April 17, 2020 By Steve Blumenthal “For the time before this current crisis, I give practically all central banks a miserable grade. But in the crisis they do the right thing. Well, the Fed's rate cuts would not have been necessary, they are of no use in the current situation. But it is [...]Read More >

April 10, 2020 By Steve Blumenthal “So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear that there is no alternative way, so far discovered, of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system.” - [...]Read More >

April 3, 2020 By Steve Blumenthal “There are no new eras—excesses are never permanent.” – Bob Farrell Bob Farrell’s 10 Rules for Investing I went to sleep last night with more hope in my heart then I’ve felt over the last several weeks. These days, I’ve been feeling more like Eeyore than [...]Read More >

March 27, 2020 By Steve Blumenthal "We entered into the current crisis with a whole financial system that had been incentivized by policymakers to take on excessive levels of debt and leverage. The turmoil we are seeing right now is the result of the unwinding of this leverage. The primary [...]Read More >

March 20, 2020 By Steve Blumenthal “I am proposing that we do not think outside of the box. We must get rid of the box.” – John Mauldin This week’s piece was hard for me to write. How does an optimist keep their spirits up? I’m OD’ing on the news and with coffee in hand early this morning, I [...]Read More >

March 13, 2020 By Steve Blumenthal “We didn’t know then, just like we don’t know now, how long or how sharp or shallow of a downturn we will face.” - Alfred Lin, Partner, Sequoia Capital Sequoia Capital is a venture capital firm that invests in early stage businesses, providing seed or series [...]Read More >

March 6, 2020 By Steve Blumenthal “It will take considerable time — perhaps several quarters — before we can be confident that the virus has been contained. It will take even longer for the global economy to recover its footing.” - Letter from Sequoia Capital to Founders and CEOs of its [...]Read More >

February 28, 2020 By Steve Blumenthal “I hope nobody took President Trump’s “buy the dip” investment advice… The disruption to economic activity due to the coronavirus will be ongoing.” - David Rosenberg, Founder, Chief Economist, and Strategist, Rosenberg Research and Associates This morning, [...]Read More >

February 21, 2020 By Steve Blumenthal “While no one wishes to incur losses, you couldn’t prove it from an examination of the behavior of most investors and speculators. The speculative urge that lies within most of us is strong; the prospect of a free lunch can be compelling, especially when [...]Read More >

February 14, 2020 By Steve Blumenthal "Investing is the intersection of economics and psychology.” "The economics, the valuation of the business, is not hard. The psychology—How much do you buy? Do you buy it at this price? Do you wait for a lower price? What do you do when it looks like the [...]Read More >

February 7, 2020 By Steve Blumenthal “For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name, He writes not that you won or lost, but how you played the game!” – Grantland Rice In 1907, sportswriter Grantland Rice saw what he would call the greatest thrill he ever witnessed in his years [...]Read More >

January 31, 2020 By Steve Blumenthal “The US economy has experienced its slowest recovery from a recession in the post-World War II era, and the longer it lasts the more evidence there is that normal cyclical patterns are missing. And their absence means market participants shouldn’t rely on [...]Read More >

January 24, 2020 By Steve Blumenthal “We’re just in the craziest monetary-fiscal [policy] mix in history. It’s so explosive, it defies imagination. It reminds me a lot of early ’99 [when inflation was low and stock markets were soaring]. The difference is the fed funds rate was 4.75% — today [...]Read More >

January 17, 2020 By Steve Blumenthal “The last five major global cyclical events were the early 1990s recession — largely occasioned by the U.S. Savings & Loan crisis, the collapse of Japan Inc. after the stock market crash of 1990, the Asian crisis of the mid-1990s, the fabulous technology [...]Read More >

January 10, 2020 By Steve Blumenthal “We have long felt that the only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune-tellers look good. Even now, Charlie (Munger) and I continue to believe that short-term market forecasts are poison and should be kept locked up in a safe place, away from children [...]Read More >