Monthly Updates

It’s very timely to be discussing the big picture outlook for stocks and bonds, given the weakness in equities since the late September peak. The weekly and monthly trends are in a very different place than where they were in January. We’ll be illustrating that and more with relevant charts, and what likely is ahead […]

If you’re like me, it’s probable you’ve heard the phrase “For Whom The Bell Tolls,” but perhaps don’t have a clue as to its meaning. It came from an expression in a sermon by John Donne, an English poet and cleric in the Church of England. Donne says that because we are all part of […]

Many of you reading this letter weren’t around prior to 1950 (and that includes me), so I can only go with recent history of the last 20 years in saying that there may have never been a more divided time in American politics than the last 10 years. I promise you this will not be […]

Last month, we thought it was a good time to remind everyone of the building blocks of our Process—that is, how we go about making allocation decisions. We promised a follow up on how we go about determining what to own (selection), as the allocation portion is more about how much to own. That’s the […]

I don’t know if Nick Saban, the head football coach at the University of Alabama, is the greatest college football coach ever, but he’s certainly one of the best. He is well known for not focusing on results, but rather on what he calls The Process. There’s no mention of titles. Instead, his message has […]

From time to time, we come across client situations where a significant portion of their liquid net worth (and total net worth) is tied up in either one stock or in just a handful of them. This can be a challenging problem, because often there are company ties, inheritances from family members, and often, very […]

In the last two months, the stock market has been sending different messages than what investors were seeing most of 2017.  In early February, stocks finished a nearly 11% drop in just 9 trading days.  In last month’s update, we presented data which suggested there was likely going to be another leg down, probably to […]

For all of 2017 and the first 26 days of 2018, the S&P 500 Index never declined more than 3% from a peak, one of, if not, the longest such streak in history. Everyone knew the CALM could not last forever, yet a large number of speculators were betting on it to the end. Well, […]

For many workers today, a pension is like a typewriter. They may have heard of one, but they’ve never seen one. That’s because pensions have become a dying breed, as they are just too costly to most employers and have been replaced with defined contribution plans. Yet, many of our clients and prospective clients who […]

As I write this three days before Christmas, the uptrend in stock prices we’ve been touching on for most of this year continues its relentless ascent, with almost all major indexes making new all-time highs on December 18. We’ll detail below why the party is not likely over, despite rampant optimism and some speculation. In […]