Macro Minute

Today I want to touch briefly of a very triggering topic in the investing world, and that is bubbles. First off, what even is a bubble? I would argue that a bubble is when the valuation is not supported by long-term fundamentals. In the late 1990’s Alan Greenspan used the term “irrational exuberance”, when describing the price action […]

Let’s talk about the market drop on Friday. There are many culminating catalysts for it. We had Broadcom earnings beat expectations, but consensus was expecting higher guidance on AI demand. This sparked a selloff in all chip stocks, especially in the South Korean Kospi, that is at elevated levels because of legislative changes encouraging local citizens’ participation in […]

When I look through my email inbox every day, I see lots of smart people saying lots of different things. Most of these people get paid to sell a product or service, in other words, they are incentivized to say something and have an opinion at all times. In my observation this leads to bad behavioral […]

It has been a little while since I have written anything. Part of this is because I have been having some joint pain that has made writing difficult, but the largest part is that markets have been a bit myopic. All that matters right now is the price of oil and the straits of Hormuz. If oil goes […]

I have written a couple of things that I have decided to scrap. I was writing about markets and the conflict with Iran. Not that I don’t believe in what I wrote, just the situation is highly uncertain and rife with misinformation. Everyone has a take and a spin on either what is happening, what is going […]

“As goes January, so goes the year.”  The so-called January Barometer or January Effect is a heuristic that is used by market participants to gauge how the rest of the year will be based off the stock market returns in January. This might sound silly, but it has a solid track record of over 80% […]

“My partner Charlie says there is only three ways a smart person can go broke: liquor, ladies and leverage, now the truth is — the first two he just added because they started with L — it’s leverage.” – Warren Buffet  You have heard me warn of leverage several times in the past. I could […]

Today, I want to talk about the opposite of risk, luck. In investing, we talk a lot about what could go wrong. There is a good reason for this. That is because we feel loss twice as much as we feel gain. This is called loss aversion. Many times, we don’t put ourselves out there […]

What am I paying attention to in markets?  I am watching a vicious bull market running in precious metals and possibly spilling into all commodities.There’s a continuation of trends from last year with international markets outperforming U.S., global growth accelerating, and real assets showing its benefits within a diversified portfolio. I am also watching continued […]

This week, I would like to go back to the foundation of my portfolio construction and allocation thought process. A great starting point would be the book written by Charles Gave. Charles has a longtime knowledge of financial history and markets and his book, The General Theory of Portfolio Construction, is a free download on […]