December 12, 2013

Small Banks Feel the Regulatory Squeeze Through our own contacts in community and regional banks, we have heard many accounts of the effect of post-crisis regulations on this sector of the U.S. economy. The chart below outlines the consolidation of the banking sector.         Source: Investor’s Business Daily Read more

October 31,2013

Bank Reform: Europe’s Slow and Steady Progress Continues When Spain’s real estate bubble burst in 2008, the country went into a recession. The country was returning to growth in 2010, just in time to be taken down by the continent’s emerging banking and sovereign debt crisis. Since then, concerns about the stability Read more

October 24, 2013

Government Dysfunction Was Not Effective in Putting Much Fear in the Markets. Here’s Why. The investing world has gotten tired; it is especially tired of crisis. It is tired of financial TV’s network anchors babbling on about how bad the debt limit fight would be, about the looming disaster when the U.S. can’t Read more

October 17, 2013

Global Economics Provides Reasons to Be Bullish, But Politics Poses Downside Risk As we write this, Capitol Hill’s partisan bickering and rancor have reached the conclusion we anticipated. We don’t believe that the conflict which monopolized headlines for the past two weeks is of lasting import. From our perspective, the fundamentals are Read more

October 10, 2013

More Reasons to Be Bullish on Japan We believe recent events and emerging trends continue to justify a bullish position on Japanese equity markets. Since the Japanese economy has been trapped in deflation for more than two decades, the psychology of Japanese market participants — from individuals to corporate managers Read more