With the Q2 GDP third estimate and the September close data, we now have an updated look at the popular "Buffett Indicator" -- the ratio of corporate equities to GDP. The current reading is 173.1%, up from 160.7% the previous quarter.
Gas prices inched down for a second straight week but remain elevated. As of October 2, the price of regular fell by 4 cents while the price of premium gas was unchanged from the previous week. The WTIC end-of-day spot price for crude oil closed at $88.82, down 1.0% from last week.
Our monthly market valuation updates have long had the same conclusion: US stock indexes are significantly overvalued, which suggests cautious expectations for investment returns. On August 4, 2020, the 10-year Treasury yield hit its all-time low of 0.52%. As of September 30, it was 4.59%.
This complimentary webcast is for financial professionals only and is closed to the public.
I always talk about how powerful social media is. Let me tell a story that proves it.
Join the experts at VettaFi and NEOS Investments for a 30-minute LiveCast exploring innovative approaches to income generation.
I explore the efficacy of traditional RILAs and those that offer dual-directional crediting. I use a total-portfolio context with a portfolio-optimization approach based on utility theory.
Here is a summary of the four market valuation indicators we update on a monthly basis.
Many Americans believe that Gen Z is financially illiterate and uninformed. But the story is not that simple.
SECURE 2.0 contained a provision that gave favorable treatment to partial annuitization. The reason you haven’t heard about this is because those transactions cannot increase commissionable income.
Based on the September S&P 500 average of daily closes, the Crestmont P/E of 33.0 is 121% above its arithmetic mean, 140% above its geometric mean, and is at the 98th percentile of this 14-plus-decade series.
Why exactly is Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan antagonizing Amazon.com Inc., of all companies?
Helping an investor cash out of a gummed-up buyout fund used to be a niche business. Now it’s mainstream. So-called secondary funds, which offer to buy unwanted private equity holdings, have become widely accepted.
The latest job openings and labor turnover summary (JOLTS) report showed that job openings unexpectedly increased in August. Vacancies rose to 9.610 million, higher than the expected 8.800 million vacancies.
In the medical profession, prescribing a treatment without first thoroughly diagnosing the patient’s illness opens the risk of malpractice.
Real estate investors need to allocate considerably more resources to climate-proofing old buildings rather than erecting new structures, to keep up with net zero regulations and avoid being saddled with stranded assets.
A pair of Wall Street’s most prominent US equity strategists are at odds about whether stocks can extend this year’s rally against the reality that interest rates will remain higher for longer.
This chart series features an overlay of four major secular bear markets: the Crash of 1929, the Oil Embargo of 1973, the Tech Bubble, and the Financial Crisis. The numbers are through the September 29, 2023 close.
Money-management firms launched new exchange-traded funds at a rapid pace last month, shaking off fears that the $7 trillion industry is already overrun with low-cost investment vehicles.
Here is the latest update of a popular market valuation method, Price-to-Earnings (P/E) ratio, using the most recent Standard & Poor's "as reported" earnings and earnings estimates, and the index monthly average of daily closes for the past month. The latest trailing twelve months (TTM) P/E ratio is 23.5 and the latest P/E10 ratio is 29.7.
Today, I am going to bring a new technology, and a new company, to your attention – a company in control of a technology so powerful that lithium-ion batteries could soon become yesterday’s story.
Energy and information technology are the two sectors most top of mind for investors, according to polling at VettaFi’s recent Equity Symposium.
Certificates of deposit (CDs) and Treasuries both can offer steady, predictable investment income—but how to decide between them? Here are five factors to help you choose.
From inflationary tailwinds for earnings growth to corporate reforms that unlock shareholder value, multiple regime shifts are underway to restore the appeal of the Japanese equity market, according to the Templeton Global Equity Group team.
Public credit markets offer high quality investments with attractive yields and downside resilience, while we see growing longer-term opportunities in private markets.
Prices of bitcoin and ethereum haven’t done much to spark enthusiasm in recent weeks. That lethargy could be belying significant appreciation potential.
Downside equity market volatility can be unsettling, but it is important to put the pullback in perspective and identify the drivers of the negative market reaction. First and foremost, the equity market was due for a modest pullback.
With negligible incremental risk, a RAFI Global Index hypothetically outperformed a Cap-Weighted Global Index by 40 bps per annum and a Cap-Weighted Global Value Index by 2.2% from 2007 to 2022—a 16-year period covering the long value rout and its aftermath.
“Compound market returns.” During bullish markets, there is inevitably a regurgitation of this myth that was contrived to extract capital from retail investors and place it in the hands of Wall Street.
In this podcast, equity portfolio manager Brad Mak and Rob Almeida, global investment strategist, discuss how the commercial application of artificial intelligence may affect - enhance, be neutral to, or detract from - companies over the next three to five years.
Kim Hyland, Head of Global Institutional Relationship Management, joins Global Investment Strategist Rob Almeida to discuss the four main challenges facing clients and, as investors, how we think about some of those challenges.
In this special mid-year podcast, Rob is joined by MFS Chief Economist Erik Weisman to discuss all things around the economy, including the rate of inflation, probability of recession, and other trends that may affect the financial markets and assets.
Emerging market debt portfolio manager Ward Brown joins Rob for this podcast to dig into the uniqueness of local emerging markets debt investing, the trajectory of EM economies and business cycles, and potential opportunities going forward.
As with so many other financial matters, the varying opinions around student loan debt forgiveness are more about emotions than dollars.
Five of the eight indexes on our world watch list posted gains through October 2, 2023. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 finished in the top spot with a YTD gain of 21.71%. The U.S.'s S&P 500 finished in second with a YTD gain of 12.14% while India's BSE SENSEX finished in third with a YTD gain of 7.40%.
As of September 30, 2023, the 10-year note was 407 basis points above its historic closing low of 0.52% reached on August 4, 2020.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury is up 70 basis points this year, leading many to question the future direction of interest rates. Let’s look at the underlying causes of this and whether those conditions are likely to persist.
We can and are building much taller skyscrapers. But they are impractical money losers because so much floor space is taken up by elevators. A new book explains the interplay between size and scale, and what it means for our economy and investments.
The Q Ratio is the total price of the market divided by the replacement cost of all its companies. The latest Q-ratio is at 1.53, down from 1.55 in August.
Quick take: At the end of September, the inflation-adjusted S&P 500 index price was 126% above its long-term trend, down from August.
About the only certainty in the stock market is that, over the long haul, over-performance turns into underperformance and vice versa. Is there a pattern to this movement? Let's apply some simple regression analysis to the question.
Common aphorisms and assumed truths about stock returns often imply the disappearance of risk over long horizons. Is that accurate?
The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) manufacturing purchasing managers index (PMI) rose to 49.0 in September. The latest figure marks the eleventh consecutive month the index has been in contraction territory after a 29-month period of growth dating back to June 2020. The August reading was above the forecast of 47.7.
Offices in many of the world’s major cities are struggling to find workers to occupy them. The trend of remote working, triggered by the pandemic, is costing Manhattan “$12 billion a year,” “devastating America’s cities” and “killing London.”
The September S&P Global US Manufacturing PMI™ rose to 49.8 from 47.9 in August, signaling only a fractional decline in operating conditions. The September reading was higher than the expected 48.9 reading.
Hedge funds are in regulators’ sights again. Their risk-taking with borrowed money must be better monitored and will sometimes have to be limited, the head of a global group of supervisors told the Financial Times last week.
Investors have shown few signs of panic during a stock market slump that’s pushed the S&P 500 Index into its first losing quarter in a year. But beneath the surface, signs of stress are emerging that go far beyond the just averted US government shutdown.
Office prices in the US are due for a crash, and the commercial real estate market faces at least another nine months of declines, according to Bloomberg’s latest Markets Live Pulse survey.
The third quarter was a story of dashed hopes in emerging markets, with the unraveling of some of the most profitable trades in the asset class.
Last week was all about financial factors, primarily interest rates. But this week was all about the real economy, notably the United Auto Workers (UAW) strike and the pending government shutdown. Indeed, worries about a recession rose on those two risks.
Delegating tasks is daunting. Here are the five most common mistakes advisors make when they hire new assistants and how to avoid them
