Guild’s Basic Needs Index
May 29, 2015
Bitcoin: Disruptive, But Not Invulnerable Bitcoin is a “cryptocurrency” — a form of digital money that proponents hope will get all the middlemen out of financial transactions and permit the parties — even ones who do not know or trust one another — to conduct their exchange directly between themselves.
May 26, 2015
Gold — An Unloved Asset That’s On Our Radar Gold is not getting much press, having held its own since its decline in the first half of 2013. We believe that there are reasons for intelligent investors to continue to hold gold in their portfolios. Emerging market countries, especially China,
May 15, 2015
Why China Remains Our Favorite Market For Investment The current Chinese market correction will be off and on for a few more weeks as the Chinese government tries to convince the public that they want the market to rise, but in a systematic and non-speculative manner. During this period we
May 12, 2015
Bond Funds: A Bigger Risk Than You Think? Investors are so used to trading ETFs that they seldom ask themselves questions about how those ETFs are constructed. In the event of major market disruptions, though, that could prove problematic — with potentially troublesome consequences for investors. A share of an
May 05, 2015
Will The Dollar Resume Its Rally? We think so, but only after the dollar falls for a few more weeks. We believe that it will rally again later in 2015, on the basis of central bank policy — which is leading up to tightening in the U.S., but still in
April 28, 2015
Investors’ Burning Questions Last weekend GIM’s Chief Investment Officer, Monty Guild, gave a speech to investors about world markets. During the Q&A, it became obvious that investors had four central concerns: 1. “The U.S. market is high; how do we know when it is topping or has topped?” 2. “What
April 20, 2015
Mainland Chinese and Hong Kong Stocks We are bullish on mainland Chinese and Hong Kong stocks. The Shanghai stock market is going up, and there are several theories about why it is rising. Our favorite is that when the U.S. grows more slowly, money migrates to China. In our opinion,
April 13, 2015
The China Bull Rages China’s domestic stock markets in Shanghai and Shenzhen have put on strong rallies since the middle of 2014. Recently, the China rally shifted into high gear. We believe this outperformance is being driven by the desire of the Chinese government to draw domestic investors into stocks
April 07, 2015
Don’t Fight The Central Banks European QE is ongoing, and we believe it will have the same effect in Europe that it did in the U.S. — boosting stock prices. We think that dividend-paying exporters will do particularly well. Europe is not the only place where easing is still ongoing.
March 30, 2015
Investors are Concerned About Future Fed Behavior… Especially Interest Rate Increases We read carefully the comments by Fed vice-chairman Fischer — the eminent, wise, and experienced central banker. Mr. Fischer believes that U.S. rates will probably rise late in late 2015. Rates will rise at least partially due to the
March 23, 2015
The Kondratiev Wave: Today and in the Great Depression As regular readers know, we have for years talked about Nikolai Kondratiev and his theory of long waves in economic and social life — a theory with which we are in general agreement. Here’s a brief refresher on Kondratiev waves (also
March 13, 2015
Market Summary With Euro QE underway, the common currency is falling hard and fast, racking up two days of nearly 1.5 percent declines in the space of a week. Given the price of U.S. stocks, we are cautious on the U.S. market. We remain bullish on the U.S. Dollar, and
March 09, 2015
New Leaders Are Taking the Growth Baton National Growth Rates Are Shifting As we all know, for the last decade China has been the most impressive grower of the major nations. It is now the world’s second-largest economy. India has been a tolerable grower — but a huge underachiever given
March 2, 2015
Five Bull Markets Around the World — Thanks To Central Banks The U.S. — We’re BullishThe U.S. does not have a QE program at all now, but the U.S. stock and bond markets are getting support from the dovishness of the Fed minutes. In spite of much improved economic growth in
February 23, 2015
India and China: India Ascendant The Chinese market is cheap, but economic growth will continue to slow, since China has become too big to grow as rapidly as it did for the first two decades after its reforms. India may be poised to take the growth baton. To write about China and
February 16, 2015
The Currency War Is On — What Does It Mean For Your Portfolio? Many world currencies are being devalued, and it is the beginning of a potential currency war. This, more than any other current or historical event, gives us a direction for the future of investing and shows us
