2024 Mid-Year Update
Interesting times, indeed. While political shockwaves across the globe are changing the trajectory of nations and shifting the outlooks for international economies, investment markets in the US are narrowly fixated on one simple question: When will we see interest rate cuts?
2024 Investment Outlook
If ever there was a period that demonstrated how the stock market interpreted the phenomenon of an economic cycle, it was the past two calendar years. Largely driven by interest rate policy from our Federal Reserve, both stocks and bonds have retraced and advanced, gaining little ground since the end of 2021. But while investment Read More
2023 Mid-Year Update
In our last commentary, we suggested that a higher-for-longer interest rate environment, flattening global growth, and fears of an impending recession would put pressure on equities over the short-term. While we still hold that perspective, we were clearly a bit early in expressing that view and have been a bit surprised by the level of Read More
2023 Investment Outlook
In this space twelve months ago, our view was that rapidly rising global inflation and the resultant restrictive monetary policy would create challenging conditions for capital markets, and that a defensive position was called for. That position proved valuable, as a bias toward risk aversion avoided meaningful capital losses.
2022 Mid-Year Update
Coming into the year, our capital markets positioning was cautious given extreme valuations, rising inflation, and questionable prospects for continued growth. Our assumption was that an intense rise in prices for consumers — driven by a decade of accommodative monetary policy following the Global Financial Crisis extending through the COVID era — would need to Read More