Remember the BRICS, now we have FANG!
Remember the BRICS, now we have FANG! It was only 6-8 years ago that stories about the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries becoming the dominant economies were front and center on most financial news broadcasts. Investors willingly followed the talking heads’ advice and pulled money out of US investments in order to join […]
Federal Reserve Raises Interest Rates
As you may have already heard, the Federal Reserve (the “Fed”) raised interest rates for the first time in almost ten years. What this means for the economy over the next few weeks and months is anyone’s guess. This is all new for the Fed and the financial markets and what happens next is the […]
Bond Market Update
The news du jour over the next few weeks will be about whether the Federal Reserve (“Fed”) will raise interest rates. In anticipation of the Fed’s meeting, the bond market is already making adjustments to bond prices – especially in the corporate bond market. In our last bond market update in June, we discussed what […]
Washington changes your Retirement Plan in the Dead of Night
Last Friday, very early in the morning, the Senate passed the budget bill which now goes to President Obama to sign which will change Social Security rules dramatically. The main changes will be eliminating two relatively lucrative strategies – “file and suspend” along with “restricted application”. Under old law The “file and suspend” strategy, in […]
Investing – it all depends on future earnings growth
When investing in the equity market there are two factors that go into deciding what assets to buy: 1) what is the value of the asset today; and 2) how much will the earnings of the asset grow in the future. The first one is fairly easy to figure out. The second is more difficult. […]
Dodd/Frank Bill’s unintended consequences – liquidity mispricing
Market volatility has increased since the Federal Reserve ended quantitative easing, but the unintended consequences of the Dodd/Frank bill have heightened the risk in the bond market. Many people have forgotten that the 2008 financial crisis started in the bond market, not the stock market. Most of us have heard of certain financial firms referred […]
It all depends on the price you pay!
Over the course of the next two days, the financial news stories will be replete with opinions about whether the Federal Reserve (“Fed”) will raise rates tomorrow. Its decision will have implications for the markets – especially if it increases interest rates. What is interesting to watch is the Fed has tried to be as […]
“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” – Confucius
The turmoil in stock markets around the world is being blamed on the crash of the Chinese stock market. This is partially true, but it really doesn’t tell the whole story. Let’s take a minute to look a little deeper into the issue. To start, one has to understand what is considered the “Chinese stock […]
The Bloom is off the Rose – Panic in the stock market
At the start of the market today, the Dow was down more than 1,000 points and was down just over 500 points at 10:15. At 10:15, there were only 89 stocks up and a staggering 3,085 down on the NYSE. There are now only 4 stocks at 52 week highs compared to 1,260 at new […]
The stock market has a fever – Is it just a cold or is it the flu?
Since the end of June, the market internals, the number of new highs and new lows of individual stocks, have come under pressure. The U.S. is not alone as we are seeing the same action abroad as well. It started with the “Greek Tragedy”, continued when Chinese stocks crashed, and now we are seeing a […]