January 30, 2014

Investment Summary U.S. stock market earnings and growth prospects remain positive. The U.S. market is having a normal correction, and we will use this opportunity to spend some of the cash we have raised to buy stocks at a discount. The U.S. trailing P/E as of December 31, 2013 was about 16 Read more…

January 23, 2014

Investment Summary The four emerging trends mentioned above are all significant parts of understanding the investment picture for 2014 and for the remainder of the decade. Trend #1: With large banks curtailing commodity trading businesses, there should be less risk of instability in commodity markets. The U.S. banking system could actually be Read more…

January 02, 2014

Our Outlook for 2014 in Brief North America U.S.: As we have been saying, the economy in the U.S. will grow in 2014 by a surprising amount. Corporate spending is rising and employment will follow. We anticipate U.S. GDP growth real growth of 3.5 percent and inflation of 1.2 percent, for total Read more…

December 26, 2013

Investment Summary We remain bullish on U.S. stocks, and as we mention from time to time we remain bearish on the U.S. bond market. In our opinion, bonds have rolled over after a 30+ year bull market and we expect bond prices to continue to fall. Today, the differential between the U.S. 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 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 3, 2013

German Elections Endorse Merkel’s Slow, Steady Approach to Eurozone Recovery (And So Do the Markets) Germans went to the polls on September 22 to elect parliamentary representatives. They handed a resounding victory to “Mutti Merkel” as the chancellor Angela Merkel is affectionately known — Germany’s “mom.” Her center-right party, the Christian Democratic Read more…