Last week I was contacted by two clients seeking information about cryptocurrencies. One was my godson, 12 years old and just getting started in investing. So far, he’s bought Nintendo and Roblox (the latter against my recommendation but what do I know about video games?). But last week he said he wants to buy a […]

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April 15th was the two week anniversary of the day my wife and I got our second Moderna shot. We have spent the last 13 months being very careful about the virus, limiting our contacts, social distancing and generally doing anything that seemed helpful. I am certainly aware that others took a more liberal attitude […]

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The answer to the question, “What should I do to my portfolio today (this week, this month)? is almost always nothing. Humans, and especially portfolio managers, have a hard time believing that doing nothing is the right response….to anything…or nothing. We are programmed to believe that success comes from doing things, not not doing things. […]

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There’s an old saying on Wall Street that one should “buy the rumor, sell the news”, a pithy way to express the efficient market theorem. By the time an event arrives, whatever it may be, the market will have fully digested the news and incorporated it into current prices. And then the market will move […]

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I’ve been getting that question a lot these days. How high can rates go? It is asked in a way that seems to imply that the answer is obvious – not much. Why? The answer is almost always the same; the Fed can’t and won’t let rates go up. If they did it would kill […]

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I was told many years ago when I started in this business that it wasn’t my job to predict the future. Our job as investors is to properly and accurately interpret the present.

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Last week was only four days due to the President’s day holiday but it was eventful. The big news of the week was the  spike in interest rates, which according to the press reports I read, “came out of nowhere”. In other words, the writers couldn’t find an obvious cause for a 14 basis point […]

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This is a holiday-shortened week in the US but there is some important data on tap. Retail sales are expected to show a month-to-month rise for the first time since September. Year-over-year numbers remain pretty subdued and likely will until life returns to something resembling normal. Producer prices will likely rise but inflation continues its […]

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A mob, led by a shirtless man wearing a Viking helmet, stormed the Capitol building a couple of weeks ago and five people died before order was restored. A man from upstate New York sat in a Senator’s office and smoked a joint. Another roamed the halls of Congress with a Confederate flag. A Virginia […]

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One of the hardest things to understand as an investor is that markets sometimes – often – don’t line up with economic reality. Markets rarely reflect current economic conditions and at times they seem to discount a future that seems highly unlikely at best, and delusional at worst. That seems to be the case today, […]

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