.

Properly managing a client’s assets may not be enough to secure their financial wellness. Here are three cases where I took extraordinary measures to stop unrealistic and destructive spending.

Some volatility has returned and we believe a pullback in U.S. equities is a healthy development in terms of both investor sentiment and valuations. But some cracks in economic growth may be emerging, and inflation could start to rise given the tight labor market, so investors should remain disciplined with an eye toward rebalancing in the face of volatility. Trade remains a weight on the confidence of business leaders, and if the dispute with China continues to escalate, stocks and the economy would likely suffer further.

Defined benefit plans, usually those sponsored by state and local governments, labor unions, and a dwindling number of private businesses. Many sponsors haven’t set aside the assets needed to pay the benefits they’ve promised to current and future retirees. They can delay the inevitable for a long time but not forever. And “forever” is just around the corner.

The rising cost of health care has been a political hot button issue for years, and Franklin Templeton’s 2019 “Retirement Income Strategies and Expectations (RISE)” survey revealed it remains a top concern today.

It’s been a tough road for value investors during the past decade or so, even leading some pundits to declare the investing style is dead.

If the US economy remains in positive territory this month and next, as looks increasingly likely, this will be the longest economic recovery in America’s history. Expect a lot of celebrations just ahead. While that will be a true milestone, consider that Australia has not had a recession in almost 28 years!

While an inverted curve may be a reliable indicator that a recession is likely to begin, on average, within 16 months, it is not an indicator reliable enough to allow you to profitably time stock markets.

The calendar is modest, with the big reports all hitting last week. Investors will never have more current information on the economy, the Fed, corporate earnings, and various risks than they do right now. It is difficult to guess what the punditry will do when given an open slate.

One might view the very comparison of present stock market conditions to 1929 market peak as exaggerated and preposterous, but then, one would be wrong. The fact is that on the valuation measures we find most strongly correlated with actual subsequent long-term and full-cycle market returns across history (and even in recent decades), current market valuations match or exceed those observed at the 1929 peak.

Since its inception in 2003, the Hennessy Japan Fund (HJPIX) has outperformed the TOPIX benchmark by 473 basis points. Masa Takeda, the fund’s manager, explains why valuations in Japan continue to be very attractive.

Once upon a time, bonds backed by a government’s full faith and credit pledge were generally considered less risky than corporate bonds. Times have changed. In today’s political climate, not all governments inspire us with the same confidence.

The US economy has a tendency to lag in the 1Q following big holiday spending, but not this year. While there have been widespread predictions that the economy was slowing down and the recovery might be ending, the latest GDP report put all that to rest.

The big energy news this week is that President Donald Trump moved to end all sanction waivers for nations that import Iranian oil. In response, Brent crude oil hit $75 per barrel for the first time in six months this past week.

We all complain that so much is happening so fast these days it’s hard to keep up. The plethora of events that could have a negative impact on the financial markets is being ignored in the United States, however, and investors seem to be assuming that everything going on will somehow be resolved favorably.

Unfortunately, most investors still don’t know which actions will help their odds of investment success. There is just too much noise and nonsense that confuses, scares and nudges us into making the wrong decisions.

Q1 2019 proved to be the exact opposite of Q4 2018; it was the quarter where nearly everything worked. Virtually all asset classes produced positive returns, from U.S. and International equities of all sizes and sectors, to higher quality bonds and junk bonds, and, yes, even commodities floated with the rising tide.

Bill Sharpe has focused the most recent phase of his career on retirement-income analysis. A big part of that work has been the creation of an online textbook covering the various subjects related to retirement planning.

I have a lot of opinions. Others disagree and believe they are unbiased. Can we both be “right?”

We recently heard a great adage about investing: “The stock market is the only market where people head for the exit when things go on sale.” And considering what followed 2018’s stock-market rout, heading for the exit certainly wasn’t a wise move.

Tax receipts were up 0.7% in the first six months of FY19. Individual tax receipts were down 1.7%. Corporate tax revenues fell 13.5%. Payrolls taxes rose 4.7%.

Recession fears resurfaced at the end of 2018 as a combination of negative data surprises, communication blunders by the Fed, slowing growth overseas, and rising trade tensions triggered a selloff in risk assets that led many in the market to fear a recession was imminent.

Markets are caught between incoming data that point to slower global growth and forward-looking factors that suggest improvement later in the year. With the pause in U.S. Federal Reserve rate hikes, we expect modest recovery in global cycle conditions.

Although Friday’s payroll report had a lot to cheer and was generally seen as Goldilocks-like, looking under the hood should generate some caution.

Probably the most useful exercise we can do at present is to examine where the markets and the U.S. economy are in their respective cycles - with 19 charts and detailed analysis. There’s little question that the market is long into what Rhea described as the final phase of a bull market; “the period when speculation is rampant – a period when stocks are advanced on hopes and expectations.”

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.

This letter explores examples of cognitive and behavioral biases that can derail even the best investment strategy if not identified and guarded against.

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...

Very clear warning signs are now flashing that the U.S. economy could be heading for trouble and that the longest expansion in recent memory may soon end. But as usual, financial media and mainstream investors are once again flushed with optimism as the stock market plows higher.

Behavioral finance may help to overcome cognitive biases.

In Part III, we examined the role of economic paradigms in the equality/efficiency cycle. All the major economic paradigms previously discussed lead to eventual problems. Capital-friendly policies eventually lead to inequality, while policies less friendly to capital eventually become inflationary.

The market, and the yield curve, are trying to tell you something very important.

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.

While we are constructive on the prospects for emerging markets in the year ahead, we think the real potential lies in individual country and thematic opportunities.

The singer, Prince, wrote about “partying like it’s 1999.” We can tell you that 1999 was no party unless you owned the most popular tech stocks and the hottest initial public offerings of the latest dot-com company.

Matching the stock market’s long-term average returns sounds like it should be easy, if you’re patient enough. But in fact it is remarkably difficult. In last week’s letter, Ed Easterling and I showed you why it is a longshot bet in almost every market environment. Returns over a decade or two are usually well above or well below average. Most of all, it’s fairly predictable which side of average will occur. Today Ed and I will expand on that discussion.

What happens in China clearly does not stay in China so the outlook for China’s growth in 2019 is one of the keys to how the global economy will perform and how financial markets will respond to that level of growth.

With a light economic calendar including a lot of old data and an FOMC meeting, the choice of focus for pundits is obvious. Investors might well wonder what new information about the Fed might be available, but that won’t stop the speculation. Pundits will be asking:

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.

Although many Health Technology Sector companies have significantly outperformed the market on a long-term basis, they have significantly underperformed the market since the beginning of 2015.

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.

The value of negative-yielding bonds around the world has ticked up to more than $9.32 trillion. Although still below the 2016 high, this indicates that investors fear global economic growth is slowing. Is this gold’s time to shine?

European equities are the great unloved asset class. But Dylan Ball, head of European Equity Strategies, Templeton Global Equity Group, thinks that status means there should be some opportunities to be found for long-term investors.

Emerging market equities saw mixed performances in February, with stocks in Asia faring better than stocks in Latin America and emerging Europe, which underperformed.

When Donald Trump was campaigning, he said he would eliminate the national debt in eight years. But it has increased by $2 trillion in the first two years of his presidency, leading Jeffrey Gundlach to conclude that we are “on the road to a large debt problem.”

We favor Asian high yield over investment grade credits in spite of historical higher volatility since we view valuations as more attractive, particularly compared with U.S. high yield and emerging market peers.

Fourth-quarter volatility expanded the opportunity set for those looking for a deal.

We have an important calendar with employment and housing news. Some important market worries have been avoided, at least for a time. What is behind the rebound in stocks.

Economic data releases that were delayed due to the partial government shutdown, including fourth quarter Gross Domestic Product, have been rolling in.

The current stock bull market, already the longest in U.S. history, turns 10 years old this month. It’s been a phenomenally profitable time to participate, especially if you’ve stuck to an investment strategy that favors dividend-paying stocks.