Volatility is picking up once again, which we should expect given the extreme conditions the world is seeing.  Yesterday, the Federal Reserve chair said that interest rates were likely to stay near zero through at least the next year or so.  I don’t see that as surprising whatsoever, given the focus will be on reducing...Read More

The news about Coronavirus continues to get substantially better.  The CDC updated its infection fatality rate (IFR) estimate to 0.26%.  This means that, if one is infected, they have a 0.26% chance of dying.  Initial estimates hovered around 1.5-3%, which shows how drastically wrong they were.  Now clearly one has a higher chance of death...Read More

2020 has certainly been a tragedy of epic proportions on just about any level imaginable.  There is no sugarcoating that.  When you have tens of thousands of people dying from a new virus, and economies shut down across the world, it is tough to feel cheery, especially when you sprinkle in record unemployment.  The stock...Read More

This year has been wild in many terrible ways.  One extremely painful phenomenon (for a value investor) has been the massive growth outperformance relative to value.  Coming into the year, we were at the widest relative spread between growth and value since 2000.  After the pandemic tanked stocks more closely related to the economy, the...Read More

2020 has seen a major disconnect between growth and value.  In the first quarter, the Russell 1000 Pure Growth Total Return index returned -13.6%, while the Russell 1000 Pure Value Total Return index returned -35%.  If you think about the companies that are most negatively impacted by the bizarre nature of this crisis where economies...Read More

It has been an interesting week with a great start and a terrible finish for the markets.  We know there is going to be volatility so I wouldn’t see it as much of a surprise.  I’ve written a lot lately, so I’ll just pass on this great video of Rob Arnott of Research Affiliates, one...Read More

The Covid-19 health crisis continues to evolve globally, and slowly we are learning more about the virus.  There have been quite a few serology studies in various regions of the country, where they are examining how many people possess Covid-19 antibodies.  The results of the studies seem to indicate that the true number of infected...Read More

This week, earnings began coming out in abundance, starting with many of the Big Banks.  I’ve gotten through J.P. Morgan, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and Citigroup.  Research reports will be forthcoming.  I will tell you that I am incredibly encouraged.  All 4 banks were profitable, despite posting dramatic and expected reserves to account for...Read More

The vicious Covid-19 Pandemic is one of the most interesting and tragic times in history.  Right now, we are at an inflection point.  New cases, hospitalizations and deaths, are declining in Spain and Italy.  Deaths are likely peaking this week and early next week in our hardest hit areas of New York and New Jersey. ...Read More

We had a feeling Monday would be bad and boy, did it deliver with the stock market dropping by nearly 8%, now down 19% in just 13 trading sessions.  The Oil and Gas Exploration and Production ETF was down 37% today alone!  This market selloff is now bigger than what we saw in late 2018,...Read More