Among the 20 largest US-listed corporate DB sponsors, General Electric Company ended 2018 with the third lowest funded ratio at 75.6%.¹ This is a precipitous decline from 2007, when their funded ratio was the third highest among this group at 129.1%. Over that time period – when the average funded ratio dropped about 20 percentage points - GE's dropped by over 50 percentage points.¹ How did this happen?
Neither my company nor I are long or short Tesla shares. Why don’t we own it?
We focus on fundamentals such as moving averages and standard deviation. We follow leading indicators such as the purchasing manager’s index (PMI) and consumer confidence index. These factors are many times more effective than the headline news at shining a light on the right path.
Trade, geopolitics, and emerging markets were top of mind at the recent annual meetings
What’s the value of niche marketing? Does it limit you and make you more narrowly focused than you should be?
The venture capital industry has created a robust pipeline of new public companies, but in our view discipline is the key to finding the best opportunities.
Negative interest rates are nothing short of a mystery; they’re likely to throw off whatever we knew about the financial world and how things worked in the past. With more than $17 trillion of global debt trading at nominal yields below zero — and about double when considering inflation — this phenomenon has prompted differing perspectives about its purpose and consequences. Howard Marks offers his in this memo, in which he discusses why negative rates have become prevalent, what implications they might have, whether they will reach the U.S., and what investors can do as they navigate these uncharted waters.
Deep U.S.-China divisions make a ‘phased’ deal our best hope for trade progress.
The primary purpose of this article on the importance of forecasting the future results of a business is offered to illustrate the conceptual validity of forecasting earnings (and every other metric) as the key to long-term investor success.
As the world transitions to a future with greater power demand, investors have the ability to capitalize on this future energy story. At Tortoise, we believe The Teal Energy Deal is the fastest, least expensive and most realistic way to reduce global carbon emissions.
The United Nations-supported PRI has made strides in changing the global attitude to responsible investing.
Tourism has traditionally helped peace and understanding spread across borders, and we’re hopeful that it will do the same today. It’s also good for commerce, especially for airlines and the travel industry in general.
Read the latest Weekly Headings by CIO Larry Adam.
Exploring the survey that is the current cause for concern.
With a resurfacing in trade tensions and persistent economic uncertainties, investors should prepare for further volatility.
As investors, we can learn a great deal from the past about the businesses we are contemplating investing in. However, as investors, we must also recognize that we can only truly invest in the future.
In this issue, Research Affiliates discusses why its contrarian philosophy may add value over the long term and how the growing likelihood of a global economic slowdown is affecting positioning.
Dale Carnegie targeted business people, correctly believing that they would be the main beneficiaries of his offerings. Let me lay out some of his most important concepts that can help advisors win business.
As the People’s Republic of China (PRC) celebrates its 70th anniversary, manufacturing data shows that factories in the world’s second largest economy improved marginally in September, despite the impact of the ongoing U.S.-China trade war.
Though many market-influencing variables remain in play, the S&P 500 neared all-time high levels in September.
Bouts of volatility hit markets across the globe in the third quarter of 2019 amid continued uncertainties about global growth and trade. Central banks took notice, with the US Federal Reserve easing interest rates for the first time in more than a decade and the European Central Bank also cutting rates and reintroducing quantitative easing.
Quarterly commentary giving an overview of the markets and the importance of having and implementing a strategy when investing in the markets.
When Carl Gugasian of Dewey, Cheatham & Howe rates Bianchi Corp. a “Strong Buy,” whose interest is that in? We dig into the conflict between WallStreet and You.
Rick Rieder and Russ Brownback highlight their view that effective monetary and fiscal policy in the 21st Century needs to draw not only traditional economic theory, but also from the lessons of finance and other disciplines.
America is no longer great, according to two prominent economists. In a new book, they present a compelling argument that the U.S. is rapidly losing its technology edge to China. The culprit is a lack of public investment in research and development, something not easily remedied.
I'll drill down into who are the world’s wealthiest people, where they live, where they went to school and other characteristics.
History shows that presidential impeachments have had minimal impact on markets. We believe there are bigger risks to consider, including a potential German recession and record global debt. Against this background, gold can help improve a portfolio’s risk-adjusted returns.
Amid rising concerns over global economic growth and trade tensions, central banks across the globe are once again turning to interest rate reductions to help bolster growth. As a result of this unprecedented monetary easing, the spread between the performance of Japanese growth and value stocks has widened to levels not seen in recent years.
In a nutshell, we concluded that the global economy is about to enter a low-growth “window of weakness,” which we expect to persist going into 2020 with heightened uncertainty about whether it is a window to recovery or recession.
Climate change is a risk for the global economy.
Elga explains why we could see lower growth and higher inflation ahead in the U.S. Hint: trade tensions.
Fintech can bring tremendous benefits to emerging markets but mimicking China’s success in the space might be unwise.
An industry veteran—and slacker—shares his perspective on reaching and communicating with Generation X clients.
Most advisors are making life painful by sacrificing depth of client relationship for volume. Consider the “70 deep” model.
While the clear majority of mutual funds provide daily liquidity, it's not guaranteed. This is why understanding the potential risks to liquidity is key.
Why listed infrastructure? Let’s follow the logic chain: Equity-market volatility, low fixed-income yields and increased economic uncertainty all stand as potential stumbling blocks that threaten to derail even the best-laid of plans.
Private equity investing has created enormous wealth for those fortunate to be the general partners of a fund. But for regular investors – the limited partners – recent studies show that when properly adjusted for risks PE returns lag those of the less risky public markets. Moreover, there is little evidence that investors can identify, in advance, the very few PE funds that will outperform.
Interest rates are falling and with that comes a series of problems investors must confront. There are the obvious implications, like lower returns from bonds. But the more pernicious harm will come from thee failure to properly adapt financial plans to current market conditions.
There are a number of lessons investors can learn from the sensation that is the Popeyes chicken sandwich. One of those lessons is that people often put a premium on scarcity.
Two decades after inception, the eurozone countries’ arranged marriage-type of union looks shaky at best, and now it is even more challenged by ongoing, global disruptive forces.
Is “invest” the right word to describe an asset that when held to maturity guarantees a loss of capital?
I think the last few weeks marked a turning point in the economic narrative. It’s more than the trade war. A sense of vulnerability is replacing the previous confidence—and with good reason. We are vulnerable, and we’ll be lucky to get through the 2020s without major damage.
There have been some noteworthy recent changes in the composition of two broad emerging market indexes that have investors taking notice.
So far, with his flashy lifestyle, the US president has been a resounding inspiration to many consumers and investors. But his personal narrative is unlikely to survive an economic downturn, because people pull back during such periods and reassess their views and the stories they find believable.
Events of the last several weeks have not changed our long-term outlook, but we have become a bit more cautious in the short term.
It doesn’t appear that the U.S. has entered a recession yet, or even that one is imminent—although start dates to recessions typically aren’t known until we’re looking in the rear-view mirror.
Read our key takeaways from our 2019 Asset Allocation Midyear Update, including how we are positioning multi-asset portfolios in light of our outlooks for the global economy and markets.
Here are the types of clients who are the most interested in establishing DAFs.
