Commentary

Each month, the BCWM Portfolio Management team publishes an Investment Commentary that examines the latest developments in financial markets and the economy. We filter out the noise and present the information most relevant to our investment strategies and management of our clients’ portfolios.

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Just When You Think It Can’t Get Any Quieter

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The silence is almost deafening. Navigating the quiet markets is like being in a library. (Remember those places you used to go to find books before you could buy them online for $8.00?) We’ve alluded to the Volatility Index (VIX) in past Investment Commentaries. The VIX, which is derived from a complicated formula, measures the…
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Energy Independence

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Recently, we attended a couple of industry conferences… conferences loaded with “knowledgeable experts” who somehow manage to disagree with each other from time to time. Disagreements aside, we came away with several nuggets that we feel will help us negotiate the securities markets today. Here are several of them: Our long-held view that interest rates…
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Reaccommodate

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It is both interesting and disgusting that a business (any business) can intentionally screw up (routinely booking too many passengers as a course of business) and then hold their customers responsible for that screw up. United Airlines must win the prize this year for the most reprehensible corporate policy for dealing with the people who…
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Happy Anniversary to a Raging Bull Market

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It is widely expected that the Federal Reserve Bank will raise the federal funds rate at its March meeting this week. According to the futures market, there is a greater than 90% chance they will raise rates. Because a rate increase is so highly anticipated, we expect there will be virtually no market reaction when…
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You Trumped Our Brexit

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CNBC is in big trouble. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) finally broke through 20,000, and now the network is going to have to find something else to talk about. Its anchors have been anticipating this breakthrough for weeks and talking about it frequently almost every day, flashing ridiculous headlines on the screen that the…
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