Volatility has started to accelerate in the stock market, which has predictably led to higher anxiety levels.  Many market pundits will point to specific catalysts such as Syria, Ukraine and Ebola, but the reality is that many of these risks have also existed while the market has been rising.  Much of what is going on...Read More

On behalf of our Chief Investment Officer Tim Travis… Hello Everybody, For those of you that have followed me for a while, you likely know that there are few money managers that I regard as highly as Bruce Berkowitz of Fairholme Funds.  Similarly to T&T Capital Management, Berkowitz runs a focused portfolio and has no...Read More

Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi, the famous German mathematician from the 1800s, said “man muss immer umkehren” which translates to “invert, always invert.”  From my experience as an investment manager and as an ardent student of history, I’ve found that identifying the characteristics which make for unsuccessful investing can be just as helpful as identifying the...Read More

On behalf of our Chief Investment Officer Tim Travis… Hello Everybody, In today’s WSJ, there is an interesting article about the largest U.S. pension plan’s decision to exit their hedge fund portion of the portfolio.  The rationale behind the decision is that the hedge funds have underperformed the overall market and the costs are higher...Read More

Due to the Federal Reserve’s zero interest rate policy (ZIRP) and quantitative easing measures, retirees and savers find themselves with very few investment options for generating much needed income.  Conventionally, as people get closer to retirement or are indeed actually retired, financial advisors have recommended a shift towards income-generating investments such as bonds and annuities. ...Read More

On behalf of our Chief Investment Officer Tim Travis… Successful long-term investing often means finding a route quite different from the path of least resistance that the investing “herd” takes.  Wall Street and financial charlatans play on storylines, which can be sold to scared or perhaps naïve investors.  For instance, there was a tremendous volume...Read More

In an effort to stimulate the economy, the Federal Reserve has taken unprecedented steps and has indeed succeeded in generating some of the lowest interest rates in U.S. history, bolstering the housing market.  These efforts have been weighed down however, by government initiatives that have been heavy on regulation and low on job creation.  While...Read More

It is always amazing to me, how much of an emphasis most market participants put on market timing and newsletters promoting market timing.  This is highly damaging to long-term investment returns and is a primary reason why most market participants generally underperform the market averages.  There are reasons why most newsletter publishers are not billionaires,...Read More

Below are two interesting articles from today’s WSJ.  One discusses the fact that because stock prices in general are relatively expensive, but with bond yielding being so low, it is very possible that this type of range-bound market that we have seen this year could continue.  The second article discuss bond yields, which have just...Read More

  In the aftermath of the Great Recession, the biggest asset that is owned free and clear is often a 401K or IRA.  Unfortunately for investors, most of these 401Ks and IRAs are invested in cookie cutter mutual funds or ETFs, which stack the odds of even keeping up with the market against them.  Did...Read More