“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 […]
Category: newsletter
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 […]
Client Investment Letter February 2016
In good times, it’s easy to forget that markets are cyclical and investor sentiment, expressed through the market multiple, swings from greed to fear and back again (often at a far more rapid pace than business fundamentals). As the six-year ascent fueled by the Fed’s zero interest-rate policy and cheap credit runs out of steam, […]
Client Investment Letter October 2015
The global situation has not changed dramatically since our letter to you in July. We said to expect more volatility to come and boy have we gotten it! Your portfolio is filled with high quality companies that will weather the current squall and emerge stronger than ever when the winds die down. Indeed, that cash […]
Client Investment Letter 2015
The global markets have been on an unusually steady ascent since 2011, with no major corrections in developed markets over this timeframe. The Federal Reserve and other global central banks have been good pilots, providing a measured amount of gentle thrust from low interest rate policy to speed the liftoff of prices. Nearly every asset […]
