So it seems the most persistent myth of the stock market, and most common intellectual mistake in trying to understand the stock market, is to look at the real economy and project it upon the market. In fact, it would seem that the financial press makes a full-time job of maintaining the myth of that […]

It’s hard not to reminisce about the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 – 09, while sitting at our desks reading headlines and trying to make sense of news flows. All the while, considering the very real implications to businesses who we have exposure to in both the debt and equity markets. Much like those crisis […]

Many years ago, when learning the craft, I heard an old, experienced portfolio manager say that the best trades you would make were the ones that made you the queasiest when you hit the buy button. Nothing could more accurately sum up what I think is our reality today. It is hard to get excited […]

At almost every market juncture it seems a seismic shift occurs. This decade long bull market has been defined by the outperformance of growth stocks1 and passive strategies.2 We think the cracks are beginning to show as the market shifts, marked by the cry of sick and dying unicorns. The recent poster child for this […]

As a young portfolio manager my world was filled with the heroes in Barron’s and the Wall Street Journal. One of the oft-quoted was Marty Zweig, truly a legend on the Street, leaving a legacy of admirers and young strategists he trained. As I recall, his most famously quoted words were in fact, “Don’t fight […]

After the worst December since the throes of the Great Depression, we followed with an almost equally strong first quarter, the strongest since the 1980s. Toward the end of the fourth quarter and into the beginning of the first quarter, we were buyers of equities, where appropriate. Our convictions were rewarded with several companies announcing […]

The worst December since 1931. As an active market participant, it is hard to remember much else about 2018. Not even the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 produced as big of a sell-off in December as we experienced last year.

So we all had been lulled to sleep. In research done by Morgan Stanley, the average number of annual trading days with a 3% market move is 6.5 when one looks back to 1928 through present. 2018 has now had 5 so far, and it’s just a normal year according to historic data.