Asset Allocation Bi-Weekly
Confluence Investment Management offers various asset allocation products which are managed using “top down,” or macro, analysis. We publish asset allocation thoughts on a bi-weekly basis, updating the piece every other Monday.
Asset Allocation Bi-Weekly – The Benjamin Button Dividend (September 16, 2024)
by the Asset Allocation Committee | PDF A company’s journey to industry prominence typically involves several stages: launch, growth, shakeout, maturity, and decline. Historically, large capitalization stocks were often considered to be in the maturity stage of their development. Many investors therefore assumed that these companies had strong enough earnings to initiate or maintain dividend… Read More »
Asset Allocation Bi-Weekly – Activist vs. Accommodative Treasury Issuance (August 26, 2024)
by the Asset Allocation Committee | PDF The Federal Reserve and the US Treasury are independent government agencies with the shared objective of economic prosperity. While the Treasury manages government finances and executes fiscal policy, the Fed focuses on monetary policy as it aims to maintain price stability and full employment. Despite the Fed and… Read More »
Asset Allocation Bi-Weekly – Is the Sahm Rule Right? (August 12, 2024)
by the Asset Allocation Committee | PDF While there has been some speculation that the US economy may be headed for a recession, one indicator suggests it has already begun. The “Sahm Rule,” a widely used metric for determining the early stages of recession, was triggered in July. Created by former Federal Reserve economist Claudia… Read More »
Asset Allocation Bi-Weekly – The Price of Central Bank Independence (July 29, 2024)
by the Asset Allocation Committee | PDF Despite the formal separation of the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department in 1951, the two bodies continued to collaborate closely on economic policy for nearly two decades. The coordination aimed to improve the effectiveness of initiatives like stimulating economic growth or preventing the overheating of the economy. While… Read More »
Asset Allocation Bi-Weekly – A New Factor for Gold Prices (July 15, 2024)
by the Asset Allocation Committee | PDF The standard regression model is as follows: Y = α +β(X) + ε Where Y is the dependent variable, X is the independent variable, α is the intercept, β is slope and ε is the error term. No model, no matter how many independent variables are added, can… Read More »
Asset Allocation Bi-Weekly – Small Caps and the Hope for a Soft Landing (June 24, 2024)
by the Asset Allocation Committee | PDF They don’t call him Maestro for nothing. In the mid-1990s, Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan achieved what was once thought of as impossible: an economic soft landing. As the US labor market showed signs of tightening, he raised interest rates from 3% to 6% in 1994 to preemptively… Read More »
Asset Allocation Bi-Weekly – Copper, Gold, Treasurys, and the New World (June 10, 2024)
by the Asset Allocation Committee | PDF Early 2023 served as a stark reminder that correlations can break down when least expected. Last year, a decline in the copper/gold ratio led many investors to anticipate a fall in longer-term yields, particularly for the 10-year Treasury note. However, these expectations were shattered as yields not only… Read More »
Asset Allocation Bi-Weekly – The Importance of the Federal Reserve’s Inflation Target (May 28, 2024)
by the Asset Allocation Committee | PDF Money has three characteristics: medium of exchange, store of value, and unit of account. When money is taught in undergraduate economics classes, these three functions are treated as self-evident, but careful observation suggests that that the first two characteristics are contradictory. If a monetary authority emphasizes the medium… Read More »
Asset Allocation Bi-Weekly – The Immigration Paradox (May 13, 2024)
by the Asset Allocation Committee | PDF Throughout history, immigration has been a politically charged issue, creating a rift between capital and labor. Employers have advocated for looser immigration policies to fill job vacancies, particularly for positions that don’t offer high pay. Conversely, labor unions often push for stricter policies to prevent an influx of… Read More »