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

This morning we woke up to the news that JP Morgan has purchased the vast majority of the assets and deposits of First Republic with the help of the FDIC bank-funded insurance fund.  This deal removes the last lingering overhang from the panic-induced bank runs that we saw in early March, which led to the...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