Summary If it keeps on rainin’.  It was nearly a century ago when the Great Mississippi Flood resulted in one of the most destructive and costly natural disasters in U.S. history.  One wonders whether another flood is threatening to break across the U.S. banking system and the broader economy today. Mean old levee.  Over the last two months, we’ve seen the failure … Read More

Summary I recently had the opportunity to attend a two-day conference in Sarasota, Florida hosted by the Global Interdependence Center.  The topic was Cryptocurrency and the Future of Global Finance.  Given that it included some of the leading research and analysts on cryptocurrencies along with an address from Federal Reserve Board of Governors member Christopher Waller, the event provided a substantive … Read More

The stock market has been remarkably resilient so far in 2023 despite a steady stream of challenging news.  Whether it has been persistently high inflation readings, a Federal Reserve continuing to raise interest rates longer and farther than expected, a set of sudden bank failures, or the lingering threat of arguably the most anticipated economic recession in history, the U.S. … Read More

Summary It has been a recently tough stretch for traditional asset allocation strategies.  Prior to the start of last year, an investor with a long-term time horizon seeking to manage risk in the short run could capture the appreciation potential of stocks while offsetting the potential downside by blending in a meaningful allocation to bonds.  While such an approach had … Read More

Meet the new bank crisis. NOT the same as the old bank crisis.  This is not the Great Financial Crisis II.  It’s not the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management in 1998.  It’s not the Great Depression either.  A lot of what is taking place today has some rhymes with various past episodes, but we are charting new territory with new lessons … Read More

Let’s trace the hints and check the file.  You’ve got to hand it to the U.S. stock market.  The U.S. Federal Reserve keeps throwing monetary policy haymakers, and the S&P 500 takes the hits in stride.  The cooling of inflationary pressures has ground to a halt, and in some respects pricing pressures are reaccelerating, yet U.S. stocks are largely unfazed.  … Read More

Summary After a blazing start to 2023, the U.S. stock market has cooled in recent weeks.  Looking ahead to the upcoming spring, the path of least resistance for stocks appears to be to the downside.  For while the underlying economy has remained solid in the face of aggressive monetary tightening from the U.S. Federal Reserve, this resilience in large part … Read More

Thinking about where to invest your money can be overwhelming and confusing, especially for those who are unfamiliar with all options for investing. If you’d like to take advantage of the ease of stock trading with the diversification of mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) can give you the best of both worlds. Here are some key things to know about … Read More

Summary Capital markets remain turbulent as we make our way through the early months of 2023. Thus, the priority to manage investment risk through broad portfolio diversification remains as important as ever. And gold is an allocation that has distinctive characteristics in this regard. Doing Its Own Thing. One of the keys that differentiates gold from a portfolio diversification perspective is … Read More

Summary The latest reading on inflation was released on Tuesday morning.  On the surface, the report for the month of January seemed generally unmoving.  The annual rate of inflation did not come down as much as expected, but it still edged lower.  And this latest pricing data was not nearly as bad as some market watchers feared heading into the … Read More