Harry Truman once asked for a one-armed economist having tired of his economic advisors saying “On the one hand, this. On the other hand, that.” Well, I’m going to be a two-handed economist in this blog. Despite concerns that we might experience a...
In response to an inflation rate that exceeded 9%, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates eleven times in 2022 and 2023 leading many investors (including us) to worry that higher rates would tip the economy over into a recession. Well, miraculously, 2024 will...
“There are two kinds of interest rate forecasters: those who don’t know and those who don’t know they don’t know.” John Kenneth Galbraith I am firmly in the camp of those who don’t know but the futures markets give us the ability to...
I frequently rant about the amount of political and economic noise to which we are all subjected and the difficulty it creates in sticking to a sensible investment strategy. Putting aside politics, the major topic in the financial world this year has been...
I have written many times about the pernicious impact on investment results of what I call “noise.” Blaring headlines, the pronouncements of pundits, and cocktail party braggadocio can lead to fear, greed, and ultimately, rash decisions to change investment strategy at what will...
This has been a miserable year for investors with global stocks down 17.4% and a broad U.S. bond index falling 10.9%. The pain has been particularly intense for “balanced” portfolios in that the -14.8% year-to-date return on a 60% stock / 40% bond...
