By: Matt Garrott Saying the market hates uncertainty is cliché because uncertainty is the only constant in the market.  Otherwise there would be no risk and returns would be miniscule.  Lately, though, there have been three sources of outsized uncertainty: US/China trade, Brexit, and the Federal Reserve.  October may have been the beginning [...]

By: Matt Garrott The S&P 500 is up over 20% through September 30th.  Real estate is up almost 28%.  Even the Barclays Aggregate Bond Index is up over 8%.  Unemployment is incredibly low at 3.7% and wage growth is picking up.  Inflation is tame at under 2%.  The United States, particularly relative to [...]

By: Matt Garrott Midway through August nearly every media outlet posted a RECESSION headline.  Even the Cleveland Plain Dealer ran a front-page story.  The yield curve had inverted (the yield on shorter maturity bonds was higher than longer maturities), leading some to jump to the conclusion that a recession was imminent.  After all, [...]

By: Matt Garrott With a trade war, the Fed’s rate cut, and election season ramping up (none of the challengers will say anything positive about the economy), you may be forgiven for thinking the investing environment is in shambles.  However, even after the rough past week, the S&P 500 remains up nearly 15% [...]

By: Matt Garrott The stock market is either red-hot, extremely average, or still in recovery depending on your perspective.  Let’s torture the data until it tells us what we want to hear. The red-hot stock market The S&P 500 is up 18.5% and we’re only halfway through 2019!  Unemployment is incredibly low.  Inflation [...]

By: Matt Garrott The month of May was not kind to equity markets as the S&P 500 dropped 6%.  International stocks were down for the month, too.  The EAFE lost 5% while Emerging Markets were down 7%.  Sell in May and go away?  We don’t think so.  The timing of the drop is [...]

By: Matt Garrott 2019 is off to a hot start as the S&P 500 gained 13.7%.  Will the market keep up this pace for the rest of the year?  It’s unlikely, but the “pace” is also a bit misleading.  We have not yet made up the ground lost in last quarter’s sell-off.  This [...]

By: Matt Garrott This Commentary Brought to You in Part by Macaroni and Cheese The latest earnings report for Kraft Heinz was a shocker.  Operating results were flat, there was a huge impairment ($15.4 billion) of goodwill, and the dividend was cut by 40%.  On top of it all, the SEC is investigating [...]

By: Matt Garrott The S&P 500 seemed destined for bear territory (a fall of at least 20%) at the end of last year.  It was down 17% when the US government shut down on Saturday December 22nd.  On Monday, the 24th, a frenzied half-day of trading left the market down more than 19% [...]

By: Matt Garrott What Happened in 2018 Hail to the King – Cash was king in 2018, up 1.87%.  Chances are your savings account outperformed your portfolio this year, as 2018 was a highly unusual year where virtually every other broad asset class lost money.  Keep in mind that inflation probably outperformed your [...]