Economic Stability One of the remarkable things about the US economy is how stable it has been over the last 4 years. I know it doesn't feel that way sometimes - most of the time? - but from an aggregate viewpoint, that is the reality. We can see this stability in a variety of economic reports as well as in [...]
In Congress, July 4, 1776 The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of [...]
All About The AI? It's an AI stock world and all the other stocks are just living in it, right? That is the persistent narrative we've been hearing for at least a couple of years and while the story is starting to see some cracks, it is still widely believed. There is still an underlying whiff of FOMO surrounding the [...]
Can Tech Stocks Keep Outperforming? Technology stocks have been outperforming for a long time. That's how technology gets to be nearly 40% of the S&P 500 and the Russell 1000 and 60% of the NASDAQ 100. The concentration of the indexes in technology stocks is a function of how well they've performed and the performance has solid, fundamental roots. They [...]
Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing. Euripides Investors live in a world of noise. Every day the financial media pumps out content designed to capture your attention. An economic report will generate multiple analyses, some bullish, some bearish, looking at identical data and arriving at opposite conclusions. Social media amplifies it all, creating a cacophony of competing memes, all designed [...]
Where's the global economic meltdown? We're 3 months into a war with Iran, the Strait of Hormuz closed. 20% of global LNG is shutdown for the next 3 years, 20% of global crude oil production is being affected, 30% of global fertilizer supply is shut off, and roughly a third of global helium supply is bottled up in the gulf. [...]
Nicholas Mutton / A fork in the road The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed. - William Gibson, author of Neuromancer Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. - George Santayana, The Life of Reason We are in the midst of an unprecedented boom. A technological revolution that [...]
Because the goal of investing is to accumulate real wealth—an enhanced ability to pay for goods and services—the ultimate focus of the long-term investor must be on real, not nominal, returns. - John Bogle, Common Sense on Mutual Funds There is a robust debate these days about whether today's high stock market valuations are justified. On one side are more [...]
“You pay a very high price in the stock market for a cheery consensus.” — Warren Buffett The inflation figures released last week were not particularly good. Consumer prices rose 0.6% in April and the year-over-year change is now 3.8%. The core numbers were better at 0.4% for the month and 2.8% year-over-year, but those were still higher than expected. [...]
Clearly, sustained low inflation implies less uncertainty about the future, and lower risk premiums imply higher prices of stocks and other earning assets. We can see that in the inverse relationship exhibited by price/earnings ratios and the rate of inflation in the past. But how do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject [...]
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