When it comes to investing in a managed investment strategy -- a mutual fund, for example -- many investors do not realize that total amount of assets under management (AUM) can be an important differentiating factor in the portfolio's performance.
For example, an equity investment strategy with fewer AUM, say below $2 billion, has far more...
Thursday, November 10, 2016
An Historic Election
The 2016 U.S. presidential election was clearly a watershed in American politics, if for no other reason than because a person who has never held any political office has made it to the highest ranking office in the nation and, once again, America sets the stage for peaceful change. That said, we will keep it brief and stick to the effects...
Monday, October 17, 2016
Investment Climate October 2016
The stock market recovered nicely in the third quarter after the “panic” over the Brexit vote subsided and the focus turned to the slow but consistent growth in the economy that has prevailed for a number of years now. Markets in general, as well as our Core Growth Strategy, ended the third quarter with a year-to-date return in the mid-single...
Wednesday, August 24, 2016
Passive Investment and Marxism!
We were very pleased to see someone else pointing out the potential negative societal aspects of passive investment, even going so far as to compare the phenomenon to something worse than Marxism!
This Bloomberg article highlighting commentary from investment firm Sanford C. Bernstein Co., LLC,...
Friday, August 19, 2016
"Boring Markets"...Really?
We came in to work this morning and the first thing we looked at was a daily market commentary from a major Wall Street firm whose first words were "Market Update - another boring and quiet day in US equities...." Mind you, we are in no way trashing this Wall Street firm, although they will...
Friday, July 15, 2016
Investment Climate: The Importance of Brexit
What a crazy few weeks in world markets! The second quarter was shaping up to be a decent rebound from the sloppy start in January, but the markets made an abrupt about-face and sold off dramatically in the wake of the vote in Great Britain to leave the European Union. The “Brexit” vote was a surprise to most speculators/traders who...
Friday, June 24, 2016
Don't Fear Brexit
In 1989, as we were hearing about the benefits of the "United States of Europe", we can clearly recall our skepticism over the noble idea of creating a common currency throughout Europe without a clear political union to go along with it. Was it reasonable in an area so geographically tied together to have a common currency to allow business...
Monday, June 13, 2016
Higher Interest Rates....Please!
We have written about this issue for so long now it is hard for us to imagine it is still necessary to do so; however, we feel compelled to reiterate how important we think it is for the US Federal Reserve to continue the nascent increase in interest rates it began late in 2015. Obviously, the era of "Zero Interest Rates" (ZIRP) has ended,...
Friday, May 20, 2016
Follow-up on the IPO conveyor belt disconnect
We certainly don't agree with Mark Cuban on everything, but we give him credit for continuing to hammer on a subject of great importance to the economy at large: the lack of IPOs.
We wrote a post last week entitled "Disconnect in the IPO conveyor belt" discussing some of the ramifications of this problem, ramifications which extend far beyond...
Wednesday, May 11, 2016
Disconnect in the IPO conveyor belt
image: Wikimedia commons (link).
Entrepreneur and investor Mark Cuban was on CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" this morning discussing what he sees as a "disconnect" in the progression from company formation ("start-ups") to growth and access to the capital markets through public listing. In a response to a question...
Friday, April 08, 2016
Pfizer CEO Speaks Out Against the Insanity
image: Charles Pfizer (1824 - 1906), entrepreneur, chemist, co-founder of Pfizer.
We have been long-term owners of the shares of Pfizer, Inc., the major drug company, in our TFCM Income Strategy. Its more than 3.5% dividend yield, which has grown over 8% per year in the last five years, and its slow...
Wednesday, March 23, 2016
Extraordinary Happenings In Brazil
image: Brazil protests (link).
It has not been highly publicized in our media but the events in Brazil in the last few weeks are nothing short of extraordinary and underscore how socialist, crony policies and actions are always doomed to fail. What is most notable is that Mises is being preferred to Marx by the young people in...
Thursday, March 03, 2016
Mobile World Congress 2016
We just returned from the Mobile World Congress 2016 (MWC 2016) in beautiful Barcelona, Spain. With over 2,000 companies presenting their products and services, and 100,000-plus people in attendance, MWC 2016 lived up to expectations as the premiere trade show/conference for "everything mobile" again this year.
We...
Monday, January 18, 2016
So When Do You Change Your Financial Advisor?
We recently spoke at a prospective client event in Santa Barbara, California and we were asked the question "how do you know when you should change financial advisors?" Before answering that question, however, one must understand that the term "financial advisor" can take on many different definitions. Most "retail" (individual) investors,...
Friday, January 15, 2016
Investment Climate Jan 2016 "The Sky is Falling," Again!
The year 2015 went out with a whimper as major market indices in the U.S. ended relatively flat to down. This is not surprising given that the Federal Reserve finally raised the target for the interest rate on Federal Funds at the December 2015 meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), and that the market averages had been dancing around...
Friday, January 08, 2016
A Rough Start to the Year - Stay Calm!
(image link)
The markets have ushered in 2016 with what is the worst start EVER in a new year for the stock markets around the world. We are told this is due to turmoil in China, which the conventional wisdom is suggesting is sure to take the U.S. economy into recession. We don't agree....
