Guild’s Basic Needs Index
September 11, 2015
The End Is Not Nigh The driver of real American exceptionalism is the open, experimental, experiential, non-judgmental, data-driven approach that academic and entrepreneur Sebastian Thrun appreciates so much about Silicon Valley culture. Thrun, who was a tenured robotics and artificial intelligence professor at Stanford, as well as a Google Fellow,
September 04, 2015
China Is Not Crashing Panic over Chinese stock markets and the Chinese economy is irrational. There has been no historical correlation between the Chinese stock market and the Chinese economy, and there is no indication that the Chinese economy is crashing. In China, we see a maturing economy navigating a
August 28, 2015
Why Are Global Markets So Interconnected? It’s because of the history of how markets and their participants have evolved. I entered the business as an analyst in 1968, after having been a part-time private investor from the late 1950s during my teenage years. My experience is that through the 1980s, stocks
August 24, 2015
Running a Farm Like a Supply Chain We wrote last June about the arrival of big data in agriculture. In late 2013, the controversial agriculture giant, Monsanto, (NYSE: MON) bought a private company called the Climate Corporation, which had assembled a massive database — precisely mapping 25 million American fields
August 14, 2015
Panic of the Day The media thinks it’s big news from China that the Yuan has fallen in U.S. Dollar terms by 4 percent as of this writing. Those who know the facts realize that this isn’t big news. The Chinese currency today sits 33 percent above where it was
August 7, 2015
Not Your Grandfather’s Rate Hike With the Fed funds rate set to rise for the first time after years of extraordinary and unprecedented monetary policy, we believe that market psychology will make for a difficult investing environment. This anxiety is compounded by the fact that these rate rises will not be,
July 31, 2015
Herded Into Disaster: Yield Chasing, Liquidity, and ETFs In 2002, addressing Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman on his 90th birthday, former Fed chair Ben Bernanke acknowledged the role of the Federal Reserve in worsening the financial crisis of the Great Depression rather than helping it. He said, “You’re right, we
July 24, 2015
“Winner Take All” in E-commerce… and Who’s Protected On June 11, the European Union opened a probe of e-book pricing by Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), continuing the rumbles that have surrounded allegedly anti-competitive practices by the online giant. Last year, AMZN and publisher Hachette squared off over similar issues, with prominent
July 17, 2015
Chinese Market Swoon Puts the Western Press in Panic Mode The western press has been full of news about China’s 30 percent market fall and the Chinese government’s strong reaction to firm up share prices. China has seen several has 30 percent market declines before the current one. Some of
July 10, 2015
Bond Liquidity Risks As we noted last week, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) published its annual report, in which it had some harsh words for the world’s financial authorities. Unless they start to normalize their policies, the BIS said, they may cause distortions in global financial markets that will
July 03, 2015
Volatility Flash Points May Give Buying Opportunities Greece Greece is a country of about 11 million people and not really that significant in terms of its economic activity. Yet the shenanigans of the Greek politicians, the chronic tax avoidance by many Greek citizens, and the country’s habitual fiscal irresponsibility have
June 26, 2015
Overview of Europe — Good News? The slow-moving train wreck that is Greece is moving along with new developments. The Greek banking system is experiencing a run, and accordingly the European Central Bank (ECB) is continuing to throw them a lifeline of emergency liquidity. Eurozone bankers are trying to keep
June 19, 2015
Investment Summary World economic optimism is rising, and as a result, demand for government bonds is receding. Inflation is starting to be felt in some Asian countries, especially India. We note that new jobs and higher wages are a trend in the U.S., and we expect this trend to gain
June 12, 2015
Why We Believe that U.S. Long-term Interest Rates May Rise this Year The Federal Reserve is likely to raise interest rates in September. However, whether it does or not, longer-term rates will rise over the next few months. The Fed does not have control over long-term rates; they have only
June 08, 2015
Notable Trends in Global Markets Let’s look around the world at a few big trends. Trend number 1: inflation is coming back in the U.S. and in some countries where the currencies are falling — and this means interest rates, if not rising worldwide, will rise in the U.S. and
June 05, 2015
Interest Rates At Guild Investment Management, we agree that the world is in a period of low global growth and prevalent deflationary influences. We are also in a period of banking restructuring, and as a result, we may see slower world growth for a few years. In spite of this
