Overview 2022 should be the year of a full global recovery, an end to the pandemic, and a return to normal economic and market conditions that we had prior to the COVID-19 outbreak. We believe that an improved public health situation should result in a release of pent-up demand from consumers for travel and services, and from corporations for certain inventory and capital expenditures. The market should move higher, but returns are unlikely to match [...]

A battle between The Fed, Sentiment and Valuation One of the most important drivers, if not the pre-eminent force, propelling asset prices since the Great Financial Crisis has been Central Bank Policy, both here and abroad. The below chart outlines this notion quite dramatically. If current fiscal and monetary policies continue the path they have followed since March of last year, it’s hard to see a bear market evolving. However, we are seeing growing evidence [...]

The most important change in Fed Policy four decades In his press conference during March, Chairman Powell emphasized that monetary stimulus will remain until the labor market has achieved maximum employment and inflation is above their 2% target, for some period of time. Since Volcker broke the back of runaway inflation in the early 80’s by raising rates to 20%, the Fed has engaged in pre-emptive rate hikes based on their economic forecasts. Put simply, [...]

How has the market done this year? An easy question one would think. And often, it is quite easy, but not this year. Below is a table of different market indices with performance up to but not including the big dive in the market last Thursday. The second index from the top with the yellow dot to the left is what most people think of as “the market” – it is the S&P 500. [...]

Is the Stock Market overvalued? We are going to try to answer this age-old question, but before we do, we want to remind you what we think of valuing the markets. Valuation should never be used to judge if the market should be bought or sold. Valuation is a way to measure the potential for future long-term returns, especially when determining if the market is overbought. The economist John Maynard Keynes said, “markets can remain [...]