Commentaries

The S&P 500 finished November up 0.2%, bringing year to date returns to 17.8% through month end. A flat month on the surface doesn’t quite capture the experience investors lived through, as it took a late-month rally to pull the index back to where it started. Beneath the headline number, some of the year’s high-flying […]

October could best be described as a mixed bag: some good, some bad, but certainly eventful. The month’s headlines and market reactions once again reinforced our Clear Air Turbulence theme, as investors navigated through some spooky developments: renewed government shutdown threats, chatter about stock market “bubbles” and talk of additional tariffs that led to a […]

Mark Twain once said that September is a particularly difficult month to invest in stocks. Of course, he went on to comment jokingly that the other 11 difficult months included all other 30-day periods that comprise the calendar. Well, not true this September. The S&P 500 advanced over 2% for the month, and its current […]

The current market set-up and drama surrounding the Federal Reserve (the Fed) is center stage right now and about as Shakespearean as it gets. In this unfolding monetary policy play, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell is seemingly cast in the role of Hamlet. Taking some license with that famous soliloquy in the actual play, the poetic […]

On July 16, capital markets went through a period of whipsaw trading as speculation emerged that President Donald Trump might “fire” Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. Later that day, the president stated he wasn’t going to remove Powell unless he found “cause.” Do the cost overruns tied to renovations at the Federal Reserve building in […]

No doubt about it, the market is exhibiting some mojo as we close out the first half of 2025. The S&P 500 had an outstanding June, with a total return of roughly 5% for the month. This was on the heels of a more than 6% total return in May, which made for one of […]

“Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens,” said legendary guitarist Jimi Hendrix—a fitting reminder as we reflect on the wild ride that has been the first half of 2025. It turns out we were quite serious when we discussed the likely virulent swings in policy rhetoric out of Washington and the associated turbulence in stock price activity. […]

As management theorist and author Peter Drucker said, “The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence, it is to act with yesterday’s logic.” April saw a whirlwind of surprising news flow causing investors to suffer a commensurate roller coaster ride in stock price behavior. Let’s review April’s catalytic events and associated price […]

Stock price behavior felt a little crazy in March, sort of like the madness of a recent college basketball tournament, as the S&P 500 index declined in price by roughly 5.8% for the month and the tech laden Nasdaq composite index price was off roughly 8.2%.1 It got even crazier in early April following the President […]

2025 has simply been boring and status quo, right? There’s not much going on in the world or in the headlines. Not! We want to make sure you are awake as you start to read this. As we anticipated, the amount of news flowing out of Washington on the policy front this year has been […]

I feel better about some of my past economic calls that haven’t panned out. Theodore Roosevelt’s quote—“The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything”—gives me some degree of solace. My mistakes show that I am at least willing to make a call. My regular readers may remember that […]

“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday’s logic.” — World-renowned management consultant and author Peter Drucker From an investment return standpoint, 2024 was virtually a replay of 2023. Specifically, the S&P 500 returned a total of 25.0% in calendar year 2024, almost identical to 2023’s […]

It is possible to have too much of a good thing.” – Greek storyteller Aesop “Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.” – Actress and comedian Mae West A potential Santa Claus rally and post-election bounce that typically appears in the final two months of the calendar year got off to a nice […]

“I used to think that if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or a .400 baseball hitter. But now I would like to come back as the bond market. It can intimidate everybody.” —Well-known political strategist James Carville In prepping for this month’s commentary, I did […]

Statler (S): That was the worst thing I ever heard! Waldorf (W): It was terrible! S: Horrendous! W: Well, it wasn’t that bad. S: Oh, yeah? W: Yeah, it was GOOD, actually. S: Yeah, bravo! S & W: More!! — Excerpt from well-known Statler and Waldorf “Muppets” characters’ skit After a slow start in the […]

“It doesn’t matter how smart you are unless you stop and think.” —Well-known economist Thomas Sowell Nothing like a little head-spinning drama, eh? That’s what we saw in August as virtually one or two slightly disappointing economic numbers sparked a more than 10% pullback in the technology-laden Nasdaq and pushed the S&P 500 down close […]

“Our Earth is degenerate in these later days; bribery and corruption are common; children no longer obey their parents; every man wants to write a book, and the end of the world is evidently approaching.”– Assyrian tablet, circa 2800 B.C. These days, we are living through a period of high political tension. The national […]

“It’s déjà vu all over again.”— Yogi Berra The first six months of 2024 were equally as kind to investors as the first six months of 2023. And that’s saying something, knowing that calendar-year total return in 2023 for the full year exceeded 26%.1 Returns for the S&P 500 in both six-month periods at the start […]

“It’s the economy, stupid!” —Slogan coined by James Carville, well-known campaign strategist, and former President Bill Clinton during the 1992 presidential campaign April showers brought May flowers, indeed. The S&P 500 advanced over 4% in May following a decline of that same magnitude in April.1 This past month was a nice “in your face” start to […]

“Some things are believed because they are demonstrably true. But many other things are believed simply because they have been asserted repeatedly—and repetition has been accepted as a substitute for evidence.” —Well-known economist and author Thomas Sowell April just wasn’t any fun. The S&P 500 fell 4.2% in the month, its worst monthly showing since […]