Our sales manager is starting to implement more stringent requirements around how many calls we have to make each day and how many meetings we have to have in order to plan a trip. He wants to weave results into our bonus program.
Stocks have ripped higher to start the year and “melt-up” has become a popular descriptor; but it’s time to judge whether the flame’s too hot.
“You’ve Got Mail” is a 1998 romantic comedy-drama starring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. The film is about two people involved in an online romance who are unaware that they are also business rivals. In this morning missive, however, we are not referring to the movie, but rather some recent emails we have received.
Whether you’re investing in cannabis directly on a company-by-company basis or using some of the many commingled investment vehicles available, advisors need to know the right questions to ask in their due-diligence process.
Owners of privately held businesses face unique challenges – most importantly, weighing how the sale of their company will affect their financial future and life style. Advisors are eminently qualified to help evaluate those decisions.
New York City will be the first city to divest from fossil fuels for its pension plans. The question is what does divestment mean? And what does divestment look like at the portfolio level?
David Enrich’s The Spider Network is an engaging chronicle of how employees of financial companies conspire to move LIBOR and its offshoots by small amounts for the sole purpose of benefiting derivatives traders who profited from the moves. The book implicitly raises a key question for the financial industry, indeed for the entirety of capitalism: Is there an ethical code that must be followed, apart from and beyond the requirements of the law; or is all that is necessary to be ethical merely to adhere to the law?
Disruption was definitely top of mind during many of the presentations and interviews at Inside ETFs, including that of producer and composer Quincy Jones, who was at the conference to promote a new stock index that tracks music and entertainment companies
U.S. stocks may have entered a melt-up phase but for now it is relatively well supported by earnings growth; and although sentiment is extended, behavioral measures indicate still some skepticism. However, given elevated valuations, and the aforementioned overly optimistic sentiment, volatility is likely to increase and more frequent pullbacks are possible. The bull should continue to run, but likely with a bit more drama, so it’s important to stay diversified and disciplined around your long-term asset allocation.
The year was 1963, the singer was Lesley Gore, and the song was “It’s My Party.” Clearly, that song seems appropriate given the government shutdown over the weekend. Indeed, “It’s My Party” and the blame rests with both parties in the political equation.
In a year when the S&P 500 hit all-time highs, gold also held strong, finishing 2017 up 13.5 percent, according to the World Gold Council. Gold’s annual gain was the largest since 2010, outperforming all major asset classes other than stocks.
The “big three” discount brokers use sales incentives to get their advisors to gather assets and push certain products.
If you lapse into a lecture about the overwhelming evidence supporting passive investments, remember you might as well be showing the prospect an article about bird feeding.
In their first-quarter (Q1) 2018 outlook, K2 Advisors’ Research and Portfolio Construction teams believe favorable dispersion has created reasons for optimism in three main hedge-fund strategies: Long/Short Equity – Europe, Relative Value and Discretionary Macro. We believe offering these insights will help investors better understand the rationale for owning retail mutual funds that invest in hedge strategies.
At the beginning of every year, a number of investment professionals at Thornburg voluntarily place their informal, internal-only bets on which three securities—from stocks to currencies or other financial assets—might together produce the best beta-adjusted returns in the year ahead.
In this far-reaching interview, Jack Bogle comments on the future of index funds, argues that the value premium has been arbitraged away and attacks publicly-held mutual fund companies.
I introduce an investment benchmark that simplifies the tracking process toward goals, which if achieved, provide certitude that one’s long-term objectives will be met.
At the beginning of every year, we update what’s typically one of our most popular pages, the Periodic Table of Commodity Returns. I encourage you to explore 10 years’ worth of data on basic materials such as aluminum, zinc and everything in between. A word of warning, though—the interactive feature makes the table highly addictive.
Emerging markets and commodities present the best investment opportunities for this year, according to Jeffrey Gundlach. Those to avoid include the S&P 500, which he claims will show a loss for 2018. His larger warning was that most of the good news on the economic front is already priced into the capital markets.
Much has been written recently about the yield curve. It is espoused that the flattening yield curve is telegraphing the potential of a recession in the not too distant future.
I believe these forces behind the fear trade will only intensify in 2018. With inflation finally showing green shoots and President Donald Trump’s $1.5 trillion tax reform law expected to increase deficit spending, this year could provide the right conditions to spur gold prices higher.
As we head into the New Year, I want to share with you the five most popular Frank Talk posts of 2017. One common theme you’ll see in these posts is they all center on the topic of gold. Although we specialize in educating investors about gold and managing gold funds, it’s worth noting that our gold posts garnered more interest than our bitcoin and blockchain posts in this year of cryptocurrency craze.
The FCC’s roll-back of net-neutrality regulation sparked intense political debate about how the internet should be governed, in particular how ISPs handle and price content transmission. But the internet’s rapid evolution, the ISPs vertical integration into content, the bargaining power of the tech and media giants and anticipated 5G investment returns largely supersede regulatory shifts.
Mexican asset prices reflect current and potential economic and political risks. But a likely turn in the country’s economic cycle makes for a potentially attractive entry point for longer-term investors, and the financial sector may soon benefit.
In 1981, The Leuthold Group was founded by the sagacious Steve Leuthold. It is an independent stock/economic research firm that produces disciplined, quantitative financial and contrarian financial research for investors. The research team is led by CIO Doug Ramsey, who is one of Wall Street’s best and brightest.
I compare the performance of the Vanguard LifeStrategy Moderate Growth Fund (VSMGX), which holds static investments of 60% equity and 40% bond funds, with a model holding identical assets, but which switches to 100% bond funds during equity down-market periods.
US stocks will likely rise in 2018. By how much is anybody's guess: the standard deviation of annual returns is too wide to get even close to a correct estimate on a consistent basis. Earnings growth implies 6% price appreciation, but tax cuts could boost that to 13%.
2017 turned out to be a better year for the stock market than most investors surmised. For 2018, we yet again see investors avoiding one of the longest post-war bull markets in history and continuing to ignore the fundamentals driving markets higher.
The field of Behavioral Finance took a great leap forward in 2017, as the Nobel prize was awarded to Richard Thaler for his work. Philosophically, we know Behavioral Finance is important, but there is a method for advisors to integrate it into their practice and prove value to their clients.
We have used the aforementioned quip from our departed friend Jerry Goodman (aka Adam Smith) a number of times over the past 47 years because of the wisdom it imparts. We dredged it up this morning after reading an article in Barron’s over the weekend titled, “Man and Machine,” which was an interview with Omar Selim, the CEO of Arabesque Asset Management, a quantitative and sustainable investment management firm.
Since the global financial crisis, inflation in the advanced economies has persistently undershot their 2% targets despite unprecedented quantitative easing (QE), extraordinarily low interest rates, large fiscal deficits and near all-time low unemployment.
On December 2, Senate Republicans managed to obtain enough votes to pass sweeping US tax reform legislation, but with several changes compared with the original House of Representatives' bill. At more than 470 pages, the "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act" is certainly not a light read. But, it has some important implications for individuals and corporations, for better or worse in some cases.
Emerging markets have benefitted from both improving fundamentals and bullish sentiment driving inflows to the asset class. Individual country risks, however, are poised to rise. Be selective.
So, we are now in the ebullient month of December and as often stated, “It is tough to put stocks away to the downside in December. It can happen, but it’s pretty rare.” In fact, there were only two years that saw negative returns for the S&P 500 (SPX/2642.22) in December.
Lately, investors have been focused on headlines about China’s twice-a-decade congress reshuffling, looking for signs of leadership changes to come in the world’s second-largest economy. But a different kind of leadership change in China is well underway – and investors should take note.
Robert Penn Warren (April 1905 – September 1989) was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic who once said, “History cannot give us a program for the future, but it can give us a fuller understanding of ourselves, and of our common humanity, so that we can better face the future.”
The volume of daily economic lunacy that lights up my various devices is truly stunning, and it seems to be increasing. I shared a little of it with you in last week’s “Bonfire of the Absurdities.” Since it’s a holiday weekend and I was traveling all week, today I’ll just give you a few more absurdities to ponder. And this shorter letter will lighten your weekend reading load.
Charles Merrill issued the aforementioned memo to clients on March 31, 1928. At the end of the first quarter in 1928 the D-J Industrial Average was around 240. It subsequently rose to a September 3, 1929 peak of 381.17, which was the price peak for the Industrials that would not be surpassed until 1954, not that we are predicting anything like that here.
Neil Hennessy is a portfolio manager and chief investment officer at Hennessy Funds. In this interview, he discusses the compelling opportunities in mid-cap and Japanese stocks, and what RIAs should be doing in advance of the next market correction.
This week’s letter will take a look at the growing number of ridiculous, inane, and otherwise nonsensical absurdities that fill the daily economic headlines. I have gone from the occasional smile to scratching my head now and then to “WTF” moments several times a week.
Growth in the country's corporate debt load has finally leveled off this year as financial conditions and regulatory oversight tighten. That's good. But rebounding returns on incremental assets and common equity are even better.
We have always liked the clip from the movie Animal House where in the “Deltas on Trial” scene the smooth talking Eric “Otter” Stratton get up and says, “Point of parliamentary procedure.” From there Otter goes on a diatribe ending with the comment, “Isn’t this an indictment of our entire American society?
John Stoltzfus, chief investment strategist at Oppenheimer Asset Management, explains his top-down view of markets, the economy and asset allocation.
How we’re positioning muni portfolios for turbulence – and the opportunities it may create.
When you write about economics, you learn very quickly that the economy doesn’t care what you say about it. The forces that drive it are beyond any one person’s comprehension, much less control. But at the same time, the economy doesn’t work like a law of nature. Unlike gravity, for instance, the economy responds to human choices and preferences. We influence it, even if we don’t understand exactly how.
In the latest edition of “Global Macro Shifts,” the Templeton Global Macro team examines the plans to start shrinking the US Federal Reserve’s (Fed’s) balance sheet and the potential impacts to financial markets.
Economic dislocations, regulatory shifts or intense competition can change the market dynamics confronting big, and at times unwieldy, conglomerates. They often force corporate restructurings that can result in more effective capital allocation and returns for investors who recognize promising new strategies amid the prevailing market pressures.
Global CIO Jeff Hussey discusses why we believe having a clear view of your portfolio—with detailed, real-time knowledge down to the street level—is essential in today's market environment.
So I am sittin’ on a dock of the bay here in Boca Raton Florida watchin’ the tide roll away as I wait to speak at a conference of insurance CEOs and CFOs. I have spoken at this annual event for the past 10 years, and it is always a “gas” because the attendees are terrific people.
At least for tax-advantaged investors, dividends are irrelevant: They are neither good nor bad in terms of forward-looking return expectations. Therefore, while there is no reason to exclude dividend-paying stocks, focusing solely on them leads to less diversified (less efficient) portfolios.
