Stocks were mostly unchanged last week as political developments, both at home and abroad, preoccupied investors’ attention. Former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee provided a back story of the events surrounding his dismissal in May. However, investors seemed to collectively shrug at the latest White House drama. In the U.K., Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative party unexpectedly lost its parliamentary majority; for the Tories to remain in po… View More
Traditional investment grade bonds will probably not produce the returns most investors need to reach their retirement goals, however, there are other options available. As many who have read our previous commentaries are aware, we’ve found the risk reward tradeoff in preferred stocks attractive. The year-to-date return for the S&P U.S. Preferred Stock Index is 7.02%, with its 10-year average annualized return equal to 4.97%. Most of this return is attributable to the dividends paid by the… View More
Nominal measures are the (global) story today Here’s an update on three of today’s consensus views that we continue to disagree with: 1) “U.S. soft economic data is not matching the hard data.” Missing the point: U.S. real growth is stable, nominal turned up, helping earnings. Nominal also matters for confidence (e.g. Biz Roundtable) & the level is still high. Soft & hard economic data still closer in Europe, increasing the odds of a U.S. economic reconnect. Inventory rebui… View More
Markets rallied last week; Technology stocks continued to lead the way, with the NASDAQ outpacing all other indices for the week as well as year-to-date. The notable exception, though, was the Energy sector which declined despite an extension of OPEC’s production freeze agreement (more on this below). Political headlines have mostly followed President Trump on his first overseas trip to Saudi Arabia, Israel, the Vatican, Belgium and Italy. The momentary reprieve from the domestic spotlight all… View More
Markets were volatile last week as political events continued to dominate headlines. On Wednesday, revelations related to President Trump’s dismissal of FBI Director James Comey unnerved investors; the 373-point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average was the Index’s largest decline in more than eight months. Markets recovered a portion of Wednesday’s sell-off on Thursday and Friday and markets are up today as economic data provided some reassurance of favorable business conditions. Joble… View More