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Investment Insights

Q2 2025 Market Review: From Yippy to Yahoo!

The S&P 500 opened Q2 with one of its steepest intra-quarter drawdowns in recent memory. On April 2nd, dubbed “Liberation Day,” the U.S. moved forward with the implementation of a tariff package on strategic imports from Asia and Europe, and the Americas. While long signaled by hawkish elements within the administration, we had remained hopeful […]

July 8, 2025

Q2 2025 Market Review: From Yippy to Yahoo!

July 8, 2025

Tariff Drama

Q1 2025 Market Review (with Early April Commentary) By most measures, the start of the first quarter of 2025 painted a picture of positive economic momentum and optimism. Growth remained solid. Unemployment hovered near 60-year lows. Real wages were rising. Corporate earnings were on track for double-digit growth. Margins were historically high. CEO and small […]

April 10, 2025

Tariffs and DOGE Scary Headlines: Keep Calm and Carry On

Market volatility is more likely driven by uncertainty in policies (which are hard to plan for) rather than actual economic damage. Scary headlines help sell advertising, but they may not be reliable sources of investment advice. Our view is that the impacts of tariffs and DOGE will be directionally negative in the short term, but […]

March 14, 2025

2024: A Look Back. 2025: A Look Ahead.

The year 2024 is now in the history books and we are looking forward to 2025. It is always challenging to distill an entire year (or give our views on the coming one) in a few bullet points, but here we go. 2024 in three bullets, and 2025 in thirteen, a baker’s dozen. More details […]

January 8, 2025

The Election.

It matters. Just be cautious of repositioning an investment portfolio as if you know exactly how it matters. The people have spoken. At 5:34 AM The Associated Press declared Trump the winner of Wisconsin’s 10 electoral college votes, enough to push the former President past the 270-majority mark. While probably not officially meeting the definition […]

November 6, 2024

Q3 2024 Market Review: An Upward Flight…With Three Air Pockets

Market Recap Markets enjoyed another notable rise in prices this quarter. If you went to sleep on June 30 and woke up ninety days later, you would have noticed a seemingly smooth and pleasant rise in your brokerage statements. The S&P 500 was up 5.9% while small-cap stocks performed even better, with the Russell 2000 […]

October 2, 2024

Q2 2024 Market Review: Higher interest rates should cool the consumer. If only it were so simple.

When the Fed started one of the most aggressive rate hikes in U.S. history, it was supposed to rein in the American consumer. And it has. But not with the vigor and speed that the Fed and the capital markets expected. The U.S. consumer has remained remarkably resilient. We think the Fed and the market […]

July 3, 2024

Canaries in the Coal Mine: Credit Markets are Sending Positive Signals

Market participants are hyper-focused on looking for clues as to whether the Federal Reserve will be able to orchestrate either a “soft landing” or “no landing” for the economy. The credit markets may have just given a clue. One typical metric looked at as a forecast for the economy is the spread in the US high-yield corporate bond market (calculated as […]

May 7, 2024

A Differentiated Approach to Direct Indexing

Introduction We are big fans of ETFs. But our research shows that investors may see even better after-tax outcomes through direct indexing separately managed accounts (SMAs). The financial industry has also recognized this potential, and the marketing hype has reached a fever pitch. So we yet again must take a skeptical approach as we do […]

April 23, 2024

Funding Private Investment Programs for Taxable Investors

Written by Ben Daly, CFA, CAIA, CFP®, Senior Investment Advisor and Ryan Bachur, CFA, Senior Portfolio Manager For over three generations of professional investment management, rules, guidelines, and heuristics were developed for endowments, foundations, pensions, and other tax-exempt institutions. They became the “law of the land,” ensconced in the investment and finance curricula taught around […]

April 9, 2024

Q1 2024 Market Review: When Good News…Was Just Plain Good News

Market Recap There are always odd times in investing when what’s happening in the economy is completely disconnected from what’s happening in the capital markets. This was not one of those times! For the first quarter of this year, good news in the economy actually translated to good news in the risk markets. The U.S. […]

April 3, 2024

Reforming Corporate Japan: From Carrot to Stick

After 12 years of polite incentives – the carrot approach – to get better stock returns out of Japanese companies, the Tokyo Stock Exchange is finally breaking out the stick. And it just might work. For the past 12 years, Japanese policymakers have endeavored to break the country out of a long financial malaise dating […]

March 14, 2024