4 Things You’ll Wish You Did Before the Bull Market Becomes a Bear Market

Well-known investor Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital has often said, “You can’t predict, but you can prepare.”  While markets are cyclical, oscillating between bull and bear markets, you can never know with certainty when the market is going to turn, how quickly it may do so, how far it might fall, or when it will [...]

Blame Harry

The following post is an edited and abbreviated version of the quarterly investment commentary that we recently sent to RPG clients. A Jewish boy from Chicago is to blame.  Harry Markowitz – a name that anyone who has ever taken a finance course might recognize - grew up in Chicago during the Great Depression.  He [...]

Recessions. Markets. Risk.

Investment offices teem with daily data releases and economic news bites. Afternoon market round-ups attribute the day’s movements to whatever data points best fit the narrative of the day or week. Investors crave the narrative, eagerly awaiting the next market moving release. Lately financial news has inundated us with talk of global slowdowns, trade wars, [...]

Snowfall in Finland Is Above Average This Winter So Why Do The Knicks Keep Losing

You may have heard the news.  Between October 1st and December 31st, the stock market delivered its worst quarter since 2008 to culminate its worst year since 2008.  It was the stock market's worst December since 1931.  What caused the stock market selloff?   As we say often, there is rarely ever a definitive answer [...]

Three Myths of Bonds

The two most important reasons to own high quality bonds in a portfolio are to provide diversification and to provide capital preservation.  A catchy opening line, if there ever was one.  Several big finance words (like diversification and preservation), an unexciting topic (bonds), and a subjective statement that may not seem to have actionable implications [...]

Control the Controllables

Paul Azinger is described by many as the best Ryder Cup captain ever.  In 2008, he led what was arguably the least accomplished, least experienced, and least talented team of American golfers in the history of the Ryder Cup event – a 12-person team, missing the injured Tiger Woods and lacking a single player with [...]

A Story of Correlation and The Greatest Team Ever Assembled

A respected portfolio manager presented recently at an investment symposium where she explained an investment strategy that has consistently maintained zero correlation to stocks.  Several times during her presentation, she described why the strategy should be expected to maintain a near-zero correlation to stock markets in the future.  During the break that followed, financial advisors [...]

Q1 2017 Investment Commentary Part I: The Value of a Crystal Ball

You probably do not know who Jim Simons is.  He likes it that way.  Simons is a quiet figure who is not interested in self-promotion and does not need to be told how great he is.  Despite undoubted countless interview requests over the past 35 years, Simons has largely declined the opportunity to tell his [...]

The Harsh Realities of Individual Bond Investing

Spend any time working in the kitchen of a restaurant and you will think of restaurants very differently going forward.  Following a short experience in a restaurant kitchen during college, I’ve never once sent a meal back for being undercooked, overcooked, or even the entirely wrong order.  Use your imagination and we can just leave [...]

Simple and Effective Investing

“It might be the simplest play in all of sports, and the most effective.  Give the ball to Michael Jordan, and everyone else get out of the way.” These two sentences began an Associated Press article on May 28, 1989.  The day prior, the Chicago Bulls had the ball in the closing seconds of a [...]

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