“Those times when you get up early and you work hard, those times when you stay up late and you work hard, those times when you’re too tired and you don’t feel like working and you do it anyway:  That is actually the dream.  The destination is the journey.” —Kobe Bryant   It is a...Read More

I stumbled upon a fantastic article about the Tech Bubble and I wanted to share a few key points with you.  This is relevant because current market valuations appear to be very stretched by most metrics.  After an extremely strong 2019 and nearly an 11-year old bull market, investor optimism is quite high.  It is...Read More

Warren Buffett in July, 1999: “If I had to pick the most probable return over the next 20 year, it would be 6%.” Gallup poll in 1999: “Investors expect stocks to return 13-22% annually.” S&P avg. return from 1999-2019: 6.117%. (Source: Vetle Forsland)   As hard as it is to believe, another decade is coming...Read More

This morning I read a good article in the WSJ, posted below.  The article discussed that, as a whole, stocks and bonds are pricey by historical measures.  Highly valued stocks and bonds have very likely pulled future returns forward, meaning many investors have less of an opportunity for big gains in the future. “U.S. stocks...Read More

On Monday August 5th, stocks plunged by about 3%, as escalating trade tensions continued to garner fear, after the worst week of the year last week.  The Chinese government is allowing their currency to decline, which benefits their competitive advantage on trade.  This was in response to last week’s news of additional tariffs on China. ...Read More

On August 1st, markets across the globe were rattled as President Trump announced new tariffs on China.  Stocks plunged and the 10-year Treasury yield dropped below 1.9%.  The news shouldn’t have been such a shock as it has become increasingly clear that China hopes to stall.  If a new administration takes over in 2020, it...Read More

Most financial advice starts with an asset allocation model.  These asset allocation models typically use information from the past, typically the last 30-40 years or so, and then project that into the future.  The big flaw in the process is that they don’t factor in changes in starting conditions and valuations.  For instance, on January...Read More

Believe it or not, there are now over $13 trillion worth of bonds that are trading at negative interest rates.  Money-losing unicorn stocks are able to IPO at valuations worth tens of billions of dollars.  Interest rates have plummeted with the 10-year Treasury bond now circling around 2%.  Lingering in the background of this environment,...Read More

While this optimism ultimately may prove to be valid if interest rates stay this low for many years to come and if earnings continue to grow, there is also a very real chance that many market participants will get badly burned. Most of this year's stock returns for the overall market are coming from Amazon,...Read More

On May 4th, Assured Guaranty reported another phenomenal quarter of financial performance. Operating income was $273MM, or $2.14 per share in the quarter. These figures were up from $123MM, or $.89 per share in the prior year’s quarter. These returns were achieved despite the company adding an extra roughly $100MM in reserves for Puerto Rico,...Read More