The market over the last 10 years was built up largely on the back of growth-tech stocks. The FAANG stocks ended up an awful lot like a teenager hitting a massive, early, growth spurt. Participants in the market were ecstatic at the rate of growth and the benefits.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell used the “patient” word again last week. He also added new words that the Fed can “wait and watch” before raising rates again. And he added another new word, that whenever interest rate increases resume, they will be “gradual.” The stock markets loved it!
2018 will be broadly remembered as a year when nothing worked and daily stock market volatility spiked. This contrasted with 2017 where seemingly everything pushed higher, and volatility was low. But in 2018, nearly every single asset class and all but one major stock market index (Brazil) around the globe posted negative returns.
Whether you follow a systematic approach to growth or are looking for an “easy button,” growth hacks are a path that any practice, team or individual advisor can leverage.
In the famous book, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde were one human being with a split personality. Dr. Jekyll healed people and Mr. Hyde murdered them. This economic environment and the U.S. stock market have the same kind of split personality.
Despite representing about one-eighth of global equity market capitalization, and despite the attractive valuations and growth prospects, the vast majority of U.S. investors have portfolios that dramatically underweight emerging market stocks. Here’s why that is a costly mistake.
The difference between base (mandatory or essential) and discretionary (voluntary or non- essential) expenses in retirement is fundamental and consequential. Properly making this distinction may be the most important decision in order to use assets efficiently and effectively in retirement income planning.
Low Volatility and Quality offer potential benefits in stressed markets.
I was digging through some old charts over the weekend and stumbled across this gem from AlphaTrends which explains the “best time to buy stocks.”
Some advisors fail to highlight the difference between expense categories and claim that clients do not see food, shelter, insurance differently than country club dues or vacation cruises, hence the expense categories are combined and called ‘lifestyle expenses’. In our view, this is a distortion of affluence.
Free from a house view on economies, markets or stocks, J O Hambro CapitalManagement’s (JOHCM) fund managers invariably see the world in different ways. We asked a number of our managers for their thoughts on the outlook for their asset class next year, what they would like to see and the possible surprises that 2019 could bring.
In September, this year looked like it was going to be one of the great years for the Ten Surprises. Oil was at $75 (West Texas Intermediate) and the S&P 500 was at 2,940. The Surprises had oil at $80 and the S&P at 3,000. The Ten Surprises are judged on whether they work out at some point during the year, not where they are at year-end.
Amazon recently announced that they are combing through the list of things they warehouse and sell to determine which items “can’t realize a profit” (C.R.a.P.).1 We found it very interesting how they are determining which items to pare from their website list.
Which blog posts generated the most interest from readers in 2018? We wrap up the year with a look back at our favorites.
The truth about water shortage isn't that we either have it or we don't. It's not an either/or proposition. In fact, it is much more complex than that. One of the greatest challenges the globe faces today is both the scarcity of and access to one of its most valuable commodities.
Today, we’ll address several things, so think of this as my year-end “Quick Shots from the Frontline.” It will be more like a personal, from the heart, fireside chat. (Trigger warning: I will be taking off my politically correct gloves. Naming names and pointing fingers. Just Uncle John telling it like it is.)
The Fed opted to buck a broadening outcry for a pause and raised rates 25 basis points; while offering a slightly more dovish statement and lowered economic projections.
Last Monday, Jeff Gundlach, famed bond fund manager and CIO of Doubleline, made an interesting comment during an interview with CNBC when he stated that the 10-year Treasury yield would top 6% by 2020 or 2021. 6% would be the highest yield since 2000.
Investors’ obsession with the flattening U.S. Treasury yield curve dominated headlines for much of 2018. A flattening yield curve occurs when short-term rates are rising faster than long-term rates, which may eventually lead to an inverted yield curve, where short-term rates are higher than long-term rates. Historically, this has been a negative signal for the U.S. economy, often providing an early warning of an eventual recession, which is why the yield curve has been garnering so much attention recently.
Gold is back! So far this quarter, the yellow metal has crushed the market, returning around 6 percent versus negative 15 percent for the S&P 500 Index. Gold miners, though, have been the top performer, climbing a phenomenal 12.3 percent.
I am going to offer some different thoughts than the mainstream media spin on Jerome Powell, his press conference, and the Federal Reserve.
The business case for diversity is compelling, but the investment case for diversity is less clear-cut. We suggest, therefore, that investors who seek to promote diversity and its business benefits combine diversity with known drivers of excess returns.
Read Harold Evensky's most recent NewsLetter.
See what themes may impact global markets in the new year from Invesco Global Market Strategist Kristina Hooper and her team.
The chief goal of society should be to maximize wealth, according to Tyler Cowen. Pursuing that goal has delivered everything from nutritious and abundant food, to air conditioning and smartphones in the developed world, and those benefits are spreading rapidly to the developing world. The challenge is how societies can embrace and implement that goal. If those challenges are overcome, the benefits to globally diversified equity investors will be substantial.
Josh Shores serves as a principal and director of Southeastern Asset Management, Inc. He is a manager of the Longleaf Partners International Fund (LLINX). In this interview, he discusses why the biggest, broadest and deepest opportunity set for investing is outside the U.S.
We see a synchronized global slowdown in 2019. We position cautiously but anticipate opportunities ahead.
An inverted U.S. Treasury yield curve has historically been a telltale sign of a looming recession for the U.S. Does the recent curve flattening spell trouble for the U.S. economy?
After talking with hundreds of advisors and interacting online with thousands more, I’ve identified five ominous challenges the profession will face and trends it will need to adapt to in the coming year.
Our senior investment leaders see plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the year ahead, but recognize investment opportunities may be more divergent.
The key phrase in Fed Chairman Powell’s speech to the Economic Club of New York was widely misinterpreted by thefinancial press and, in turn, the markets. That’s not unusual. The markets don’t do nuance. Stock market participants were likelylooking for an excuse to rally.
Senior Economist Ryan Boyle looks at how America accumulated so many student loans, and how best to deal with them going forward.
Old Big Red sprung a leak a while back. Many of you are familiar with Big Red, but there are a few of you who might need an introduction. Big Red is my 18-year-old Chevy Silverado 2500 HD. I realize this may not be the type of vehicle driven by the majority of bankers, money managers, financial advisors, or brokers...
We've managed client assets in floating-rate corporate loan strategies since 1989. Our longest-running fund will surpass its 30-year mark in 2019. Along the way, we've developed deep expertise in this asset class. Today we manage more than $45 billion in floating-rate corporate loan assets, for clients all around the globe and in every discernible delivery format.
Here are some ideas for meeting prospects in a transient setting such as an airport, bus terminal, train station, doctor’s office, Starbucks coffee lounge, etc.
Like cranberry growers, many bitcoin miners are choosing to limit supply as current prices are lower than operating costs. Bitcoin fell below $5,000 on Monday and was trading around $4,250 on Friday. The average of mining a single bitcoin, meanwhile, is estimated to be between $6,000 and $7,000, meaning miners are operating at a loss.
Our long-time readers are aware that we analyze the U.S. stock market through the prism of what we call “well-known facts.” A well-known fact is a body of economic information which is pretty much known to all market participants and has been acted on by almost everyone with available capital.
The World Trade Organization plays a crucial role in global trade. How essential is it, and what can we expect as trade tensions rise?
Two recent research studies upended the conventional wisdom about why advisors lose clients – one an internal study by a large investment firm, the second a research report from the consulting firm Accenture.
Volatility returned and pulled markets across the globe into the red. Slowing growth momentum outside the U.S. further weighed on sentiment. Political developments from Latin America to Europe were a source of both uncertainty and assurance for markets.
Today we’ll look at a new book by Ray Dalio called Principles for Navigating Big Debt Crises in which he examines those debt cycles and what we can do about them.
Corporate bonds offer incredibly poor prospects under any scenario, according to Jeffrey Gundlach. If rates rise, prices will drop quickly because their durations are between 7 and 10 years. Falling rates are no better, he said, because they would be accompanied by a bear market in stocks with effects that would extend to corporate bonds.
October brought a significant increase in market volatility and a broad equity sell-off to match the late-January through early-February move lower.
As I have pointed out previously, the U.S. is currently running a nearly $1 Trillion dollar deficit during an economic expansion. This is completely contrary to the Keynesian economic theory.
Democrats took the House of Representative. Republicans held the Senate. What should investors expect from the US midterm election outcome? In the way of policy, not much. But the new political landscape may be good for markets.
This week, we evaluate the potential near-term futures of nationalism, inflation, demographic shifts, emerging markets and the effects of prosperity. What trends can we expect to encounter?
Let’s be clear. October’s market decline was a rather mild warning shot. At its lowest close, the S&P 500 lost -9.9% from its September peak, before rebounding in recent sessions. As I noted during the 2000-2002 and 2007-2009 collapses, intermittent “fast, furious, prone-to-failure” rebounds are among the factors that encourage investors to hold on through the entirety of major declines.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and automation present enormous investment opportunities, some in ways we don’t even know yet. As the world adapts to technological advances, Franklin Templeton Emerging Markets Equity’s Sukumar Rajah and Eric Mok think some promising developments in Asia could dictate the pace of change in the burgeoning AI market.
Harold Evensky's latest newsletter.
Because of the risk of data mining, an important criterion for considering an investment strategy (such as a factor) is to not only see that a factor adds explanatory power to the cross section of returns while delivering a premium, but that the premium is persistent across time and economic regimes and is pervasive around the globe. By examining the performance of factors outside of the U.S., we create out-of-sample tests.
