The Day After The Election…
Similar to the experience of many Americans, last night was a long night and the caffeine is flowing today at THOR. The US election roller coaster has caused volatile market swings in both directions. Last night, the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures started slightly up, then collapsed more than 800 points when Trump took a […]
In the Eye of the Hurricane!
The financial markets seem eerily calm before the election. This is surprising given how volatile the news is about both candidates. It is almost like we are in the eye of a hurricane, where the sun is out and it is perfectly calm. We do expect the markets to react after the election in the […]
What happens if the Federal Reserve raises interest rates?
The discussion among investors when considering an interest rate increase by the Federal Reserve (“Fed”) typically centers around the impact of the rate increase on the stock market, not the bond market. When interest rates do rise, it may or may not have an impact on the stock market. The impact of a rate increase […]
Thoughts on the Election
First and foremost, THOR employs a disciplined approach to investing that is based on valuations, not political outcomes. Many individual investors have a tendency to make emotional investment decisions, some of which are based on political outcomes. More times than not, these decisions hurt their portfolio returns over the long term. For example, after President […]
September – The August calm is over
In our August 1st update, we mentioned how we thought August would be a slow time for the market. We were right, but couldn’t foresee that it would go down in history as one of the months with the tightest range of daily price change. Now that the calm is over, we have begun to see […]
Why Publicly Traded Business Development Corporations Offer an Attractive Yield
Many people have not heard of Business Development Corporations (“BDC”). Having little insight into these relatively unknown investments means a majority of investors avoid them and buy perceived safer investments such as utilities and large US consumer staple companies – see our last market update on the risk of buying consumer staple companies today www.thorinvestment.com/stable-us-consumer-stocks-investors-beware. […]
“Stable” US Consumer Stocks – Investors Beware
In the past several months, we have seen a trend in the investment strategies that ETF and mutual fund families are promoting: dividend paying/low volatility strategies. They are doing this because that is what is selling. Just recently, we met with such a fund that has seen their assets grow from $900 million at the […]
August – The calm before the storm?
Making a prediction about what to expect in the stock market in the weeks ahead can be a less than accurate, derision-inducing effort. However, we are going to take a stab but we are not going to stick our necks out too far. We believe the markets will be relatively calm over the next few […]
Brexit/Schmexit – Importance of the facts and fundamentals
It seems like geopolitical concerns have no impact on the direction of the stock market – Brexit, attempted coup in Turkey, truck terrorism in France, cops assassinated in Dallas and Baton Rouge – the list goes on and on. In the past, any one of these incidents may have derailed the market. Yet, the market […]
Central Banks focus on “stability” will bring down the EU!
What a crazy few days in the market. First, the Brexit occurs and markets swoon lower for 2 days only to recoup most of those losses the next 3 days. So what is going on? In our opinion, central banks around the world have changed their focus from the economy to creating “stability” in the […]