This past quarter provided a shock to our system with the first run on a major bank since the Great Recession in 2008-09. It reminded us of how tenuous (and yet, at the same time surprisingly robust) our banking system often is as well as how shocks to the financial markets can come, seemingly, out […]
Read More… from Market Commentary: Spring 2023 – March Madness
Sometimes it can be difficult to remain a disciplined investor. Over periods of time, a diversified buy-hold-rebalance strategy can seem like it is not performing as well as it should, especially when we see some other “hot investment” making headlines. It can lead us to wonder if we may be missing out on some new […]
Read More… from Market Commentary: Winter 2022 – Fear of Missing Out
Originally published in North Bay Business Journal For investors, it has been a trying year: Both stocks and bonds have been down at the same time, which is not common. It is quite rare for bonds to be down in any material way during periods of stock market decline. To put this into perspective, the […]
Read More… from Market Commentary: Fall 2022 – Bad Year for Bonds
Diversification. We use this word a lot when we describe how the best portfolios are constructed, and it’s one of the keys to a successful investment strategy. The main idea is that a properly diversified portfolio will mitigate losses because different investments react to the same event in different ways. Our portfolios are comprised of […]
Read More… from Market Commentary: Summer 2022 – Thoughts on Diversification
Originally published in North Bay Business Journal The onset of inflation has been one of the dominant stories in the press and financial markets over the past few months. You can see it everywhere, from the increase in the price of gas at the pump to the cost of food at the grocery store. After […]
Read More… from Market Commentary: Spring 2022 – Cash, Stocks, and Bonds
Homeowner’s insurance is one of those topics that garner little interest from most people. Copies of declaration pages and notices from insurance companies often sit unread or barely glanced at until times of need. The details are dry, and the numbers and terms used are a challenge to understand. For most, it is more a […]
Read More… from Market Commentary: Fall 2021 – Homeowner’s Insurance
INFLATION: IT’S BACK The May release of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ inflation data was an eye opener: the benchmark “CPI-U”, or the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, was up 5% year-over-year – a substantial increase over the 1.8% average we have seen over the past decade. It was a wake-up call that […]
Read More… from Market Commentary: Summer 2021 – Inflation: It’s Back
A FEW LESSONS FROM THE PAST YEAR These past 12 months have been a year of extremes, a period that tested our resolve in so many areas – personal, financial, and emotional. There was loss and ultimately (we hope) gratitude that we could remain resilient in the face of uncertainty. And all of it seemed […]
Read More… from Market Commentary: Spring 2021 – Lessons from the Past Year
2020: The Year of the Unexpected At the beginning of 2020, the outlook for the economy and the stock markets seemed promising. The US stock market was amid its longest bull run ever (almost 11 years), the economy was growing, and unemployment was low. Interest rates were on the rise – the benchmark 10-year US […]
Read More… from Market Commentary: Winter 2021 – The Year of the Unexpected
A LOOK UNDER THE HOOD OF THE US MARKET – AND ITS AMAZING RECOVERY If you were to look at the stock market, one would have a sense the American Economy is having a great year: The S&P 500 index, the most widely followed measure of how large companies are performing in the United States, […]
Read More… from Market Commentary: Fall 2020 – The Market’s Amazing Recovery
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