Economic and Investment News Bits Overall, Vanguard’s outlook for global stocks and bonds remains “guarded given compressed risk premiums and an environment of low global interest rates. Given this backdrop, the importance of global diversification and a long-term perspective is critical.” Michael Hasenstab, the portfolio manager of Templeton Global Bond Fund, recently gave his perspective…
March 2015 Financial Markets Summary A recent CNBC commentary suggested that if your portfolio was up big in 2014, you should fire your financial advisor. The reasoning behind this is that since only a few large domestic stocks accounted for most of the gains last year, a big return meant that you had no downside…
Economic and Investment News Bits “We see the Iranian situation being brought under control. Whether this will be by military action and isolation of Iran or by a political arrangement with the current or a successor regime is unclear but irrelevant to the broader geopolitical issue. Iran will be contained, as it simply does not…
Economic and Investment News Bits The U.S. economy has grown strong enough to support a hike in interest rates, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Loretta Mester thinks. “The federal funds rate should be lifted from zero for the first time since the end of 2008. The economy is moving back to more normal territory,…
Economic and Investment News Bits Applied Materials, Boeing, Coach, Ford, Intel, McDonalds, Nike, Pfizer, and Procter & Gamble. What do those household-name companies have in common? Not much, other than that a huge part of their sales come from outside the U.S. Collectively, the 500 companies that make up the S&P 500 Index get 46%…
Economic and Investment News Bits “The S&P 500 has fallen 3.1% this year as financial markets react negatively to a possible rate hike by the Federal Reserve later this year, along with less-than-robust reactions to company earnings. Although it was difficult to assign specific themes to various sectors this week, it was a heavy week…
February 2015 Financial Markets Summary Our recent quarterly investment webcast’s suggestion that there will be more volatility in the world’s markets in 2015 than there was is 2014 has certainly come true, at least in the first four weeks of the new year. While we are not seeing the wild swings that occurred in 2008,…
Economic and Investment News Bits “It’s the fourth time in the last 80 years that we’ve seen a big surge of oil come into the market, and every time you have weak prices. It happened in the late 1950s when Saudi Arabia production came on. Actually, back in 1931 when oil went to 10 cents…
Economic and Investment News Bits While we expect the current $48 bbl to increase some during the year, even Saudi Arabia’s oil minister was quoted last week as saying we will not see $100 bbl prices in the foreseeable future. If low prices are here to stay, who benefits from this? Rather obvious are consumers,…
Economic and Investment News Bits Regarding the ongoing drop in oil prices, HardAssetInvestor says “Energy traders are now targeting the 2008/2009 crash low as a potential bottom, which are $32.40 for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and $36.20 for Brent Crude. Of course, during a precipitous free-fall like the current one, all the technical indicators go…
Economic and Investment News Bits Ahead of Greek national elections this month, a likely opposition victory could result in default on outstanding government debt and the country’s exit from the euro area. Speculation has it that Germany would accept Greece’s departure from the currency bloc. (Source: Bloomberg) “Volatility, which retuned in a big way in…
We reviewed what took place in 2014, discussed diversification, the impact of plummeting oil prices and the rising U.S. Dollar. Lastly, we provided some predictions for 2015. Please click the link below to see the slides and hear our thoughts. 4th Quarter 2014 Investment Webcast Please remember that past performance may not be indicative of…
January 2015 Financial Markets Summary The instant-ness of communication means that we are never far from hearing about the next world crisis. Truth is there ARE a lot of global political flash points, but that has always been the case. We are bombarded by the electronic media, unlike the days of three or four total…
Economic and Investment News Bits “The too-good-to-be-true” stories about folks who made a miraculous fortune in the stock markets are almost always bogus. If even 10% of the stories out there were true, the secret sauce used would no longer be secret. Many individual investors believe the average hedge fund makes huge amounts of money…
Economic and Investment News Bits An individual who waits to take Social Security retirement benefits until age 70 will receive as much as 77% more income per month than if taking the monthly benefit at age 62. (Source: Social Security) 80% of current members of Congress are not military veterans. This is a reversal from…
