In our last article we covered the Bubble in “Safe” Stocks, where investors are paying outrageously high multiples for companies that are believed to be more recession resistant such as consumer staples.  In this article I figured I’d cover a stock Mr. Market and the doom and gloom propagandists view to be “risky” based on...Read More

Since early March, the stock market has been far more driven by fear than fundamentals, which has led to what I believe to be a bubble in stocks perceived as being “safe.”  When you pay 50% too much for a stock, a simple reversion to the mean can cause disastrous permanent losses of capital.  Conversely,...Read More

Investors and market participants often get told that the way to get rich is buying quality companies or properties.  Firstly, it is important to define quality.  For many, quality is conflated with credit risk.  For example, U.S. government debt is often seen as having the least chance of a default than any other bonds, mostly...Read More

A decade-long policy of virtually zero interest rates impacted assets globally and built the everything bubble.  It would be naive of us to think that the unraveling of this would not cause things to break.  Last week, we saw it occur with the implosion of two large crypto and venture capital-focused banks.  These institutions (Silvergate...Read More

Markets continue to exhibit higher volatility due to economic data that indicates that higher for longer Federal Reserve interest rate policies are more likely.  At TTCM, we view predicting macroeconomic data as being a rather pyrrhic enterprise, as success rates for even supposed experts, are far less than 50%.  By focusing on individual securities and...Read More

Volatility has begun to pick up in equity markets as bond yields have continued to creep higher, based on fears of higher for longer inflationary pressures.  I’ve warned before about being too aggressive in this environment.  Too many people expect equity markets to perform like they did in exceptionally low interest rate periods and that...Read More

In early 2023, we have seen a bit of a return of the speculative euphoria that was so pervasive in 2020 and 2021, which has driven up asset prices once again.  Market participants are more optimistic about things based on the belief that inflationary pressures are headed far lower, which should result in the end...Read More

  “You don’t find out who is swimming naked until the tide comes out.” Warren Buffett   Financial markets over the short-term are akin to middle school popularity contests.  The euphoria or pessimism of the day generally reflects recent price performance.  Because there is 24/7 coverage, media pundits feel like they have to give reasons...Read More

We are in the early weeks of earnings season, and overall, the results have been quite impressive.  The banking sector saw continued improvement in net interest margins, with credit normalizing a bit.  One must remember that we are coming off the most enormous stimulus package in history in 2020, which created the best credit environment...Read More

Markets have been off to a nice start to begin 2023.  Today’s CPI was quite positive, increasing by 6.5% from a year earlier, marking the sixth straight monthly deceleration since peaking in the middle of last year.  While 6.5% is still an ugly number, which I know we all feel when we go out to...Read More