Market Summary Over the next few months, we believe, the U.S. economy will grow, and certain industries are poised for more rapid growth in the immediate future. We see no U.S. economic recession on the near horizon, and without a recession, it is hard to see the U.S. market having Read more…
The Real Source of Wealth A decade ago, the World Bank published a study exploring the wealth of the world’s nations — specifically, trying to tally that wealth and identify where it resides. (Interested readers can find it here.) In typical World Bank fashion, the authors mined dozens of data-sets. Read more…
Market Summary Pundits Are Wrong Again: Europe Continues to Grow post-Brexit Prior to the Brexit vote, many pundits were pushing the narrative that Brexit fears would create a big decline in business’ expansion plans. They believed that the fear of future economic decline would make businesses want to retrench. It Read more…
Executive Summary 1. Ordinary people aren’t very ordinary. Professor Deirdre McCloskey’s recent piece in The Wall Street Journal got us thinking about the roots of western prosperity — and suggested that current nervousness about populist movements around the globe may be missing the mark. Don’t be too alarmed by rising Read more…
Executive Summary 1. Market summary. The movement of the U.S. dollar will be the key determinant of the direction of U.S. stocks, gold, and oil — and a great deal about the direction of the U.S. currency and market depends on the coming U.S. election. In our view, the election Read more…
Executive Summary 1. Critically important to your investments: popular revolts against corruption around the world. This trend will last for decades, and upset many of the patterns we think we know. Corruption and cronyism have existed throughout human history, and ordinary people have usually accepted them with stoic resignation. But Read more…
Retirement: An Economic Disaster and a Health Catastrophe? A letter to Financial Times columnist Michael Skapinker last week brought our attention to a personality we hadn’t heard of, but who is well-known in Europe. Dr. Charles Eugster is a 96-year-old British resident of Switzerland who took Skapinker to task for Read more…
Europe’s Banks Are Showing Cracks We’ve been expressing our worry about the health of the European banking system for years. Starting in 2012, many European banks relied on “CoCos” — contingent convertible bonds — in an attempt to shore up their balance sheets. Now, as market fear begins to price Read more…
Market Summary World markets remain in a period of correction. Accordingly, we are cautious and awaiting lower prices before investing the large amount of cash in client accounts. Many now believe that the U.S. will go into a recession in 2016. We do not see that occurring; the U.S. Read more…
How Fast Will the Fed Raise Rates? The “dot plot” of the Federal Reserve shows how the opinions of various FOMC participants stack up, and is published after each meeting. December’s dot plot suggests that the majority is anticipating four rate increases in 2016, ending the year with the Fed Read more…
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