This debt ceiling nonsense appears to be a manufactured crisis, which could and probably will be resolved pretty easily, and the best approach for all of us is to remain invested in our long-term portfolios.
Read More
The last month has been close to the wildest ride of my professional life. I have to rank it right up there with my experience of working with my clients and the world in the days following the terrorist attacks of 9/11. I don’t say that lightly. It dawned on…
In this short series (see the Introduction), I lay out the four key categories of work that we do on behalf of our investment management clients — four kinds of activities that are difficult for folks without our training and experience to do for themselves. I hope that this series…
Whenever markets move far enough & fast enough to draw the attention of the non-financial press, investment advisors start to get a few more phone calls than usual. The US markets (stocks and bonds both, unusually enough) have been acting very strange lately — these “up 3%, down 4%” swings…
Current Market Conditions and Short-Term Expectations: Whenever the major US stock indexes reach new highs, or tumble unexpectedly, we hear from a few of our clients with worries about the near future. The S&P 500 (a broad index representing the largest US-based companies) hit new all-time highs in late…
It’s hard to avoid hearing the rumbling sound coming from Wall Street over the last couple of weeks. Even news outlets that don’t normally mention market news have spent at least a few minutes on the wild ups and downs – okay, mostly downs – of the major indexes. And…
A college classmate wrote me an email recently, asking my opinion about the state of the world, and the markets, in the current political climate. Since the election there’s a nagging voice in my head saying that the money I’m investing is just going to go away on account of…
Yesterday, in a surprise move, the people of the UK voted to leave the European Union, and Prime Minister Cameron was more-or-less forced to resign. Markets around the world had been rising for the last few weeks, as it looked to most observers like the vote would go the other…
Stoicism has seen rather a lot of interest in the last few years — maybe it’s the fallout of a period of financial and social uncertainty, but I think the rise of events like “Stoic Week” tell us something about our desire to find meaning. At the same time, most…
It’s official – that was a lousy week on the American stock markets. In fact, this past week was the worst first week of a new year for the Dow Jones average ever. What happened, and what does it mean? Are those storm clouds gathering? As is so often the…
