This past year was the most difficult investment year in a long, long time. During previous bad markets, there were typically other asset classes (bonds?) that offset the decline in stock prices. For example, during the sub-prime mortgage crisis of late 2007 through early 2009, the stock market declined 55%, but there were other asset…
It now appears that the great Red Wave didn’t quite materialize during the mid-term elections. (We fondly recall the days when election results were almost always announced the following day.) And although Republicans now have a House majority, the Senate is still somewhat undecided. With a run-off election in Georgia yet to come, the Democrats…
In the past two months, the stock market has rallied, gaining over 17%. Of course, that’s on the heels of a decline in excess of 22% since year end, so the market is still down about 9% for calendar year 2022. (Trust us, the math is correct.) As we have noted before, the most significant…
The most recent inflation report stated that prices had increased 9.1% in the past year, “the largest increase in forty-one years.” The largest increase in forty-one years? Wow! We know this sounds crazy, but one of our co-founders actually began his career exactly forty-one years ago. And he notes some startling differences between 9.1% inflation…
There are two likely paths for the U.S. economy in the year ahead: 1) Continued high inflation 2) Recession There is also a third possibility: a combination of the two, also known as “stagflation,” but we don’t classify it as “likely.” With continued high inflation, the Federal Reserve is in the hot seat. Its goal…
