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Commodities

Investor or Speculator – Part II

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If you think about the last time we had widespread social strife and turmoil in the United States in tandem with expensive financial markets, your recollection will probably take you back to the sixties. Between anti-war protests, the civil rights movement, entitlement reform, and a re-tooling of criminal justice policies and laws, there was plenty of fodder for calm, dispassionate chats with friends and family. It’s probably no coincidence that this swell of activity came toward the end of a post-World War II economic expansion that brought economic comfort to many and stock markets to rather lofty heights. What followed,…

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Investor or Speculator – Which Are You?

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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…

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Lost In Speculation

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When someone gets lost, it doesn’t happen suddenly, nor does the realization of it. It’s a progression from being “not lost”, to being a little turned around, to getting somewhat concerned, more concerned, then officially lost. If one gets lost in the presence of their spouse, then there’s generally some debate about the issue along that progression. Throw in overconfidence, denial, blame, and eventually, if we’re lucky, maybe an admission of some responsibility for getting lost. We all know the feeling when it comes to being lost on the road. Most, if they’re being honest, know the feeling of being…

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2022 Asset Class Returns: Year in Review

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Toward the end of last year’s “Year in Review” piece I wrote: “You may be in the camp of investors that sees a year like this year as an opportunity lost as opposed to a sign that we have entered dangerous stock market times.”  2021 was one of those years where the US stock market outperformed most other investment categories by enough that it may have been easy for investors to assume there was less risk in the market than there really was at the end of last year. Unfortunately, to many investors’ surprise, 2022 came along and proved that,…

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Ask Cadence: Are you optimistic for 2021?

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Yes. 2021 has the potential to be a very interesting year for a host of reasons. First, the risks and uncertainties: Covid-19 – We just don’t know how quickly the majority of people will get vaccinated and subsequently get back to a more normal existence. In addition, there are unknowns in terms of new variants and the effect they will have on the number of infections and severity of illness. Most are assuming that some semblance of normalcy will return for the second part of this year, but we just don’t know how the course of events will play out…

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