Next round of the Euro Crisis set for this weekend?
If you turn on CNBC there is a sense of euphoria – Trump’s growth strategy, consumer confidence is high (last time it was this high was in July 2007, a good contrary indicator) and the stock market is at an all-time high (actually, the market as measured by the S&P 500 Index is only up […]
The Trump Market Crash – Not stocks, but bonds!
While watching the election on Nov. 8th, one not only got minute by minute updates on the voting results but also saw the Dow futures plummeting down over 800 points and heard pundits talking about the market crashing because it looked like Trump was going to win. As it turns out, they were right about […]
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 […]