July 27, 2018 By Steve Blumenthal “One last thing – as for this debate about the yield curve needing to invert to warrant a recession call, the reality is that at the ultra-low levels of rates, bloated central bank balance sheets that are in the process of gradually unwinding, and in the face of [...]Read More >

July 20, 2018 By Steve Blumenthal "Curiosity leads to learning. As you expose yourselves to newer and richer experiences; you learn different things—some good, some bad—but all important to the journey of life. It is what you learn is all that matters." – "Prashant" in John Mauldin's “An [...]Read More >

July 13, 2018 By Steve Blumenthal “The elephant in the room is and has always been the Federal Reserve since it has a very large say in what liquidity conditions are going to look like. I see the Fed continuing to raise rates, albeit gradually, and to also continue in its Quantitative Tightening [...]Read More >

July 6, 2018 By Steve Blumenthal “The major signs that would herald the beginning of the next recession are not yet in place. Unemployment is low and likely to decline further; wages are rising, but not sharply; the Federal Reserve is tightening, but real interest rates are zero; inflation is [...]Read More >

June 29, 2018 By Steve Blumenthal “Here we are doing something that almost seems like a suicide mission… increasing the size of the deficit while we’re raising interest rates.” – Jeffrey Gundlach, DoubleLine Capital I’d add to that quote by saying that the administration is doing everything [...]Read More >

June 22, 2018 By Steve Blumenthal “The bottom line is that the wisdom of investing passively depends, ironically, on some people investing actively. When active investing is dismissed totally and all active efforts cease, passive investing will become imprudent and opportunities for superior [...]Read More >

June 15, 2018 By Steve Blumenthal “So I think you’ll see rates go up and stocks go up in tandem at the end of the year.” “If you asked me to think of similar time periods, I’d say 1987 in the U.S., I’m not saying we are going to have a crash.  It was a time when you had a budget deficit and you [...]Read More >

June 8, 2018 By Steve Blumenthal - Rudyard Kipling It was Kipling’s poem. A reflection.  A smile. And yes, a tear. It was my mom whispering. If I could share some advice to the young CFA, an advisor, my client, my friend, my kids and again to myself… that poem. So much in that poem. This [...]Read More >

June 1, 2018 By Steve Blumenthal “… [T]he trigger for a crisis could be anything if the system as a whole is unstable. Moreover, the size of the trigger event need not bear any relation to the systemic outcome. The lesson is that policymakers should be focused less on identifying [...]Read More >

May 25, 2018 By Steve Blumenthal “If I were trying to create a deflationary bust, I would do exact exactly what the world’s central bankers have been doing the last six years. I shudder to think that the malinvestment that occurred over this period. Corporate debt has soared, but most of it has [...]Read More >

May 18, 2018 By Steve Blumenthal "The most important item over time in valuation is obviously interest rates… If interest rates are destined to be at low levels, it makes any stream of earnings from investments worth more money. The bogey is always what government bonds yield." - Warren Buffett [...]Read More >

May 11, 2018 By Steve Blumenthal “At a time when the unemployment rate is well below full employment and inflation is accelerating, the Federal Reserve (Fed) is already on a course to tighten policy in order to cool the economy. Fiscal stimulus has only served to elevate concerns about economic [...]Read More >

May 4, 2018 By Steve Blumenthal "Excesses in one direction will lead to an opposite excess in the other direction." "Markets are strongest when they are broad and weakest when they narrow to a handful of blue-chip names." "Bull markets are more fun than bear markets." - Bob Farrell (Rules #2, [...]Read More >

April 27, 2018 By Steve Blumenthal “What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expect generally happens." Benjamin Disraeli We’ve been talking about a 3% yield on the 10-year Treasury as a line in the sand.  It may well be.  The important technical number is 3.07%.  A break higher and 4% is [...]Read More >

April 20, 2018 By Steve Blumenthal “A Minsky moment is a sudden major collapse of asset values, which is part of the credit cycle or business cycle. Such moments occur because long periods of prosperity and increasing value of investments lead to increasing speculation using borrowed [...]Read More >