Asset Allocation Bi-Weekly
Confluence Investment Management offers various asset allocation products which are managed using “top down,” or macro, analysis. We publish asset allocation thoughts on a bi-weekly basis, updating the piece every other Monday.
Asset Allocation Bi-Weekly – The AI Arms Race: Navigating the Divide Between Promise and Profit (October 6, 2025)
by Thomas Wash | PDF AI is arguably the most exciting investment story of our time, with discussions swirling around its potential to create new businesses, boost productivity, and drive unprecedented revenue growth. This excitement has fueled massive spending as tech firms race to capitalize on the technology’s promise. As the hype has intensified, however,… Read More »
Asset Allocation Bi-Weekly – Stopping the Bond Vigilante: How Fiscal Dominance Is Reshaping Global Markets (September 22, 2025)
by Thomas Wash | PDF The bond bull market that began in the early 1980s lasted nearly four decades. Its longevity was largely built on the assumption that governments would always prioritize the health of their bond markets, even if it meant imposing economic pain on their own countries. This thinking fostered the legend of… Read More »
Asset Allocation Bi-Weekly – The Cap-Weighted and Equal-Weighted S&P 500 (September 8, 2025)
by Patrick Fearon-Hernandez, CFA | PDF There are many ways to describe the strong performance in large cap US stock prices this year. You could simply call it a bull market, with the S&P 500 total return index up 31.2% since its low in early April and up 11.5% year-to-date. The strong buying pressure could… Read More »
Asset Allocation Bi-Weekly – Navigating the Waves of BLS Revisions (August 18, 2025)
by Thomas Wash | PDF The federal government’s economic reports are a valuable resource — timely, comprehensive, and generally recognized as unbiased. However, the data’s accuracy is a growing concern and has been exacerbated by pandemic-related distortions that are still largely unaddressed. We have always triangulated our analysis of government data with private data and… Read More »
Asset Allocation Bi-Weekly – No Country for Recessions (August 4, 2025)
by Bill O’Grady | PDF Recessions in the United States have become less frequent over time. To illustrate this, the chart below shows data from the National Bureau of Economic Research, the official arbiter of recessions in the US, which has been establishing business cycles since January 1854. In the chart, we show the total… Read More »
Asset Allocation Bi-Weekly – Stablecoin: Treasury’s Next Big Bet? (July 21, 2025)
by Thomas Wash | PDF Mounting national debt and tightening financing conditions are pushing the US Treasury to rethink traditional funding strategies, and stablecoins have emerged as an unexpected contender. Minutes from April’s Treasury Quarterly Refunding meeting reveal that officials are actively evaluating the use of stablecoins for buying US debt. This signals a strategic… Read More »
Asset Allocation Bi-Weekly – The Hidden Battle in the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” (June 30, 2025)
by Thomas Wash | PDF Tucked within the (ironically named) One Big, Beautiful Bill Act lies a provision that could dramatically reshape international capital flows. Section 899, colloquially termed the “revenge tax,” would empower the federal government to impose escalating taxes on the US passive income of individuals and corporations in countries with tax policies… Read More »
Asset Allocation Bi-Weekly – The Economy That Won’t Die (June 16, 2025)
by Thomas Wash | PDF The old Wall Street quip about economists having “predicted nine of the last five recessions” has never felt more painfully relevant. Since the pandemic era began, economists have sounded the recession alarm no fewer than three times: first when gross domestic product (GDP) shrank in early 2022, again during the… Read More »
Asset Allocation Bi-Weekly – The Japan Problem (June 2, 2025)
by Thomas Wash | PDF Just one day after Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba likened Japan’s debt situation to that of Greece, the country faced its weakest demand for 20-year bonds since 2012. The auction’s tail — the excess of its highest yield over its average yield — widened to 1.14, the largest since 1987. His… Read More »