“Many that are fallen shall be redeemed, and many shall fall that are now in honor.” Horace 20 B.C. During the late 1990’s, tech stocks reached valuations that nobody could explain. While most people saw the dynamically changing marketplace and felt the extraordinary impact of the internet, traditional valuation metrics such as P/E...Read More

It looks as though the PROMESA legislation is going to be approved by the Senate and signed by the President in the very near future. While far from perfect, this legislation is also far from being a worst case scenario for both creditors and bond insurance companies. It is hard to overstate just how attractive...Read More

  Since the extremely weak May jobs report, interest rates have plummeted across the globe. There are now over $10 trillion in bonds that are trading at negative interest rates. This is unprecedented as the buyers of these bonds are guaranteeing themselves losses if they hold until maturity. This has pushed asset prices up as...Read More

There have been a few good articles lately on market valuations. We are in an extremely odd investment environment with hundreds of billions dollars’ worth of government bonds across the globe trading at negative interest rates. Basically, they are guaranteeing themselves a loss unless they can pick up a few pennies before a bigger sucker...Read More

Below is TTCM’s most recent research report on Assured Guaranty. We believe that Puerto Rico fears are greatly exaggerated for AGO. Follow the link to read more.  I hope you enjoy! http://seekingalpha.com/article/3964126-puerto-rico-fears-greatly-exaggerated-ago   Investing in AGO? You’ll want to read these exclusive PRO articles: Assured Guaranty – 50% Of Growing Adjusted Book Value by Tim...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

While history might not repeat itself, it does tend to rhyme.  Nowhere is this more evident than in the psychological behavior of market participants.  Between 1995-2000, tech stocks and day trading were the rage regardless of valuations.  Ultimately the Nasdaq crashed 75% from the high to the low, wiping our many retirees savings along with...Read More

Warren Buffett’s business partner Charlie Munger is extremely fond of quoting the 1800s German mathematician Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi who once said “man muss immer umkehren” which translates to “Invert, always invert.”  The idea is that by looking at problems backwards in addition to forwards, one can identify ways to avoid the problem entirely.  Munger...Read More

When I review different investors portfolios, I’m quite often surprised at the exposure to bond mutual funds.  This has a lot to do with the cookie-cutter asset allocation philosophy that is pervasive throughout the financial advisor community, where recent historical returns are used as a proxy in building a portfolio allocation.  Of course the last...Read More