Ouch. The good times ended in October and rather suddenly at that. There are many straws out there, and it's impossible to know which one broke the market's back but break it did.  ...read the rest of this article»

In early October unemployment rate dropped to its lowest level since 1969. This is sending interest rates back up to 'normal' levels. The difference this time is the stock market is now sinking along with bonds ...read the rest of this article»

At this stage it looks like the U.S. is winning the trade war, but some of this global stock divergence could be due to frightened international investors moving funds into the U.S. from suddenly scary looking emerging market stocks and bonds.  ...read the rest of this article»

We're still underperforming for the year, with too much interest rate exposure and too little stock exposure, but for the month we were basically in line with the benchmark Vanguard total portfolio fund while still taking less risk in both our portfolios. ...read the rest of this article»

At the end of June we made some trades in the Conservative portfolio largely because one of our holdings, ETRACS 1xMonthly Short Alerian MLP (MLPS), was liquidated for lack of investor interest. ...read the rest of this article»

The market was rolling along just fine in May with the volatility from earlier in the year seemingly easing and good economic data slowly pushing up stocks and interest rates (and inflation). Then, at the end of the month, Italy returned as a potentially destabilizing force to foreign investing, sending Italian stocks (which we own directly through iShares MSCI Italy Capped (EWI)) down sharply and taking the euro and most other foreign markets down with it. ...read the rest of this article»

Our slant towards longer-term bonds didn't help in April compared to benchmarks. ...read the rest of this article»

The relatively tame overall decline of 2.56% in the S&P 500 in March belies the extreme swings that have occurred in the market lately. In the last two months we've seen a fairly quick 10% drop followed by a very quick recovery and then another collapse just recently. Hot tech stocks actually moved to new highs in the bounce back. ...read the rest of this article»

The problem with a fast climbing market is that sometimes it falls just as fast. This was the case in 1929, 1987, and 2000. Valuations like P/E ratios are relevant to long-term returns but don't mean much when facing extreme short-term volatility. Investors want to make money during sharp rises but don't want to get caught without a chair when the music stops; they tend to leave quickly and in droves at the first hint of a downturn. ...read the rest of this article»

Too much of a good thing is the main worry right now. We cut taxes into an already heating up economy which will lead to more inflation which will cause the federal reserve to raise rates higher than they would with no tax cuts. This means higher mortgage and other financing rates — and if those go high enough we could be looking at another recession. ...read the rest of this article»