Asset Allocation Reports
Asset Allocation Weekly (March 31, 2017)
by Asset Allocation Committee Historically, recessions tend to come from three sources—overly tight monetary policy, geopolitical events and inventory overhangs. The latter has mostly become irrelevant due to improved inventory management, leaving overly tight monetary policy and geopolitical events as the typical causes of downturns. As our regular readers know, we monitor both quite closely. One… Read More »
Asset Allocation Weekly (March 24, 2017)
by Asset Allocation Committee In a recent Bloomberg Surveillance podcast,[1] Sebastian Mallaby made an interesting observation about the recent Fed tightening. He noted how the asset markets mostly ignored or cheered the move. Mallaby suggested that this isn’t necessarily a good outcome, meaning that central bank tightening should not be welcomed by the financial markets. When… Read More »
Asset Allocation Weekly (March 17, 2017)
by Asset Allocation Committee The FOMC has moved on rates; as expected, the Fed lifted its target fed funds rate to a range between 75 bps and 100 bps. The projections are for a 1.50% rate by the end of 2017 and a 2.25% rate by the end of 2018. In this week’s report, we want… Read More »
Asset Allocation Weekly (March 10, 2017)
by Asset Allocation Committee As the FOMC prepares to raise interest rates, it’s a good time to update our views on long-term interest rates. The chart below shows our current estimate of fair value for the 10-year Treasury. The model uses fed funds, the 15-year moving average of CPI (an inflation expectations proxy), the yen/dollar exchange… Read More »
Asset Allocation Weekly (March 3, 2017)
by Asset Allocation Committee Since the election of President Trump, a number of sentiment indicators have risen strongly. There is concern that the improving sentiment isn’t warranted. In this week’s report, our research supports the conclusion that improving sentiment is better described as a reflection of the overall state of the economy. In other words, our… Read More »
Asset Allocation Weekly (February 24, 2017)
by Asset Allocation Committee Emerging market equities have been the best performing asset class year to date among the 12 we use in our asset allocation program. Given that we currently have no exposure to emerging markets, it makes sense to review this market stance. The U.S. dollar is one of the key variables impacting the… Read More »
Asset Allocation Weekly (February 17, 2017)
by Asset Allocation Committee A regular question we are asked by financial advisors and clients is, what is the impact of the Trump presidency on financial markets? The simple response is that we don’t know for sure, but a pattern is starting to emerge. And that pattern has to do with the perceptions of Trump’s two… Read More »
Asset Allocation Weekly (February 10, 2017)
by Asset Allocation Committee For better or worse, the Federal Reserve tends to conduct policy based on some variant of the Taylor Rule, which essentially means that the FED sets the policy interest rate based upon changes in the inflation rate and the level of slack in the economy. The rule suggests that if there is… Read More »
Asset Allocation Weekly (February 3, 2017)
by Asset Allocation Committee Although our current allocation models exclude emerging markets, we still monitor various emerging market nations for potential opportunities. A country that has been in the news recently is Mexico. President Trump has been targeting Mexico and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) for Mexico’s persistent trade surpluses with the U.S. This… Read More »