Investing

>Last week, Rick wrote an entry describing how we’re watching closely for any signs of banking sector stress in Europe as they continue to wrestle with their debt crisis. We are also keeping close tabs on the U.S. financial sector, which is still one of the largest sectors in the S&P 500 Index despite all of the problems of the [...]

>We’ve been writing about a slowing growth profile for weeks, and yesterday brought more evidence that the economy has clearly entered a soft patch. We are currently scrubbing the weight of the evidence and puzzling through whether we believe this slowdown is transitory or here to stay. But while the news flow is getting a bit more negative, it’s also [...]

>So, in the short run, bond yields rising have proven to be anything but a sure bet. The chart below is a chart of the 10 year U.S. Treasury yield and the current yield has been pushed below 3%. The 3% level is a big psychological level on the 10 year as indicated by the yellow trend line in the [...]

>I will be leaving tomorrow morning to speak at the FPA NorCal conference in San Francisco. I understand the conference is sold out again this year and once again about 500 of the top financial planning professionals on the West Coast will attend. I will be speaking about tactical asset allocation as the financial planning industry remains fascinated by the [...]

>In recent communications, we’ve been highlighting how a notable sector leadership shift has occurred this year in which defensive sectors have risen to the top. I thought I’d use today’s entry to provide an update on the latest trends. In short, we’re continuing to see outperformance by defensive areas of the market. The table below displays sector performance (using sector [...]