Investors needn’t another layer of uncertainty, but received one anyway over the weekend after a meeting of members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its partner countries (together OPEC+) collapsed. Saudi Arabia slashed prices and matched threats from Russia to increase production. Meantime, COVID-19 cases surged in the U.S. and in […]

It would seem that investors finally began to focus on the near-to-medium-term potential impact of the COVID-19 virus. Or, was it that the Democratic Party debates were stirring fears of an increasingly tumultuous progression to the 2020 Presidential Election? We might best assume both, even as we respond to the recent dramatic decline in the […]

We closed January’s commentary with the thought that the vagaries of market returns we see in history are likely to persist in the future. While we cannot foresee what shall become of the market over the longer-term future, we can plan to be adaptable to circumstances in the interim. In particular as we begin to […]

One might suggest any hesitancy to be exposed to investment risk at the end of the third quarter proved misplaced, as returns for Q4 2019 show green most places one looks. Then again, one might in response state that misplaced is a poor choice of words, with premature perhaps a better qualifier as relevant risks […]

Last month, we discussed the highly variable magnitude of investment outcomes over longer periods of time. The focus was on the accumulation phase of our investment lifetimes, or those years when we tend to be saving much more than we are spending. Markets may prove just as variable when we begin to spend our invested […]

Investment hypotheticals are imaginary scenarios of portfolio returns. Summaries of theoretical past or future circumstances, they may serve as powerful tools for instruction, in particular we think when the goal is as much to convey how the investment math works as it is to convey the results of that math. Helping folks think through the […]