COTW: Gold! What is it Good For?
Gold is one of the most polarizing investments we know of, which is one of the reasons we started giving it a serious look at the end of 2017.
COTW: The Best Year for Cash in at Least Two Decades
After nearly nine years of short-term interest rates held near zero, the normalization of monetary policy that began in late 2015 and continued in earnest in 2018, finally caught up with capital markets and exposed how competitive the risk/reward tradeoff of cash – that safe, boring proxy for patience – had become.
COTW: The Powell Put
The “Fed put” is a term that describes the view held by many market participants that the Fed is generally willing and able to adjust monetary policy in a way that is bullish for stocks.
COTW: Cumulative Monetary Tightening Per Cycle
Tighter monetary policy has been a contributing factor – and arguably the contributing factor – to the end of every sustained economic expansion in the last half century.
COTW: Stock Market Seasonality: As Helpful as Weather Forecasts
Seasonality is commonly referred to as “a characteristic of a time series in which the data experiences regular and predictable changes that recur every calendar year”.
COTW: Central Banks No Longer Supporting Markets
We have long contended that asset purchases by central banks contributed – directly or indirectly – to gains in global stock markets (represented here by the MSCI All Country World Index).
COTW: No Revenue, No Problem
There is no hard-and-fast rule, but “story stocks” are generally defined as those trading at prices substantially out of line with current fundamentals (revenue, earnings, cash flow, etc.) as a result of a positive story that suggests larger profits down the road.
