OK, when we’re wrong, we’re wrong. A year ago, we predicted that Nicolas Maduro wouldn’t make it through the year as Venezuela’s leader. At the time, Venezuela had an inflation rate of 10,000%, and 85% of the population lived in poverty. Things are not much better today. But somehow Maduro is still making the rules…
After ten years, the economic expansion in the United States continues. Unemployment remains extremely low, and the holiday shopping season showed that the American consumer is in the mood to spend. And the stock market appears to “want” to go higher. Why do we say it seems to want to go higher? Look at what…
Here we are at the end of another decade, one that seems to have passed rather quickly, as trite as that may sound. Ten years ago, our Investment Commentary noted that the period of 2000–2009 resulted in a negative rate of return for the stock market. It’s rare that you experience any period of that…
This just in . . . Drone strikes on a Saudi Arabian oil facility over the weekend sidelined more than half of the kingdom’s output and removed about 5% of the global oil supply from the market. It is the biggest one-day oil disruption in history.