Inflation & Interest Rates Inflation remains THE topic for today and the Fed continues aggressively raising rates to bring it under control. There is current

Commodities 101 The S&P 500 posted its worst first half of the year since 1970, down 20% through Second Quarter 2022.   Worries about surging inflation

Don’t Fight the Fed To support the economy after COVID, the Federal Reserve massively increased their holdings of mortgages and bonds, totaling $9 trillion by

2021: A COVID ODYSSEY Similar to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, the stock market in 2021 was a COVID odyssey. After a constructive October,

INFLATION – WHAT’S THE SITUATION? Have you noticed empty shelves at your local grocery store? If you did, you are not alone. According to Rasmussen

HOW HIGH IS YOUR EQ? When I started in the investment business in 1980 the Dow was at 1,000. Now 40 years later the Dow

Economic Update It’s been a while since we issued an update on fundamentals, so we thought we’d roll up our sleeves and dig into the

Innovation Disrupt… or be Disrupted Around 5,000 years ago (2.5 times as far back as Rome), humanity first domesticated the horse. This new invention impacted

Why is the Market So Strong & Economy So Weak? The continuing strength of the stock market, even as the coronavirus pandemic batters the U.S.

Adapting to Change My grandmother was born in 1898 when Oklahoma was still an Indian territory. The amount of innovative inventions and new technology developed

CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) The coronavirus is the big news of 2020. Originally thought an airborne virus which can be contained by masks, corona is now believed

KnowRisk® Coronavirus Update These are no doubt the “interesting times” from the old Chinese proverb. As discussed before, bull markets die from trigger points and

A Decade in Review At New Years’ Eve in 2009, the mood was somber yet cautiously optimistic as the S&P500 had rebounded halfway from its

Pick Your Pivot Point Growth has the Momentum For this KnowRisk Report, we are undertaking some research on the pivot points between the Growth and

Yield Curve Inversion While the 1st Quarter 2019 saw a much-welcomed V-shape recovery from the 4th Quarter 2018 decline, there are still a few clouds

Active and Passive Money Management A line between active and passive investment funds is set to cross next year. Since the end of 2006, investors

The Cyclicality of Style and Location The capital markets have grouped equities into two main divisions: Growth and Value. These two groups are differentiated by

The ABC’s of Asset Allocation “Choosing an asset allocation is one of the most important decisions that investors make.” – Rodgers & Associates, 2016 “In

How is Your Hippocampus? Why does everything in the press these days seem to be a crisis? A crisis triggers emotions that have a powerful

Bitcoin – Boom or Bust? With the massive surge in price last year, Bitcoin and a plethora of other cryptocurrency investments have dominated recent chatter

The Rise of Artificial Intelligence Investing “Technologies continue to advance. They accelerate the progression of seemingly unrelated technologies, exploding what is possible at a pace

Opportunities Abroad We are long believers in the power of international diversification. However, since 2009 the US S&P 500 has returned over twice the international

Active vs Passive Investing The evolution in the asset management industry has picked up pace in recent years. A long term trend has been taking

The State of Oil and Gas In our Second Quarterly letter of 2016, we welcomed our friends and intelligent investors to the Exponential Age, a

Market Update Part of our work at Equitas includes staying up to date on the latest research from top managers on Wall Street and across

Welcome to the Exponential Age The New Industrial Revolution Singularity University is a Silicon Valley think tank that offers educational programs and a business incubator.

The Great Divide – Passive vs. Active A Market with FANGS A recent Wall Street Journal article addressed the significant change in 2015 from actively

Sovereign Wealth Funds and Declining Markets Investors are facing stiff challenges as 2016 opened with a bang. Actually, more like an explosion… of selling; as

Pessimism Is Popular An explosion rocks the Syrian city of Kobane during a reported suicide car bombing by the Islamic State, as seen from the

Greece and its Modern Day Trojan Horse The past 5 years have presented themselves with turmoil for Greece as it faces an economic crisis not

Is it Euro € Time? Many US investors have avoided European markets over the last several years as US markets have surged with a strong

Invest Long Term – Speculate Short Term “The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.” – John Kenneth Galbraith Every January,

Behavioral Finance For most researchers working in neuroscience, the Holy Grail is to discover how to regenerate the neurons of the brain. Such a feat

Buy Low, Sell High (The Value Style of Investing) or Buy High, Sell Higher? (The Growth Style of Investing) “The dumbest reason in the world

The Fed Foreccast What will interest rates do? Who really knows? The answer to that question is important to the US economy, the equity markets

Deep Dive: Floating Rate Bank Loan Funds Floating Rate Bank Loan Funds
 Overview Equitas believes that investing in floating rate bank loan funds offers clients

Back in the USA As a proud member of the Baby Boomer generation, I can remember the surprise when the large bulge of population arrived

The Working Retired One day retirement wealth will be important – at least to those of us still kicking. The sources that determine our success

The Warning Label  INVESTMENT GENERAL’S WARNING: Bonds may come with significant risk of  rising rates, loss of purchasing power, and inflation It is no secret

An Interest in Dividends THE CASE FOR DIVIDENDS “Do you know the only thing that gives me pleasure?” oil magnate John D. Rockefeller once asked,

It’s A (Not So) Small World, After All The iconic Sherman brother’s song written for Walt Disney for the 1964 World’s Fair originally served to

Return-Free Risk THE LONG-TERM BOND MARKET Government bonds represent one of the oldest forms of financial securities. In the 17th century, England issued government bonds

Dynamic Risk Management GRATHAM’S CAUTIOUS OUTLOOK Jeremy Grantham is one of the current asset allocation gurus on Wall Street. He was co-founder of Batterymarch Financial

Ike’s Warning Revisited On the 50th anniversary of President Eisenhower’s farewell address, his thoughts on the “military-industrial complex” still resonate today, says his grandson David

Play Your CARDs Right Correlation Asset Allocation Rebalancing Reduces Risk Diversification If you play your cards right, things are going to happen in the long run. In the short run, it is  anybody’s guess. – Ron Livingston, Actor Play your cards right… and

Recognizing an Inflection Point (When You See One) “Those that fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it” – Winston Churchill “History teaches

Economic Indicators Financial Signposts An economic indicator is simply any economic statistic, such as the unemployment rate, Gross Domestic Product, or the inflation rate, which

Commodities Additional Diversification for an Investment Portfolio In the past, the mere mention of “investing in commodities” conjured up images of being fleeced by ruthless

Macroeconomics: The world economy mac·ro·ec·o·nom·ics (mak-roh-ek-uh-nom-iks) –noun (used with a singular verb) “The branch of economics dealing with the broad and general aspects of an

Portfolio Diversification The Role of Asset Allocation What is Asset Allocation? The asset-allocation decision is one of the most important factors in determining both the

Investor Behavior Seeing is believing… or is it? The graphic below is an illusion. When you look at the graphic in one place it appears

Out of the Comfort Zone Fear and Contrarian Investing in Uncertain Times You may have found in recent months that simply checking the movements of

Indexes This month’s KnowRisk topic may, at first, seem very simple. After all, even the most inexperienced investor knows what an index is. Checking to

Downturns and Recoveries This edition of Equitas’ KnowRisk series is focused on the history of stock market downturns, as well as the recovery periods that

Historical Perspectives When the Levee Breaks: How history can help us understand the recent stock market crash The chart above, which illustrates the unprecedented volatility

Inflation This month, Equitas’ KnowRisk is dedicated to a discussion of inflation. In these uncertain times for investors, it is vital to understand what inflation

Risk and Volatility KnowRisk is focusing on the closely interconnected concepts of risk and volatility this month. Risks come in many different varieties, with some

International Investing This month, the KnowRisk series turns its attention to the subject of international investing. As the economies of countries around the world have

Long-Term Investment Performance Measuring Long-Term Market Performance Basic statistical analysis of historical asset returns can reveal the growth rate of wealth invested in an asset