Latest Research

The RAI fell in August and stayed on a “High Risk” signal. We remain cautious and recommend higher quality within fixed income.

More upside surprises are still likely and, despite the disappointing jobs report, the overall economic picture still supports a September taper. The improving economic picture is not just happening within the U.S., but in other major countries. We still believe the upside for the U.S. 10-year is limited.

Identifying opportunities given this summer’s momentum reversals and currency vulnerabilities.

We’ve noted before that profit margin gains since the technology boom have been primarily a Large Cap phenomenon.

The celebrated gains in corporate profitability over the past decade and a half are attributable primarily to proportional declines in “below the line” items like interest expense and corporate taxes.

Buying global groups with strong price momentum has been a winning strategy. Will it continue?

Small Caps have an historically high P/E premium of 15% vs. Large Caps. This premium could go higher, but we’d be reckless to call for a long-term extension of Small Cap leadership given this premium.

The list of new lows is dominated by yesterday’s darlings, “bond-like” stocks. In particular, Utilities and REITs have been hammered. However, not all of the stock market’s high yielders have been trashed.

Leadership isn’t warning of impending weakness in either the U.S. economy or the stock market. Market breadth, on the other hand, is highlighting risks that aren’t evident when inspecting leadership alone.

Someday in the faraway future, in the midst of a low-volatility, peace-time bull market, we plan to write a Green Book “Of Special Interest” piece on the investment wisdom of Yogi Berra. “Ninety percent of the game is half mental.” Classic. “You can observe a lot by watching.” Words that I live by.

We measure the sensitivity of common stocks to changes in interest rates using Implied Equity Duration. Growth-oriented sectors tend to have higher duration than Value-oriented sectors, while regional differences are largely explained by interest rate and risk premium differentials.

Core, Global, and Asset Allocation Portfolio overviews.

Consumer Electronics, Broadcasting, Home Entertainment Software, and Aerospace & Defense.

Growth leadership over Value has only been apparent in Large Caps, but this segment had a big short-term reversal in Q2.

Sequential growth rates are all down this earnings season, but Micro Caps have been hit particularly hard exhibiting zero bottom-line growth.

We examine Emerging Markets from both the top-down and bottom-up perspectives as we try to identify where to move and what to expect. We check in on two successful EM thematic group ideas as well.

With many (but not all) of our valuation metrics in overvalued territory, we present two histograms from our forthcoming quarterly BenchMarks publication that make the case that stocks are cheap (well, almost).

Technology may be the biggest sector disappointment in the current eight-month leg of the rally, if not for the entire bull run from early 2009.

For more than two years we’ve discussed the supply-side risks to commodity producers stemming from capacity built during the manic “Third Act” of last decade’s Three Act Play in commodities. Commodity-oriented equities have indeed underperformed since 2011, but to date, most pundits have laid blame squarely on the demand side.

Today it seems taken for granted that the great housing meltdown of 2006-2010 was sufficient to purge the last decade’s excesses, and that housing can now be relied upon as one of the drivers of a slow but elongated U.S. economic expansion.