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 [...]
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. [...]
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. [...]
So we’ve never had people in a more gambling mood than now. But that doesn’t mean that investing is terrible. It does mean that prices for an awful lot of things will look very silly. Warren Buffett, CNBC interview, 5/2/26 If you've been reading these weekly missives for any length of time, you know I've been ranting about gambling for [...]
Trump, The Sequel: The First 15 Months The first 15 months of President Trump's second term has seen a whirlwind of policy changes, many of which have been notable for their extreme nature. President Trump's style, his modus operandi, is capricious and so are his policies - unpredictable, impulsive, and often a result of anger at some perceived slight. To [...]
Stock markets the world over celebrated the end of the Iran War last week with many closing the week at all-time highs: Large cap (S&P 500, Russell 1000), Small cap (Russell 2000, S&P 600), NASDAQ, Emerging Markets, Asia ex-Japan, Latin America 40, Canada, Australia, Israel, Poland, Italy, Netherlands, Austria, Spain, Singapore, Taiwan, and Brazil all closed at all-time highs (based [...]
The Post-COVID Volatility When one thinks back on all that has happened since 2020, it is, I think, amazing how little the US economy has changed over that time. Obviously, the economy was volatile during the shutdown of the economy during COVID and during the period when the economy was re-opening. Real GDP fell over 7% in the second quarter [...]
Sentiment about the economy is negative right now, but that isn't a new development. The University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey is near its all-time worst reading, which was set just a few years ago in 2022. The expectations portion of that survey is currently at levels only seen in the mid-70s, near the bottom of the '73/74 bear market, [...]
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