Research & News
Asset Allocation Weekly (February 14, 2020)
by Asset Allocation Committee The data on U.S. residential real estate has been improving in recent months. Housing tends to have an outsized effect on the economy. Not only do housing purchases trigger follow-on buying of consumer durable goods (e.g., furniture and furnishings, etc.) but non-durables as well (e.g., basic household items). A house is an… Read More »
Weekly Geopolitical Report – Investment Implications of Changing Demographics: Part I (February 10, 2020)
by Patrick Fearon-Hernandez, CFA (Note: Due to the President’s Day holiday, our next report will be published on February 24.) In the 1960s and 1970s, people worried a lot about rapid population growth. According to the United Nations, the world’s population was growing at an average annual rate of more than 1.9% during those decades,… Read More »
Asset Allocation Weekly (February 7, 2020)
by Asset Allocation Committee The Commerce Department recently released its first iteration of Q4 GDP. The overall growth rate, at 2.1%, was mostly on forecast but the composition of the growth showed some unexpected developments. In this week’s report, we will examine the most interesting changes and what it may be telling us about future economic… Read More »
Weekly Geopolitical Report – The U.S.-China “Phase One” Trade Deal: Part II (February 3, 2020)
by Bill O’Grady In Part I of this report, we offered a detailed examination of “Phase One” of the recent trade agreement between the U.S. and China. This week, in Part II, we will examine the ramifications of the deal and conclude the report with market effects. China appears to be the “loser” in this… Read More »
Asset Allocation Weekly (January 31, 2020)
by Asset Allocation Committee Last week, we updated our thoughts about a melt-up in equity markets. We observed that retail flows had diverged from equity market performance and noted that if sentiment shifts and retail investors come into equities, the market could rise rapidly to levels that may not be sustainable. This week, we are dealing… Read More »
Keller Quarterly (January 2020)
Letter to Investors You don’t need me to tell you this, but 2019 was an unusually good year for the public financial markets. Virtually every market rebounded nicely from the sharp sell-offs that occurred in late 2018. How broad was the advance? Confluence Investment Management’s Asset Allocation team tracks 12 major asset classes globally, consisting… Read More »
Weekly Geopolitical Report – The U.S.-China “Phase One” Trade Deal: Part I (January 27, 2020)
by Patrick Fearon-Hernandez, CFA After months of negotiations, the U.S. and China signed “Phase One” of what is expected to be a multiple-phase trade deal. After noting media response to the agreement, we were struck by the dismissive consensus narrative that has developed. Our careful review of the document seemed to suggest a much more… Read More »
Asset Allocation Weekly (January 24, 2020)
by Asset Allocation Committee One of the risks we noted in the 2020 Outlook: Storm Watch was the potential for a “melt-up.” On the one hand, seeing a parabolic rise in equities seems like a positive. On the other, a rise of significant magnitude only occurs because of a surge of late buyers; these latecomers usually… Read More »