Newsletters
Equities Offer the Best Defense Against Inflation: Another decade is officially behind us. Now more than ten years off the financial crisis bottom, the stock market just notched one of its best decades on record. With the exception of 2018, when the index was down roughly 4%, the S&P 500 ended every calendar year of this past decade in positive territory.
Stay the Course to Reap the Rewards from Value Investing: It has been 85 years since the publication of Security Analysis, a classic value investing guide written by Benjamin Graham, widely known as the “father of value investing” and mentor to Warren Buffett. To honor the 50th anniversary of Security Analysis, Buffett wrote an article entitled “The Superinvestors of Graham & Doddsville.”
Risks on the Horizon for Equity Investors: As I write this, the S&P 500 just crossed over 3,000 for the first time ever. In fact, the 18.5% return in the first half of 2019 represented the best first-half percentage gain since 1997. The current bull market was born on March 9, 2009. At more than 3,775 days old, this cycle has set a record for the longest stock rally without at least a 20% decline in the S&P.
Rising Markets, Declining Fundamentals: Boosted by tax cuts passed at the end of 2017, the pace of growth in the US economy accelerated last summer, with real GDP growing at a 4.2% annualized pace in the second quarter, followed by 3.4% in the third quarter. After a decade of keeping interest rates super-low in what were intended to be temporary emergency measures, the Federal Reserve finally appeared ready to “normalize” interest rates.