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March 2022 image

Clients and Friends, It's been 4 months since my last update when I decided to break a pause on writing updates, mainly since I felt I wasn't saying anything new. It's no fun feeling like a broken record which anyone who has young kids understands (example: I have to tell my son 10 times in the morning to get his shoes on). Obviously, a lot has happened in the past few months as Russia invaded Ukraine. I want to keep this update focused on the following key points: what the freezing of ~$250B of Russian central bank assets meanshow globalization has lead to supply chain problems and inflationinflation in various forms (housing, wage growth, food, etc.)interest rates and ...

19th of December, 2021
In: Insights Blog, Monthly Updates, Premium
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November 2021 image

Clients and Friends, November was a much a do about nothing month overall if you look at returns in stocks which were relatively flat. There was a continuation of a lot of the same themes we've seen with respect to rising inflation, port delays and concerns over valuations in most asset classes. A lot of the highly valued COVID themed companies like Docusign, Zoom and others saw declines followed by much steeper declines during December. Omicron continues to spread and we're likely to see a surge of cases over the coming weeks and months here in the US. One area I wanted to highligh and which is growing rapidly is buy now, pay later (BNPL). The premise ...

16th of November, 2021
In: Insights Blog, Market Research, Monthly Updates
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October 2021 image

Dear Clients and Friends, October saw stock markets bounce back from their first meaningful loss in a year to post a strong gain of over 5% while intermediate and long term bond yields generally moved sideways. Short term bond yields started to move higher as fears over inflation and the Fed raising rates potentially next year forced traders and investors to reprice that part of the curve. October brought a lot of the same in terms of data and concerns; markets are very highly valued and inflation might be here longer than some thought. A few notable items for the month: Bezos, Ikea and The Rockefeller foundations pledged announced plans to create a Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet that will ...

September 2021 image

Dear Clients and Friends, September was the first month in a long time that markets experienced a reasonable pullback as the S&P retreated over 4.5%. It's been so long that most people seemed to forget that this is not an unusual occurrence. The reasons for this could have been the debt ceiling concerns, China Evergrande contagion, rising interest rates which could negatively impact valuations or a combination of all of the above. The update below will likely read like others over the past year and I fear I'm starting to sound like a broken record with respect to inflation and market valuations. But alas, I shall continue until something changes! Markets Bank of America's clients as a % of ...

20th of September, 2021
In: Business Insights, Insights Blog, Monthly Updates, Premium
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August 2021 image

Clients & Friends, August was a quiet month in terms of market returns and economic data (more below). We also saw heart-wrenching videos of folks trying to flee Afghanistan as the US's departure allowed the Taliban to retake the country. No exit would have been perfect but this certainly did not look like a healthy way to handle things. I can only imagine the level of frustration and anger the people of Afghanistan feel towards Americans. Otherwise, not a lot happened in August so this update is short and sweet. Housing Turning to the world of housing, prices keep going up. The percent of builder share (the share of houses built by a publicly-traded homebuilder) hit a ...

9th of August, 2021
In: Business Insights, Insights Blog, Macro Views, Monthly Updates, Premium
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July 2021 image

Clients & Friends, It's been a busy month with the delta variant running rampant in parts of the U.S. and world, and renewed concerns over reimplemented lockdowns taking the center stage. The hospitalizations appear overwhelmingly concentrated by those who are unvaccinated. While the amount of people still not vaccinated is concerning, the vaccines are now battle-tested against delta with strong results. Hopefully those who are not vaccinated will take notice. In economic data, Q2 GDP was released and came in at 6.5% which was materially lower than the 8.4% estimate. A large reason for the miss was related to inventories and supply chain issues. Meaning, inventories were drawn down but not replenished as supply chain issues prevented ...

2nd of July, 2021
In: Business Insights, Insights Blog, Monthly Updates
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June 2021 Recap & Outlook image

Clients & Friends, June was a relatively muted month so we'll keep this month's update short and sweet. Some trends have persisted such as housing prices which continue to climb while inventory levels are at historical lows. The hottest debate now is whether inflation will be persistent or transitory. Battle lines are being drawn and portfolios are being adjusted. But even the Google searches for transitory may prove transitory ?.? According to this survey by BofA, the transitory gang has more members. A key moment was when Jerome Powell made hawkish comments on the 16th on discussing scaling back mortgage bond purchases and rate hikes in 2023, which is sooner than expected. Long term bond yields spiked ...

1st of June, 2021
In: Insights Blog, Library, Monthly Updates, Premium, Research Reports
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May 2021 Recap & Outlook image

May was an eventful month and while the S&P fell ~4% at one point, crypto stole the volatility show. $ETH, for instance, rose ~50% during the first 12 days and then proceeded to fall >50% over the next 12 days before recovering some. While $BTC lost almost 50% of it's value, it didn't experience the gains $ETH had early in the month and thus is down substantially more over the same time period. If you look at some of the altcoins, some of them experienced drops of 80%+ raising many questions over whether crypto is an asset class or not. I have noticed that anytime there is a significant pullback in crypto in a short ...

4th of May, 2021
In: Insights Blog, Monthly Updates, Premium
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April 2021 Recap & Outlook image

Dear Clients & Friends, The S&P 500 (and other equities markets) had a very strong month posting 5%+ gains after a subdued March which saw markets mostly move sideways. $DOGE has defied gravity as more people are exchanging their dollars for dog money. If you haven't heard that line, check out this fantastic rap video. As funny as it is, there are some real truth bombs being dropped. The level of inflation we're experiencing is much more than what we're able to earn buying bonds and especially in savings accounts. In fact, when you factor in inflation (and expected inflation) the entire US treasury bond market curve is negatively yielding. In fact, prior to the pandemic, ...

12th of April, 2021
In: Insights Blog, Monthly Updates, Premium
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Q1 2021 Markets Update & Outlook image

Clients & Friends Another quarter is behind us and with it has brought us Spring and more vaccine supply. As of the time of my writing this update, I am still not yet vaccinated and have had difficulty getting an appointment. I am thankfully booked in the coming days but we have to drive 3 hours away to get it. There's light at the end of the tunnel as it looks like 90% of the US will be vaccinated by the end of the summer which will lead to a lot of people coming out of hibernation en masse. I do wonder how many folks will feel comfortable if venues, restaurants and other gatherings go back ...

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