Do you Believe in Miracles? | July 2, 2022

Do you Believe in Miracles? We just completed the worst first half stock performance since 1970. (See chart below.) To make matters worse, rates increased and bonds were also hit extremely hard. The result was that the ‘standard’ 60/40 portfolio (60% S&P 500 /40% Aggregate Bond Index) declined a record 16.1% in the first half. […]
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How Long? How Bad? | June 18, 2022

How Long? How Bad? As we have stated numerous times, we are faced with a menu of bad options. After 20+ years of ever-increasing, Fed-induced, financial largesse, inflation has turned the tables and we face the inevitable reversal of that largesse. There are no good options. The Fed will remain optimistic to the end, but […]
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Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way | June 4, 2022

Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way Through history, leadership is enduring. Great leaders are always great leaders. But markets are different; leadership changes with regularity. What leads markets on the way up, typically leads on the way down too, but it doesn’t lead the next leg up. A common mistake investors make is […]
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Looking for One Foot Bars | May 14, 2022

Looking for One Foot Bars After a difficult start to 2022, the tone of markets has become decidedly worse over the last 2 weeks, notwithstanding the rally on Friday, as markets appear to be shifting their focus from an inflation problem to a growth problem (i.e. a looming recession). The S&P 500 is now down […]
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Canary in the Coal Mine? | April 9, 2022

Canary in the Coal Mine? Stories about trucker shortages remain common. Truckers move almost about 73% of all freight in the U.S. Anecdotal evidence suggests that demand for trucking services is rapidly waning. Are trucking companies the canary in the U.S. economic coal mine? Like most people that follow financial markets, we follow economic data […]
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