August 11, 2017 By Steve Blumenthal “... Focused on the obvious and unimportant.” – Former Senior Economist, Federal Reserve Bank, Camp Kotok, August 6, 2017 Atop the “what matters most” list is debt.  Specifically, global sovereign debt: U.S., Europe, Japan and China.  We are at the end of a [...]Read More >

August 4, 2017 By Steve Blumenthal “The uncertainties are unusual in terms of number, scale and insolubility in areas including secular economic growth; the impact of central banks; interest rates and inflation; political dysfunction; geopolitical trouble spots; and the long-term impact of [...]Read More >

July 28, 2017 By Steve Blumenthal "Over the years I have seen scores of very bright investment advisors turn into hugely successful gurus who blaze into the investment business with spectacular forecasts. Yet, I've watched each and every one of them crash back to earth when a big subsequent [...]Read More >

July 21, 2017 By Steve Blumenthal “The primary, direct driver of default rates is not the yield on Treasury bonds but rather the business cycle.” Martin Fridson, CFA CIO of Lehmann, Livian, Fridson Advisors, LLC At a conference in Chicago this week, following up on last week’s letter, Keep [...]Read More >

July 14, 2017 By Steve Blumenthal “Our responsibility now is to keep dancing, but closer to the exit and with a sharp eye on the tea leaves.” – Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates, LP Ray Dalio, chairman of Bridgewater Associates, wrote last week that the global economy is heading toward a new [...]Read More >

July 7, 2017 By Steve Blumenthal “Would I say there will never, ever be another financial crisis? You know probably that would be going too far.  But I do think we’re much safer and I hope that it will not be in our lifetimes, and I don’t believe it will be.” - Janet Yellen, Federal Reserve [...]Read More >

June 30, 2017 By Steve Blumenthal “Change of a long-term trend is usually gradual enough that it is obscured by the noise caused by short-term volatility.  By the time secular trends are even acknowledged by the majority they are generally obvious and mature.  In the early stages of a new secular [...]Read More >

June 23, 2017 By Steve Blumenthal “Investors need risk management in bear markets, not in bull markets.” “We are in the business of making mistakes.  The only difference between the winners and the losers is that the losers make big mistakes and the winners make small mistakes.” “There are a [...]Read More >

June 16, 2017 By Steve Blumenthal “Make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other is gold.” – Author Unknown The words above were etched on a wooden plaque that hung in my family’s kitchen.  Mom was sending us a message and she’d point us to those words anytime we were quick to [...]Read More >

June 9, 2017 By Steve Blumenthal “Your job as investors is to feel sick to your stomach. Do not invest when you are excited and everything is great… go shopping when things go on sale.” “We will have a recession sometime within the next 12 months.  It is not going to be different this time.” – [...]Read More >

June 2, 2017 By Steve Blumenthal “The initial conditions or the starting point conditions, mean to me that a small degree of monetary restraint has a very quick and strong impact on economic activity.”  - Lacy H. Hunt, Ph.D., Hoisington Investment Management 2017 Strategic Investment [...]Read More >

May 26, 2017 By Steve Blumenthal "If you make an investment and feel good about it, you'll lose money. If you make an investment and you don’t feel good about it, you’ll make money. Go shopping when things are on sale." –  Mark Yusko, Morgan Creek Capital Management 2017 Strategic Investment [...]Read More >

May 19, 2017 By Steve Blumenthal “Over the long term, what raises living standards is productivity—the amount that is produced per person—which increases from coming up with new ideas and implementing ways of producing efficiently.  Productivity evolves slowly, so it doesn’t drive big economic [...]Read More >

May 12, 2017 By Steve Blumenthal “In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run, it is a weighing machine.” – Benjamin Graham When Ronald Reagan entered office in 1981, forward return expectations were a high 18.91% (see chart below: green line, left-hand side).  Equally [...]Read More >

May 5, 2017 By Steve Blumenthal “Bull markets are born on pessimism, grow on skepticism, mature on optimism and die on euphoria.” – Sir John Templeton I presented at a recent advisor conference alongside a famous economist.  He told a story about an investment manager who told him, “You know… [...]Read More >