Thinking about the past three months, the word divergence comes to mind. Within equities, U.S. stocks continued to pull away from global peers as the U.S. economy furthered similar feats of distinction. Beginning later in the quarter and hastening in the current one, the domestic bond market sank anew, representing for many a departure from […]

A fact of investing, bond prices generally fall as interest rates rise. This happens as holders of existing bonds sporting lower yields (which is the coupon paid divided by the price of the bond) sell them in favor of newly issued bonds carrying now higher going-forward yields. As the prices of older bonds fall, their […]

Lots of folks talking about how long-in-the-tooth is this bull market. Some conclude the end is near. Others see room to run. Regular readers hopefully can guess what we think. Regardless how one determines bull markets, neither its eventual length, nor the length and depth of the drawdown that succeeds it are determinable in advance. […]

Fairly common to hear folks gabbing about how great a stock they own has performed. Common, too, having missed out on the run to the peak, the schadenfreude of those who avoided the downfall of former big winners. A recent example, we all might like to have seen our individual portfolios achieve gains like the […]

The second quarter proved mostly unexceptional. Sure, we could point to headlines and such, intimating at some connection between how markets reacted and reflecting on the performance of our models amidst those reactions. But, as we often note, such comments would be more conjecture than conviction. Besides, there really wasn’t much in the way of […]

We attempt as often as we can to resolve many of the mysteries surrounding investment management and our version of it. Not always an easy task, as popular culture has left many with impressions far removed from the normal day-to-day activities that comprise our work. Rare is the frantic emotion suggested by cable financial news. […]