Portfolio Review

Category: Portfolio Review

Portfolio Review 4Q 2025

Although nearly all markets and all asset classes were up in the year just ending, and by meaningful amounts, this masks the great rotation that is underway. U.S. equities are faltering and the Magnificent Seven beginning to roll over, while global markets outperformed the U.S., almost doubling its performance, for the first time since the […]

Portfolio Review 3Q 2025

The changes in the global monetary system, both from the center and from the periphery, will have as deep an impact on the global economy and the markets as the last major change, in 1971, when the U.S. closed the gold window, ending the last vestige of the gold system. These impacts are likely to […]

Portfolio Review 2Q 2025

This year, if it has been marked by anything, it’s uncertainty, and volatility. British politician Rab Butler famously said that “a week in politics is a long time,” but it seems recently that a day is an eternity. Uncertainty leads to indecisive and rapidly changing decisions, whether in business or in investing. Bill Dunkelberg, Dean […]

Portfolio Review 1Q 2025

The new U.S. Administration may have hastened some economic and market trends, but the underlying factors were already underway. Inflation has been picking up since last July; the U.S. consumer has been pulling on the reins for months now amid tapped-out credit; the Federal government has been careening towards a debt crisis. The stock market […]

Portfolio Review 4Q 2024

Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve took away the punch bowl just as the party was getting out of control. In a year in which most asset classes and markets appreciated, most are ending the year on a negative note, down for the final quarter of the year. With a new administration in Washington, the […]

Portfolio Review 3Q 2024

Just as the Federal Reserve finally initiated its rate cutting cycle, on the other side of the world Chinese authorities launched a multi-faceted stimulus program, sparking equity rallies in both markets as well as spurring gold and other commodities upwards. U.S. stocks and gold moved to yet new highs (until gold fell back on the […]

Portfolio Review 2Q 2024

The second quarter saw a pause in some of the new trends that I see in the markets: gold was essentially flat after China reported no purchases in May; some economic reports suggested a pick up in growth in the U.S.; global stocks markets slowed while many emerging markets were down, even as U.S. markets […]