Whatever your politics, it has been clear in recent weeks and months that the prospect of a Trump presidency held enough uncertainty to make investors and world leaders alike more than a little nervous. No one likes uncertainty. So here we are, asking ourselves what’s next?…
Although we’ve borrowed our title from Hunter S. Thompson’s book of essays on the 1972 presidential race, we’re here not to comment on Nixonian high jinks but on the closing days of the present contest. Fear and loathing seems an appropriate description of the public…
A few days after the first presidential debate, University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers published a piece in the New York Times titled, Debate Night Message: The Markets are Afraid of Donald Trump. In it, he predicted that stock markets would fall 10% – 12%…
“Captain’s Log, supplemental.” Some of you will recognize these as the words spoken by Captain James T. Kirk after each commercial break, to be followed by a recap of what happened in the prior segment and a preview of the action to come. Those words…
When we wrote last Friday morning in the immediate aftermath of Thursday’s Brexit, global markets were in freefall and anxiety was rising. We acknowledged the potential negative impact on the UK economy and the probability of heightened volatility in the near term. We then noted:…
They did it. The Brits voted yesterday to leave the European Union, driven, if the polls got it right, by fears of an immigrant invasion. Hadrian built his wall, Trump wants his, and the Brits decided to Brexit. Global stock markets have fallen on the…
Stock markets around the world continue to be roiled by investor anxiety over the state of the U.S. and world economy, corporate earnings, the price of oil, and the intentions of the Federal Reserve and other central banks. This is not new stuff, of course,…
We’re not quite three weeks into the new year and it’s feeling to many people like the world is coming to an end. So, before I say anything more, let me cut to the chase: It isn’t. There, I said it. We can all breathe…
As we enter the fourth trading day of 2016, world stock markets seem to have a bad case of nerves. As you know, we don’t believe that what happens in the markets on a day-to-day or month-to-month basis carries any real information, dominated as it…