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01.20.2021
It’s Time to Refinance (again)
The 2020 pandemic recession was one for the record books. The pace at which it unfolded was breathtaking, as was the speed of the recovery. U.S. GDP growth collapsed by 31.4% (annualized) in 2Q2020 after most economic activity came to a sudden stop near the end of Q1, making it the deepest recession in the […]
01.05.2021
A Recap of Markets in 2020
2020 was a remarkable year in a number of ways, including for financial markets, which established several new historical records. The crash in stock prices as the Coronavirus pandemic unfolded in February and March is well remembered, as is the blistering pace of recovery in market prices in the last nine months of the year. […]
11.17.2020
A Quick Note on the 2020 Election Outcome
In recent months, the perceived gap between US stock market performance and underlying economic fundamentals has grown to extreme levels. While US market indices sit near all time highs, the economic backdrop remains shaky; more than 13 million workers are receiving pandemic-related unemployment benefits and a large number of small and mid-sized businesses remain closed […]
10.08.2020
Concerned about the Election?
You may have heard that another presidential election is coming up soon. For many investors, this one feels more consequential than most, and the advisers at Vickery have been fielding more election-related questions from clients than usual this time around. It is certainly true that this election could bring significant changes on the policy front, […]
09.01.2020
Yields are at Record Lows — Time to Abandon Bonds?
In recent years, investors around the world have become accustomed to very low interest rates. Bond yields were already low by historical standards at the beginning of 2020, but then the economic shock caused by the Coronavirus pandemic, as well as aggressive monetary policy responses from the world’s major central banks, combined to drive down […]
08.06.2020
What Would You Do if You Knew Taxes Were Going Up?
The upcoming election this November will be highly consequential on a number of policy fronts, including tax policy. While the outcome won’t be known until after November 3, given the degree of potential changes, it would be prudent for investors to begin anticipating what a Biden Administration might look like in terms of federal tax […]
06.02.2020
What You Should Be Doing With Your Money RIGHT NOW
In the last few weeks, you have probably seen several headlines just like that one popping up on your computer screen and in the media; periods of high market volatility tend to bring them out in force. They certainly grab your attention and are effective at generating clicks and web traffic. But more likely than […]
04.24.2020
The Market is not the Economy
On March 26, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that 3.28 million Americans had filed for unemployment insurance in the past week, shattering all records for weekly jobless claims since recordkeeping began in 1967. The employment reports have only worsened since then, with approximately 26.5 million jobless Americans filing for claims in the past month, […]
02.11.2020
Does Gold Belong in Your Portfolio?
Gold had another good year in 2019, returning +17.4% in USD terms. Since bottoming at the end of 2015, gold has put together an impressive four year track record, returning 40.8% since 12/31/15 or about 8.9% annualized. Given that inflation has begun to turn up in the last few months as well, it’s unsurprising that […]
01.10.2020
Have You Checked Your Portfolio Lately?
Any way you slice it, 2019 was a fruitful year for the investor class. In what was nearly a mirror image to 2018, virtually every asset class had positive returns last year, including double-digit returns for US, international developed and emerging market stocks. Real estate investments (REITs) were one of the best performers last year, […]
09.18.2019
Should US stock returns be higher than foreign stock returns?
For US-based investors, being a globally diversified equity investor has been somewhat disappointing since 2010. While global equities have performed strongly on an absolute basis, the non-US component of our portfolios has generally been a drag on overall performance as US stocks have broadly outperformed a basket of international developed and emerging market stocks for […]
05.30.2019
Where Hath Inflation Gone?
The average annual rate of inflation in the United States has been slowly (if unevenly) declining for the past 40 years. Inflation rates averaged about 4% per year in the 1980’s, declined to around 3% in the early1990’s, fell below 1% by 2010 and today hover just under 2%. If we study market-based indicators of […]
04.30.2019
How Much is Social Security Worth to You?
If you’re like most working Americans, you will be entitled to a Social Security benefit when you reach age 62. The formula for calculating an individual’s benefits is fairly complicated, involving “average indexed monthly earnings” and “bend points”, but the inputs are rather simple — it is based on the number of [high earning] years […]
02.25.2019
Should You Pay Off Your Mortgage Early?
Sooner or later, nearly all homeowners ask themselves “Should we pay off our mortgage early”? The question is almost deceptively simple to state, but can be surprisingly complicated to answer. The reason for the complexity is that merits of “pre-paying” a mortgage balance involve multiple considerations, including- The current interest rate on the mortgage, whether […]
01.24.2019
Did “nothing work” in 2018?
Last year ended a nine year run of positive returns for the US stock market. As evidence-based investors, we know that investing involves risk, and that negative returns are always a possibility. A year like 2018 should not be unexpected, even if the timing of negative years is unpredictable. And while the magnitude of negative […]
11.08.2018
Extreme Portfolio Concentration
Would you feel comfortable owning a portfolio that was 100% invested in a single stock? Now before you answer, what if I told you this was not just any stock, but a really good, solid company. A household name. A recognized leader. A stock that has performed well through thick and thin. A company run […]
10.02.2018
Trade Wars and Record Highs
No one ever said that market timing is easy. One reason for the high failure rate is that market prices incorporate new information almost instantly; another is that prices often react in unexpected ways. For example, in just the last two years, we’ve experienced the contentious 2016 election, rising interest rates, tensions with North Korea, […]
08.24.2018
All the Wrong Lessons?
Next month will mark the ten year anniversary of the Lehman Brother’s bankruptcy, a shocking and unexpected event that helped catapult what had been a relatively mild recession and bear market into the Global Financial Crisis we all remember too well. And while all tropical storms get their own proper name, very few recessions do! […]
07.10.2018
Where Do High Stock Returns Come From?
Through the first quarter of 2018, the post – WWII annualized, real (inflation-adjusted) compounded total return on the S&P 500 has been 7.57%. This is an extraordinarily high real rate of return, handily beating bonds, commodities, gold and real estate. It is especially impressive considering that real (inflation-adjusted) growth in US Gross Domestic Product over […]
04.26.2018
Does ESG Investing Reduce your Expected Returns?
Many investors today are increasingly looking at more than just risk and return in their portfolios – they are also hoping to make a positive “impact” with their investment dollars. This has led to an explosion in popularity in what is now the fastest growing category of investment style today: Environmental, Socially-responsible (or Sustainable) and […]
03.26.2018
Here’s a Little T.I.P. for You
Everything, they say, has its price. Well perhaps not family, love or friendship but certainly most things do! And it turns out that even money itself has a price – and we refer to that price as the “interest rate.” Interest rates gauge the level of our “interest” in obtaining (or lending) money. When money […]
02.23.2018
Welcome Back Volatility, Our Old Friend
Well that was exciting! Until this month’s ~10% “correction” in world equity markets, volatility had fallen so far below historical averages that stock market movements had almost begun to resemble the relative tranquility of fixed income markets. For months on end, equity returns were generally positive and steady – in fact, the S&P 500 did […]
01.25.2018
Do Bonds Make Sense in a Rising Rate Environment*?
You may have noticed that interest rates around the world have generally moved higher over the last few months. Predictably, this has encouraged certain investment “gurus” to issue increasingly vocal warnings to fixed income investors to “sell now!” or face heavy losses. A “bond bear market” is right around the corner they say! Is there […]
11.30.2017
What is the Difference Between Gambling and Investing?
Most investors instinctively know that investing and gambling are not the same thing. At the same time, they may find it difficult to articulate exactly why they are different. They are both often considered in a similar context — in fact, when asked to describe their personal investment strategy, investors sometimes resort to using gambling […]
