Guild’s Basic Needs Index
February 2, 2015
Executive Summary 1. Low inflation in the crosshairs of global central banks. From rate cuts in India, Canada, Singapore, and Peru, to the initiation of a large sovereign-bond purchase program in Europe, governments and central banks around the world are stepping up their fight against the anemic inflation — or
January 26, 2015
Executive Summary 1. Market fears? Unjustified. 2015 opened to a rocky start, with the S&P 500 falling seven out of the first ten days and down 4.5 percent from December’s highs. We deconstruct the market’s fears — of disorderly global currencies and commodity prices, and of inflation and recession lurking
January 19, 2015
Executive Summary 1. Investment themes for 2015. Low inflation, an improving employment picture, rising real disposable income, accelerating GDP growth, and a dovish Fed all continue to make a strong case for U.S. stocks in 2015. We favor companies with strong fundamentals in industries supported by macro trends — transportation,
January 12, 2015
Executive Summary 1. Short-term fears, long-term prospects. Once again, we see some short-term volatility led by various market fears: of a Greek departure from the Euro, of a collapse of European banks or even of the common currency itself; of a “collapse” in the price of oil; of financial stresses
January 05, 2015
Executive Summary 1. There are attractive investment opportunities in 2015, but we expect more volatility. As we’ve said over the past several weeks, we see good momentum in economic fundamentals supporting corporate profit growth and stock price appreciation in 2015, especially in the U.S., and potentially in some other global
November 06, 2014
Why the Stock Market Bears Have Been So Wrong Today’s negative and incorrect tone from world news commentators — including stock market commentators– is easy to understand. It is not hard to see the source of the media negativity. The negativity is due to the fact that negative news sells. The
October 23, 2014
The European Central Bank buys securities from banks. Under Mario Draghi, the European Central Bank has embarked on its boldest stimulus yet — expanding its balance sheet by purchasing various kinds of asset-backed securities from Eurozone banks. We applaud Draghi’s determination, and we are hopeful that governments in Europe will do more to
October 17, 2014
Falling Oil Oil continues its sharp decline, driven by seasonal factors, although a strong U.S. Dollar and global growth slowdown fears are also involved. Oil companies have been hurt, and the U.S. consumer is benefitting from cheaper gasoline. Although the strong Dollar may eventually hurt U.S. exports, we note that sharp oil price
October 02, 2014
Pay attention: the U.S. Dollar’s rise is critical for investors. The U.S. Dollar has broken out against other developed-market currencies. Although the Dollar may fall for a short period of time over the next few weeks, its longer term trend is higher. We believe that this rise is being permitted in order to
September 25, 2014
Home Depot Data Breach Makes Another Bullish Case for Cybersecurity Earlier this month, Home Depot revealed a massive data breach, in which the credit cards of some 56 million customers may have been compromised. Company insiders have since alleged lax cybersecurity practices, but it’s also clear that the attack was performed by
September 19, 2014
Is an Education Gap Fueling Income Inequality? 2014 has been the year of “income inequality.” French economist Thomas Piketty’s massive book Capital in the 21st Century was published in English, and strangely rose to the top of the bestseller lists (something that doesn’t usually happen to thick economics texts). The issue of
September 12, 2014
New Tech Innovations Keep Coming As part of our ongoing emphasis on tech innovations, we’ll mention a few stories that have caught our eye recently. Some are obviously tech-related, others less so. We continue to believe that such innovations — and the entrepreneurs who bring them from concept to reality — will
September 04, 2014
The S&P Hits 2000 Why is the market moving slowly ahead when so many naysayers are calling for a crash, and when so many trouble spots are festering in the world? We all see the fighting — problems in Syria, Iraq, Gaza, Ukraine, Libya — and we note that things are
August 28, 2014
China Deepens Reform and Privatization of State-Owned Enterprises We wrote a few weeks ago that events in China show Xi Jinping decisively consolidating his power — specifically, the downfall of Zhu Yongkang, a former member of the Politburo Standing Committee and the most powerful politician to be investigated for corruption in the
August 22, 2014
What Is the Bond Market Telling Us? Interest rate levels have been confounding many professional investors around the globe. U.S. government benchmark 10-year interest rates began 2014 near 3.00 percent, but they have been sliding back to about 2.40 percent recently. The rally in bond markets and corresponding declines in yields are
August 15, 2014
New BRICS Institutions Highlight the Changing Global Financial Order Leaders of the BRICS nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — have taken a decisive step to increase their clout in global finance and reduce their dependence on financial institutions dominated by Europe and the United States. For now, this
