Skip to main content

Blog

We routinely publish news, information and insights to keep our clients informed while also deepening their understanding of a variety of wealth management topics.

Investor or Speculator – Which Are You?

By Blog

Speculative manias are incredibly difficult to navigate without injury. For every millionaire produced by the technology bubble of the late 1990’s, there are countless stories of people losing their life savings or worse. Fast-moving markets that are well beyond any reasonable assessment of fair value can reverse course without warning, reason, or sympathy for the investors who don’t have the good fortune to exit the game before the music stops. This is the problem with speculation: because, like moths to a flame, we’re attracted to those assets that are rapidly going up in price and garnering enthusiastic praise, there is…

Read More

Are the Magnificent Seven Stocks a Blessing or a Curse?

By Blog

A feature of late-stage bull markets is the dominance of large cap companies.  Coming out of recessions, small companies are seen to be more nimble, able to take faster advantage of the conditions present after the excesses of the economy have been painfully cleared.  Before too long mid-sized companies start to come into their own, and then finally large companies start to swing around, like oil tankers making a big turn.  The advantage being nimble has eventually gives way in a maturing economy to sheer scale – big companies tend to dominate later stages of the economic cycle, with the…

Read More

Winning on the Downside

By Blog

In the earliest days of the United States, tender and weakened from the 7 years of fighting to free itself from England, the debts acquired to fund the Revolutionary War had piled up with only troublesome methods of repayment left as options.  Many who supported independence from England did so because they did not like paying the taxes England had levied, so raising money through taxes was not an attractive option for the newly minted Treasury.  Issuing currency to pay those debts was also tricky, as with a mostly barter economy back then, any kind of liquidity injected into the…

Read More

The “Risk-Free” Domino

By Blog

We’ve long scoffed at the term “risk-free” when referring to U.S. government bonds as there have been countless times when they’ve fluctuated in value well beyond what most would consider “risk-free”. Volatility tends to show up in anything that’s traded freely, in markets, by humans. However, the greater than 40% decline in long-dated U.S. government bond prices since the summer of 2020 has completely obliterated any remaining notion of U.S. sovereign debt being devoid of risk. There are really important lessons and implications to this bond implosion. First, the lessons: Lesson #1 No investment is risk-free. Anything that trades on…

Read More

Smart People Thinking the Same Way

By Blog

The only thing worse than a group of nitwits sharing silly ideas is a group of smart people all thinking the same way. The dullards are quickly discovered as such, but the smart people tend to command an undiscerning following. What’s also evident is that individual thinking tends to be more intelligent than intelligent people thinking together. The reason for this is groupthink. The assumption that because someone is intelligent, their thinking is sound and it’s this assumption that short-circuits others’ thinking. In this way, groups of highly intelligent people can give village idiots a good run for their money,…

Read More

Big Changes to the Federal Student Aid Process Starting this Fall

By Blog

In order for returning college students or incoming senior high school students to be eligible to receive federal financial aid, like Pell Grants, they need to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®) by the fall of the year BEFORE they are to attend college.  So, for anyone intending to attend college in the fall of 2024, they need to fill out a FAFSA form in 2023.  Normally, the soonest the forms can be accessed is October 1st of every year, but this year will see significant changes to the FAFSA forms and the access to those forms…

Read More

Sea Change

By Blog

It’s hard to grasp the significance of a situation that plays out one day at a time over years. Little changes happen periodically and intermittently that get us to a place that eventually looks and feels very different. But, because we were part of those changes along the way, we have to work to shake off the familiarity of the world around us and remember the one that existed before. And, if we reach the edges of our lived experiences, we may lean on historical record to paint an even broader, more objective picture. There are only a limited number…

Read More

Markets, Jobs, and AI, Oh My!

By Blog

Key Points: Economic growth is still slowing despite the talk of a “soft landing”. Given that inflation will likely pick up in the coming months, this creates an environment where the Fed and government can’t rescue markets like they have in the past (due to the risk of exacerbating inflation). The labor force is likely significantly weaker than the low unemployment rate would imply as evidenced by the dramatic rise in the number of disabled workers since 2021 and the negative productivity that exists within the economy. The end result is that economic output per unit of input is weak…

Read More

Market Update – Still a Bear Market!

By Blog

There are two environments where it’s most difficult for us as investors to keep our emotions in check and stick to our gameplan. First, when markets are falling and we’re fighting the urge to sell out at the worst possible time, and second, like right now, when markets seem to be moving relentlessly higher and we’re compelled to chase them. Of course, the important question is whether we’re in an environment that’s friend or foe to those markets we’re tempted to chase since the former would justify the risk-taking while the latter would eventually punish it. As always, the best…

Read More

Exiting Financial Repression

By Blog

A few months back, we wrote about the Bendy Road, which highlighted how the most prudent path forward for investors, in our opinion, wouldn’t be without some excitement along the way. After all, any worthwhile road trip must have its fair share of changing scenery and moments of exhilaration. There is rarely a straight, perilless path to anywhere worth going. After a fantastic start to the year for more economically defensive asset categories such as treasury bonds and precious metals, the month of May brought an inevitable pullback in prices that, although deeper than one would like, isn’t at all…

Read More