We really like Rudyard Kipling’s line, “If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too;” and clearly “men” doubted us when on October 2 our short-term proprietary model flashed a sell signal and we subsequently advised selling trading positions.

Market updates from across the region.

The current widespread optimism about the US economy is largely justified, in our view, by its strong fundamentals, particularly the positive backdrop for consumers. Despite the economy’s robust growth, we do not view the recent rise in US Treasury yields as heralding the start of a major selloff across bond markets.

Bond holders can still find opportunities amid the tug of war between strengthening cyclical forces that usually produce inflation and powerful long-term trends—an aging population, technology’s impact on labor and the overhang of significant government debt—that are preventing the economy from overheating.

Asset price inflation (check). Financed by debt growth (check). We’ve spent the last three weeks reviewing Ray Dalio’s A Template for Understanding Big Debt Crises. I hope you found the insights as helpful as I did.

Factor investing, an investment approach which targets specific stock characteristics such as value or momentum, is becoming a stronghold of investor portfolios.

Long-term bond yields are rising amid positive economic data and rising inflation.

There is a light economic calendar with a focus on inflation data. This is timely given the growing fear about rising interest rates. While these reports have been benign in recent years, even a modest uptick could fuel concerns.

Emerging-market (EM) stocks fell in the third quarter and continued to diverge sharply from developed-market equities. While it may be too soon to buy into the weakness, investors should watch for signs that could herald a quick rebound.

Both the U.S. state of Illinois and the nation of Brazil suffer from fiscal deficits that have been years in the making. How can these trends be reversed, and will the upcoming elections for each government contribute to a solution?

According to a recent Cornerstone Macro report, the three most influential macro trends this year have been 1) the strengthening U.S. dollar, 2) the flattening yield curve and 3) slowing global manufacturing expansion.

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) account for much of the emerging market corporate debt universe, and with fundamentals weak relative to history, there are concerns about the impact of rising rates on these corporations. In a new GMO Emerging Debt Insights, Mustafa Ulukan explores these concerns.

We will describe why the conventional, instinctive approach to making investment manager choices generally leads to poor outcomes and how investors can be fooled by manager returns.

Richard Davis is the portfolio manager of the Maycrest Balanced Fund Strategy. Since its in inception on January 1, 2007 to August 31, 2018, the Maycrest Balanced Fund Strategy had an annualized return of 11.46% versus 8.36% for its benchmark, the S&P 500 Total Return Index, for an outperformance of 310 basis points. In this interview, Richard discusses his strategy and market outlook.

I’ve been getting lots of questions lately about the merits of owning TIPS versus nominal bonds. With that in mind, today I’ll discuss how to determine the more appropriate strategy.

The price of gold fell back below $1,200 an ounce again this week as the U.S. dollar advanced following another federal funds rate hike. It’s now set to log its sixth straight month of declines, its longest losing streak since 1989.

One of my favorite Warren Buffett quotes is “investing is most intelligent when it is most businesslike.” The reason this quote resonates so much with me is because I believe it represents the essence of value investing.

The idea for this memo came from the seven worst words in the investment world: “too much money chasing too few deals.”

I had the bittersweet privilege of attending Harold Evensky’s final presentation on investing. Evensky, who is by far the most decorated member of the advisory industry, is retiring and plans no further public talks.

We see growth slowing, but not an imminent recession. We invest accordingly.

In order to gauge the trajectory of this economy, it’s important to examine the data behind our recent growth and the price we're paying for it. It’s also important to look at whether growth will last into the third quarter of 2018 and examine the one significant factor that underlies real growth: wage revitalization.

There is currently little doubt that the U.S. and China are in a trade war, where retaliation begets retaliation. Conflicts with Mexico, Canada, and the European Union are effectively in a temporary ceasefire, but remain unresolved.

In case you couldn’t tell from the ubiquitous political ads and yard signs, midterm elections are right around the corner—46 days from now, to be exact. Historically, volatility has increased and markets have dipped leading up to midterms on uncertainty, but afterward they’ve outperformed.

Without Googling, try to guess who said the following quote: “If everybody indexed, the only word you could use is chaos, catastrophe. The markets would fail.” Give up?

We look at ways to de-risk, diversify and differentiate ahead of a turn in the economic cycle.

Hurricane Florence made landfall in North Carolina today, bringing with it destruction and calamity, the cost of which could top $170 billion, according to analytics firm CoreLogic. If so, that would make it the costliest storm ever to hit the U.S.

There is a big economic calendar competing with mid-term election campaign stories. The increase in hourly wages in the employment report offset some market enthusiasm about continuing job market strength. With inflation concerns on a hair trigger, expect special focus on this week’s PPI and CPI. The Beige Book and JOLTS report will also get pundit scrutiny.

One truism spanning the last three decades has been that emerging markets are a leveraged play on global growth – often outperforming when developed markets (DM) are growing but susceptible to sharp downturns when DM conditions are less favorable.

This week, I had the privilege to attend the Cornerstone Macro Conference in New York. Langone’s presentation, moderated by Omega Advisers CEO Lee Cooperman, stood out as one of the highlights.

There is a huge economic calendar in a holiday-shortened week. The mid-term elections impend, so politicians will be on the stump. With Labor Day setting the stage and the week loaded with key employment reports, expect plenty of attention to employment issues. Much of this will be confusing and unproductive spinning.

Current stock market capitalization is largely an artifact of speculative psychology, not reasonably discounted cash flows. Unless investors rely on eternal sunshine of the spotless mind – the assumption that current levels of extreme cyclical optimism will be permanent – they should not expect the associated valuation extremes to be permanent either.

Investors and advisors have become concerned about the possibility, if not the likelihood, of the Treasury yield curve inverting. The reason for the concern is that the slope of the yield curve historically has been a good recession predictor.

The months of July and August are traditionally a little quieter for markets in Europe as participants take a summer break. But things don't stop completely. As the wheels get back up to speed, David Zahn, Franklin Templeton's Head of European Fixed Income, considers a few developments in Europe over the summer months that might have slipped under the radar.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. A tale of two world leaders, U.S. president Donald Trump and China president Xi Jinping—both of whose countries have among the world’s best economies right now. But whereas Xi is playing Santa Claus to the rest of the world, doling out loans to finance-starved countries, Trump is playing Scrooge, waging an economic war with Canada, the European Union, China and others.

This week, as investors and economists fixate on record highs set by major stock market indices, they have ignored much more significant developments that emerged from the Federal Reserve's annual meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell delivered a speech that somehow was almost universally interpreted as a reiteration of his commitment to continue to raise rates throughout the next few years. "Steady as she goes" was the takeaway from just about any news outlet. But the Chairman's actual message was essentially the opposite of what the media reported.

Investors might be interested in this month’s alarming debt projections from the CBO, which beg the question: Is America’s near-vertical debt trajectory bullish or bearish for bond holders? Here’s my answer.

August 22 marked the longest period of rising share prices in US history. But the stock market's nine-year bull run won't last much longer, as three factors drive up long-term interest rates, reducing the present value of future corporate profits and providing investors with an alternative to equities.

Last week, we covered Turkey’s geopolitics and history. This week, we complete the series, starting with a discussion on Turkey’s economy with a focus on the changes brought by the Justice and Development Party (AKP), led by President Erdogan. We also examine how foreign debt affects Turkey’s economy and financial system, highlight the impact of the 2016 coup and analyze the causes of the current crisis in Turkey. From there, we discuss the debt problem and Turkey’s options for resolving the crisis. As always, we conclude with market ramifications.

Trade tensions have spooked investors in recent months, including those in India’s stock market. Franklin Templeton Emerging Markets Equity’s Sukumar Rajah weighs in on the positive economic fundamentals he and the team see, and why they think India’s equity market should be able to weather recent challenges.

Gold prices moved up close to 2 percent today, and gold stocks climbed even higher following comments from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. During his speech at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium, Powell reiterated the central bank’s commitment to raise interest rates gradually while the U.S. economy continues its strong performance.

The relative performance of small cap stocks is an important indicator of business fundamentals and market sentiment. We’ve recently noticed that the market has been sending mixed messages about size. Intrigued by these contrary signals, our curiosity prompted a closer look at the all-important size factor.

The US economy has continued to perform well on many fronts, with positive readings for growth, employment and inflation. In terms of growth, the stimulus effect from tax cuts was clearly visible in second-quarter 2018 data, and could be maintained for at least another quarter, in our view.

The current bull market in US stocks began on March 9, 2009 and tomorrow it will become the longest bull market in America’s history. The S&P 500 Index has advanced over 320% since its low in 2009. And most forecasters believe the market has further to run.

We have used the “Not Afraid” story many times over the past 48 years, but we dredged it up again this morning because of the many questions about “being afraid” we got in Boston two weeks ago and New York City last week.

For the first time in at least 40 years, there’s a fundamental economic reason that a yield curve near-inversion might notherald a recession.

My good friend Marc Lichtenfeld from the Oxford Club has always been savvy in following such strategies. I invite you to learn from his investment journey in this special Q&A.

Every summer for the past several decades, I have been organizing lunches for serious investors who spend at least part of their vacation time in eastern Long Island. Those attending include hedge fund wizards, real estate titans, corporate chiefs, thoughtful academics and a few others.

Munis may offer U.S. taxpayers key benefits as they contemplate the end of the economic expansion.

Japanese government bonds yield virtually zero. Yields on German bunds remain stuck below 50 basis points (bps). U.K. gilts yield only about 125 bps. Do non-U.S. bonds such as these hold any value to dollar-based investors?

The market remains in a narrow trading range, near the record highs. There have been some relatively minor leadership changes. This reflects not investor complacency, but intense disagreement about how to interpret data and events. Each viewpoint has a history, a philosophy, and problem something to sell!