Blog
Reddit Broke the Markets – What do you do?
We're starting to see some of the more obvious issues come out of the heavy government interference we've seen in markets over at least the past decade. What I mean is that we've seen trillions in Fed support and Congressional stimulus, whether you talk about bailouts...
Managing Through the Fog Obscuring the Road Ahead
It's been quite a run for the market over the last decade-plus, and after a little break for Covid-19 in the first quarter this year, the party picked right back up to hit new all-time highs. As Adam Button of ForexLive said, more and more people seem to be noting a...
The Stock Market: Critical Thinking or Sardines?
Much has happened over the last three months that has had me regularly shaking my head. I've talked about how ignorance has been bliss with tech companies, but it's also happened elsewhere. For instance, in the last week a number of retail REITs have given quarterly...
How To Invest During Great Turmoil
An investor asked an important question on our April 28 quarterly conference call: How can anyone have a rigorous investment process when there are so many unknowns out there? I think that's a very complicated question, and I want to go through it in more detail than...
MARKET SIT-REP: QUARTER-END MARCH 2020
This blog is a bit longer than usual, but a lot happened in the first quarter. We started the year with a big party in tech, but around the middle of February people started getting nervous, presumably about Covid-19. Then in early March we saw panic across all asset...
The Financial Markets Hurricane and the Haze on the Horizon
I last wrote a blog six days ago, on March 12. Now, at March 18, we can more clearly see some important facets of the current financial stresses. First I will outline some of those stresses, and then I will discuss what I think may unfold over the rest of 2020. We...
Intelligent Risk Management in a Time of Turmoil
We want to tell you what we are seeing, and what we are thinking. This will be an overview, and we likely will follow up with additional communications as matters evolve. We have a core investment process we have built, and believe in, to help us manage assets in all...
2020 Canaries in the Coalmine – When do Things Change?
There's quite a lot going on in the financial markets and in the world - so much that I don't think I can go into great detail. But here are some highlights: On the one hand we have the biggest mix of potential market-impact problems I have seen in my 23-year...
Lofty Market Vistas
However you want to look at it, the stock market has been having quite a run. The market returned over 30% in 2019, and for the decade 2010-2019 the S&P 500® Index has a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 13.5%, well above the long term average of slightly less...
Mind the “GAAP” in Creative Corporate Accounting
Don't let facts get in the way of a good story. That's what we tend to see towards the end of a bull market, whether we're talking about tulip bulbs, Nifty Fifty stocks of the 1970s, tech stocks in 2000, or our present spate of unicorns (IPO startup stocks with...