Tag Archive: Investing

All Inflation Is Transitory. The Fed Will Be Late Again.

2021-05-02

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2021-05-02

In this issue of “All Inflation Is Transitory, The Fed WIll Be Late Again.“ Market Review And Update All Inflation Is Temporary The Fed Should Be Hiking Now Portfolio Positioning #MacroView: No. Bonds Aren’t Overvalued. Sector & Market Analysis 401k Plan Manager Follow Us On: Twitter, Facebook, Linked-In, Sound Cloud, Seeking Alpha Catch Up On What You Missed Last Week   Market Review & Update Last week, we...

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Seth Levine: Bitcoin Doesn’t Fix Defi, Defi Fixes Bitcoin

2021-05-02

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2021-05-02

Does Bitcoin Fix Defi (Definancialization)? “Bitcoin fixes this.” I cringe every time I see this popular meme. I find it worse than nails on a chalkboard. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies (crypto) supporters seem to wheel this tired trope out for every problem they see, particularly at economic ones. To their credit, they genuinely want to fix the financial system’s problems.

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The Battle Royale: Stocks vs. Bonds (Which Is Right?)

2021-04-28

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2021-04-28

Peak S&P Earnings vs Actual Earnings, 1980-2020
The Battle Royale: Stocks vs. Bonds. The S&P 500 is at valuations higher than those in 1929 and rival those of 1999. Despite a recession, the index is 25% above where it was trading before the pandemic. The equity stampede is undoubtedly bullish about corporate earnings prospects and, by default, economic growth.  

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Is ESG Investment the Future of Gold & Silver?

2021-04-10

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2021-04-10

‘ESG’ is a great buzzword in investing right now. For years the momentum has been building for the idea that retirement savings should do more than keep you secure, it also should help the planet. Obviously, no one wants to hurt the planet since its our only home. ESG Investment is shorthand for Environmental, Social and Governance, which are the three lenses through which investments are to be ranked.

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A Major Support For Asset Prices Has Reversed

2020-12-24

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2020-12-24

In 2019, we wrote about how corporate share repurchases, or “stock buybacks,” had accounted for nearly all buying in the market. A year later, that significant support for asset prices has reversed.

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Seth Levine: How I Process Ideas Into Investments

2020-11-20

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2020-11-20

Investing is incredibly hard. Mapping observations to security price movements are complex. Often, the relationships governing these moves are unknown. Yet, this is the investor’s task. I’ve used this blog as a tool for exploring some of these connections. It’s been incredibly rewarding.

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Technically Speaking: Why This Isn’t 1920. Valuations & Returns

2020-08-26

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2020-08-26

SP500 Total Real Return, 1905 - 2019
Why this isn’t 1920 has everything to starting valuations and future returns. While, generally, I’m not too fond of comparisons between today’s markets and the past, Ed Yardeni made a comparison too bombastic to disregard in his blog.

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The 4.0 percent Rule Is Dead. What Should Retirees Do Now?

2020-08-24

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2020-08-24

Interest Rates, 1998 - 2020
The 4% Rule Is Dead. A recent article by Shawn Langlois via MarketWatch pointed out this sobering fact but is one we have discussed previously. Retirees have long counted on being able to retire on their assets and take out 4% each year. However, a little more than 20-years later, the “death of the withdrawal rate” has arrived. What should retirees do now?

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Technically Speaking: COT Positioning – Back To Extremes: Q2-2020

2020-08-05

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2020-08-05

QQQ - Invesco QQQ Trust
As discussed in Is It Insanely Stupid To Chase Stocks, the market has gotten quite ahead of the fundamentals as money continues to chase performance. In the Q2-2020 review of Commitment Of Traders report (COT,) we can see how positioning has moved back to extremes.

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Reading The Market’s Postmodern Mind

2020-07-24

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2020-07-24

Defining Pre-modernism, Modernism, and Postmodernism
No matter how you slice it, markets are human. This even applies to the “algos” as it’s we who write their mechanistic marching orders. Thus, understanding human behavior can be helpful in assessing and anticipating market moves. There’s no choice in the fact that we all need a philosophy to live.

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Passive Fingerprints Are All Over This Crazy Market

2020-07-16

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2020-07-16

Apple Fundamental Analysis
Passive Fingerprints Are All Over This Crazy Market. Apple’s stock is up over 20% since the market peak in February. Without a doubt, Apple, the company, is worse off due to the crisis and global recession. Revenue and earnings will be inferior to what Wall Street had forecast at lower stock prices. Valuations, shown below, are now astronomical.

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Monthly Macro Monitor: We’re Not There Yet

2019-07-21

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2019-07-21

US High Yield Master 2000-2015
I first wrote about the current economic slowdown a year ago and Jeff Snider actually started seeing signs of slowdown in the Eurodollar market as early as May 2018. So, the slowdown we’re in now certainly isn’t a surprise here at Alhambra. I think though that we often forget how long these things take to develop.

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Living In The Present

2019-01-08

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2019-01-08

10-Year US Treasury Yield 2016-2018
It’s that time of year again, time to cast the runes, consult the iChing, shake the Magic Eight Ball and read the tea leaves. What will happen in 2019? Will it be as bad as 2018 when positive returns were hard to come by, as rare as affordable health care or Miami Dolphin playoff games? Will China’s economy succumb to the pressure of US tariffs and make a deal?

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Special Edition: Markets Under Pressure (VIDEO)

2018-10-15

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2018-10-15

What does Alhambra Investments think about the 1300 point drop in the Dow Jones Average this week? Alhambra CEO Joe Calhoun has some thoughts.

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Global Asset Allocation Update

2018-08-02

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2018-08-02

Moderate Allocation 50-50 risk budget
The risk budget is unchanged again this month. For the moderate risk investor, the allocation between bonds and risk assets is evenly split. The only change to the portfolio is the one I wrote about last week, an exchange of TIP for SHY.

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Global Asset Allocation Update

2018-05-17

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2018-05-17

Moderate Allocation
The risk budget changes this month as I add back the 5% cash raised in late October. For the moderate risk investor, the allocation to bonds is still 50% while the risk side now rises to 50% as well. I raised the cash back in late October due to the extreme overbought nature of the stock market and frankly it was a mistake. Stocks went from overbought to more overbought and I missed the rally to all time highs in January.

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Global Asset Allocation Update: Tariffs Don’t Warrant A Change…Yet

2018-03-12

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2018-03-12

Moderate Allocation
There is no change to the risk budget this month. For the moderate risk investor the allocation to bonds is 50%, risk assets 45% and cash 5%. We have had continued volatility since the last update but the market action so far is pretty mundane. The initial selloff halted at the 200 day moving average and the rebound carried to just over the 50 day moving average.

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Global Asset Allocation Update:

2018-02-09

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2018-02-09

Moderate Allocation
There is no change to the risk budget this month. For the moderate risk investor the allocation to bonds is 50%, risk assets 45% and cash 5%. Despite the selloff of the last week I don’t believe any portfolio action is warranted. While the overbought condition has largely been corrected now, the S&P 500 is far from the opposite condition, oversold. At the lows this morning, the S&P 500 was officially in correction territory, down 10% from the...

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Bi-Weekly Economic Review: Housing Market Accelerates

2018-01-03

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2018-01-03

The economy ended 2017 with current growth just slightly above trend. In general the reports of the last two weeks of the year were pretty good with housing a standout performer going into the new year. We are still trying to get past the impact – positive and negative – from the hurricanes a few months ago though so it is probably prudent to wait for more evidence before making any definitive pronouncements about the economy.

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Bi-Weekly Economic Review: Gridlock & The Status Quo

2017-11-08

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2017-11-08

The good news is that the economy just printed its second consecutive quarter of 3% growth, a feat not accomplished since Q2 and Q3 2014. The bad news is that the growth spurt in 2014 was better, quantitatively and qualitatively. Those two quarters produced gains of 4.6% and 5.2% (annualized) in GDP, much better than the most recent 3.1% and 3% prints of Q2 and Q3 2017.

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