“The snow doesn’t give a soft white damn whom it touches.” — E.E. Cummings. Like a blizzard that speeds across the plains stranding the unsuspecting traveler, December brought extremely tumultuous weather in the markets. In fact, it was the worst December since 1931 for the broad U.S. equity market indices. Thankfully, your portfolio has been […]
Category: newsletter
Client Investment Letter October 2018
U.S. stocks continued their levitation act during the third quarter, driving the major indices to new all-time highs in both price and valuation. Your portfolio participated in kind and had a nice quarter, too. Risk appetite is as intense as ever, as seen in tight corporate bond spreads despite deteriorating credit quality, last year’s crypto […]
Client Investment Letter June 2018
“In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby Summer heat has descended upon us and so, for many, it is time to head to the beach or mountains and curl up with a good work […]
Client Investment Letter March 2018
“What investors then need…is an ability to both disregard mob fears or enthusiasms and to focus on a few simple fundamentals. A willingness to look unimaginative for a sustained period – or even to look foolish – is also essential.” – Warren Buffett The new year started off a lot like the old, with rampant […]
Client Investment Letter January 2018
“I doubt if you can have a truly wild party without liquor.”– Carl Sandburg 2017 was a year of celebration for financial markets. The S&P rose every single month of the year for the first time in history. Asset prices globally, from old world properties to newfangled cryptocurrencies, soared, and generally the riskier the asset, […]
Client Investment Letter October 2017
“Habit rules the unreflecting herd.” – William Wordsworth Perhaps simply out of habit, risk-on trades continued in the third quarter as the herd pushed assets to new highs. Speculative fervor, both man-made and computer generated, drove everything from small cap stocks to junk bonds, cryptocurrencies, real estate and even thoroughbred horses. The rapid growth of […]
Client Investment Letter June 2017
“First slowly, then suddenly.” – Ernest Hemmingway It has been another quarter of slow growth with few apparent changes in the market’s “no worries” attitude. The Federal Reserve persists in its gradual campaign to remove emergency accommodative monetary policy still in place, hiking interest rates in March and again in June, the fourth of this […]
Client Investment Letter March 2017
Since our last letter to you there have been some notable developments. President Trump was inaugurated, the Fed increased interest rates for the third time and hinted that more hikes are coming, and economic growth appears to have stalled, with the Atlanta Fed now projecting just 0.9% first-quarter GDP growth as of this writing. Hope […]
Client Investment Letter January 2017
“…For the loser now Will be later to win For the times they are a-changin’.” – Bob Dylan In trying to characterize the past twelve months, we are struck by one simple word: change. After years of sub-par growth, income inequality and financial repression, populist votes both here and abroad spoke loud and clear for […]
Client Investment Letter July 2016
“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.” ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau We realize there has been no shortage of pundits with a view on the implications of the U.K. electorate voting to leave the European Union, but with the second quarter now complete, we wanted to take a minute to provide our viewpoint and game […]