Today I want to look at some aspects of GDP we rarely consider, thinking about how they affect our analysis and choices. But first, let’s talk about where GDP is now and where it may go in the near future.

A deep dive into the factors that brought inflation down and are keeping it low.

This time, it’s the riskier segments of the corporate credit market – not housing – that could trigger the next downturn.

Domestic stocks had a strong start to the year but soon ran into headwinds related to geopolitical risks in Iran and the Wuhan coronavirus.

With US equities trading at relatively high valuations, earnings growth will be essential for investors to generate returns in 2020. That’s a tall order in today’s environment. Finding standout companies with sustainable growth potential will be especially important.

The past decade has been one for the record books. There has been unprecedented change in almost every aspect of life including technology, transportation, politics, etc.

The U.S. Census is a vital research tool; the coronavirus is a vital risk.

You can build the best portfolio for your clients, but if they don’t stay invested, their chances of reaching their goals will be diminished.

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve concluded their January “FOMC” meeting and released their statement. Overall, there was not much to get excited about, as it was virtually the same statement they released at the last meeting. However, Jerome Powell made a comment which caught our attention...

Financial hardship often drive people to adopt views that were previously unthinkable. It is a very powerful behavioural pattern and has significant implications for financial markets. In this month’s Absolute Return Letter, we take a closer look at what it really means.

While it is impossible to predict the extent a virus can spread and have greater consequences than past epidemics, history indicates that the global economy and markets have been relatively immune to the effects of past epidemics. A key reason is that global health organizations are prepared for outbreaks and effective when mobilized.

Two topics seemed to dominate at this year’s Inside ETFs conference: the rise of ESG investing, and the emergence of so-called “nontransparent” ETFs. Both promise some big changes to financial markets.

Understand this. The more glorious this bubble becomes in hindsight, the more dismal future investment returns become in foresight. The higher the price investors pay for a set of future cash flows, the lower the return they will enjoy over time. Whatever they’re doing, it’s not “investment.”

The current drawdown has been by far the longest as well as the second largest since July 1963, eclipsed only by the tech bubble from 1997 to 2000. Arnott, Harvey, Kalesnik, and Linnainmaa examine the potential causes of value’s underperformance and provide estimates of value’s performance relative to growth’s performance under different revaluation scenarios over the next decade.

As much as we all crave it, asking for another year of continued economic growth and positive equity returns in 2020 may be too much.

In a recent piece, Bloomberg journalist Keith Naughton laid out a wonderful counter-argument to the consensus of opinions for what the future looks like. His piece, “Millennials Could End Up Being a Boon to the U.S. Auto Market,” talks about the good news of the auto businesses future via Benchmark analyst Mike Ward’s research.

New research confirms that stocks with high projected earnings growth underperform those with low projections. This anomaly is due to underlying behavioral biases that also explain why value has underperformed growth over the last decade – and why value is poised for a reversal.

Much has been written on measuring equity market valuations – but precious little on developing effective strategies to capitalize on the imbalances.

Conventional wisdom has long held that value stocks and growth stocks work in different ways, and therefore wouldn’t be found in the same mutual fund. In recent years it has become increasingly difficult to tell the difference between a value and growth manager’s portfolio.

As we have written several times over the last 10 years, inflation has been kept down by the twin forces of globalization and technology (particularly digital technology). These forces are not going away, and in fact, digital technology is becoming increasingly pervasive throughout the economy, dramatically increasing efficiency and lowering costs in industry after industry. We do not see this trend abating.

Ten charts illustrate the macroeconomic trends most likely to shape Fed policy and investment performance in 2020 and beyond.

Phase One: A limited deal is better than none.
Inequality: We can’t manage what we can’t measure.
Canada: Taking the lead with fiscal policy.

Because it’s the first of the 12 zodiacs, the Year of the Rat is seen as a time of beginnings and renewals. That brings us hope, especially paired with the recent positive development in the U.S.-China trade war.

The Federal Reserve doesn’t see the inflation others notice. Their data says inflation isn’t a problem, so they ignore indications otherwise. We see this in their policy decisions. And it’s not just the Fed; other central banks, Wall Street analysts, economists, and politicians have the same affliction.

Chief Economist Scott Brown discusses the latest market data.

The idea that interest rates directly affect stock prices is a commonly held belief among many investors. There are some that even go as far as to say that the only reason the stock market is up is because interest rates have been artificially kept low by the Fed.

Alongside pockets of weakness in credit markets come pockets of opportunity for active managers who focus on rigorous bottom-up research and careful credit selection.

The last decade produced great performance across most asset classes. But in the 2020s, we expect investment market returns will be lower and risk harder to manage. Looking forward, a disciplined multi-asset approach will be especially valuable to identify opportunities and help mitigate setbacks.

2019 proved to be a very strong year for almost all financial assets, as equities and bonds rallied in tandem. The Federal Reserve (the Fed) was compelled to play defense against a weaker global economy (particularly in Europe) and continued uncertainty related to the trade dispute between the U.S. and China.

Has passive investing helped drive the outperformance of mega-cap stocks?

Our definition of value is to buy meritorious companies at a significant discount to intrinsic value with a high margin of safety. Since doing this is more art than science, the margin of safety is important.

2019 was a very good year for investors. Surprisingly, both offensive and defensive sectors did well, which is a marked about-face compared with 2018. We believe this is mostly due to a central bank shift to policy easing, especially in the U.S., coupled with a relatively steady economy.

In this piece, let’s do what Batista should have done – spend a few minutes focusing on the “stay rich” part of the equation. If you’re an investor who has already amassed great wealth and “won the game” what’s the right market approach that will help you keep (and potentially even grow) your wealth?

Advisors can provide tax-planning services to grow their client base and provide more value to the people who trust them with their hard-earned money.

It has been a great year for equity investors. The S&P 500 index posted a 31% annual return, the Dow 25%, and the NASDAQ a spectacular 39%. More than $6T of equity paper wealth was created for domestic investors this year alone.

A strong economy will help U.S. consumers meet their financial resolutions in the new year, while residents of France and Australia have bigger worries.

Advisor Perspectives has announced its Venerated Voices™ awards for commentaries published in 2019.

Of all the arguments put forth by market pundits and talking heads about the coming end of the current bull market, the weakest is that it is “long in the tooth.” I get this argument, but it doesn’t make sense. Other bull markets have lasted far longer than this one.

Good things are happening, too, and will keep happening as we move through the 2020s. Occasionally I like to note them, and that’s what we will do today.

The problem with low interest rates for so long is they have encouraged the misallocation of capital. We see it everywhere throughout the entirety of the financial system from consumer debt, to subprime auto-loans, to corporate leverage, and speculative greed.

Tensions in the Middle East and North Africa have once again brought geopolitical risks to the forefront of oil markets.

As the worries mount, it’s worth addressing whether these concerns are truly warranted, or overblown to an extent. Let’s dive right in and tackle this, as well as look at how much of a handbrake such a high level of debt may have on Chinese growth.

Every year, the markets provide us with lessons on prudent investment strategies. Many times, markets offer investors remedial courses, covering lessons it had taught in previous years. That’s why one of my favorite sayings is that there’s nothing new in investing, only investment history you don’t yet know.

Central bank easing and the cooling China-U.S. trade war have set the scene for a global economic rebound in 2020. Our forecast pushes the risk of recession into late 2021, giving equity markets modest upside potential for 2020.

The many gloomy predictions for 2019 did not come to pass, but can we be more optimistic for 2020? Franklin Templeton Fixed Income CIO Sonal Desai draws the key lessons from last year and outlines what we should expect for the year ahead and her main concerns, with political uncertainty top of the list.

Despite Sauron and Einstein’s failed attempts at unified theory, 2019 was simply the tenth year whereby interest rates were low and went lower, credit remained both cheap and plentiful, the economy was “good enough,” and those who can print money re-dedicated themselves to a willingness to print money. The logical conclusion to this set of events is to buy and hold U.S. equities. Drop the mic—again.

Forget those fears of a global “Population Bomb” and worldwide famine which were made popular several decades ago. While the world’s population is still growing, birth rates in most developed nations are falling, including the United States.

What really is a bet? How does one make decisions under uncertainty and with imperfect information? In his latest memo, Howard Marks weaves his own life story to discuss the process of thinking in bets, parses the world of gambling, and draws parallels between investing and games of chance.

Foreign trade ends up being cleared through international money – a currency that the world accepts as final payment, even in places where it is not legal tender.

This is the year-end letter I sent to our clients. Feel free to adapt it for your own use.