Summer Outlook for U.S. and Global Markets

Let’s start with a review of U.S. and global economic, trade, finance, and banking outlooks. • The U.S.: Bullish economics, very strong.  Trade negotiations not a lasting problem. • Europe:  Neutral.  Avoid. • Asia:  Growth companies are attractive.  The U.S. dollar is strong; this is neutral for Asian commodity exporters.  If and when the Read more…

October 20, 2016

Global economic growth is boringly slow, but it is still growth.  Pessimists point out that the last few years have been the slowest economic recovery in seven decades, and that the average household in the U.S. has less income after inflation than in 2006.  Optimists point out that positive change Read more…

May 19, 2016

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…

February 05, 2016

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…

December 24, 2015

This Year In Review And The Year Ahead 2015 was a year of divergences.  Developed markets outperformed developing markets, services outperformed manufacturing, and commodity-related companies and economies underperforming everything else. Broader indices often served to conceal these divergences, with some software-related names, for example, far outpacing the performance of the Read more…

December 11, 2015

Market Summary As we survey the investment horizon for 2016 the picture that we see is not highly attractive. Economic and Financial Fundamentals: Slightly Positive On a fundamental basis, the world is growing at a modest rate, and the return to a big deflationary trend in North America, Europe, or Read more…