With the benefit of hindsight (the mirror portion of our title) the near 20% stock market decline from October 3rd through December 24th of last year is something that might have been anticipated. The combination of a 25% increase in oil prices and the yield on the ten year US Treasury bond rising from 2.50% to 3.20% through the first three quarters of the year married to a notable slowing...
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The stock market’s 20% + return in 2017 led investors to approach 2018 feeling optimistic about the probability of the continuance of the good times. The market’s 10% return in the first three weeks of January last year seemed to confirm the likelihood of the fulfillment of that hope. Alas the market gave that all back and then some leaving most investors underwater some fraction of a percent by...
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Yesterday (Wednesday) the US stock market (as measured by the Dow Jones Industrial Average) was seemingly on its way to a 200 to 400 point decline when apparently the bulls left early for the day and the bears were left without anyone to sell to driving the market down 800 points at the market’s close. A few of the more honest commentators on the market offered “I don’t know” to...
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First there is watching grass grow. Then there is watching paint dry. But right behind is the stock market. Ten years ago, in 2008, you may have chosen not to follow your investments due to one month’s bad news being followed by the next ones even worse. By way of contrast in the past four months you may have chosen to not follow your investments because…well, why bother? Each month...
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Many of our fellow citizens and this may include yourself, are rubbing their temples to encourage blood flow to minds benumbed by the events of this past Tuesday. Please allow me to share a few thoughts that you may find helpful in establishing your expectations for the financial markets in the weeks and months ahead. First, please understand that these words are “value-free” in that there is no intent to...
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For the past eight years anyone with a relationship with the economy and the financial markets of the United States, in other words all of us, have felt themselves cast in the role of swimmers striving to increase the distance between the state of their economic lives and the shipwreck of the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2009 when the global financial system had listed badly, taken on serious amounts of...
Read MoreLike a patron of the local pub no doubt financial markets would have much preferred to pass around the hat to come up with the money to buy another round but wiser heads have prevailed and someone has called a cab (or is it Uber) to bring a situation that has already lasted much too long to its inevitable end. Capitalism hasn’t enjoyed a particularly good decade reputationally but it...
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