Author Archive

2022 4th Quarter Market Commentary

2022 4th Quarter Market Commentary

I don’t always agree with what is written on The Wall Street Journal’s editorial pages, but the following was part of a particularly insightful editorial from its year-end edition: "[F]ree money can’t last forever… is the reality that financial markets brought home in 2022 as U.S. stocks finally fell back to earth after being inflated [...]

January 27, 2023

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by: Tom Feeney

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Categories: Investment Thinking, Markets & Economy, Quarterly Commentary, Stock & Bond Markets

2022 3rd Quarter Market Commentary

2022 3rd Quarter Market Commentary

The Future Is Now Virtually all investors have suffered so far in 2022.  As the table shows, the traditional 60/40 stock/bond portfolio lost more than 20% of its value.  Even far less aggressive portfolio allocations experienced significant declines.  And most investors did even worse, because the most popular stocks substantially underperformed the major market indexes. [...]

October 24, 2022

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by: Tom Feeney

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Categories: Investment Thinking, Markets & Economy, Quarterly Commentary, Stock & Bond Markets

2021 4th Quarter Market Commentary

2021 4th Quarter Market Commentary

Because I’m writing for a newly expanded readership, many of whom have never before seen our commentaries, I’m going to take a somewhat different approach in this issue. It is always advantageous to know the biases of a writer and, ideally, to know what he/she has identified previously as the factors likely to influence markets [...]

January 25, 2022

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by: Tom Feeney

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Categories: Investment Thinking, Markets & Economy, Quarterly Commentary, Stock & Bond Markets

2021 2nd Quarter Market Commentary

2021 2nd Quarter Market Commentary

If we’re unconcerned about the price we pay, there are several reasons to buy stocks today. Thanks to copious stimulus from the Federal Reserve, common stock indexes have continued their march upward, and most securities analysts are forecasting further gains. Notwithstanding the Fed’s generosity, however, U.S. Treasury notes and bonds and investment-grade corporates  lost money [...]

July 26, 2021

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by: Tom Feeney

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Categories: Economics, Investment Thinking, Markets & Economy, Quarterly Commentary, Stock & Bond Markets

2021 1st Quarter Market Commentary

2021 1st Quarter Market Commentary

The securities markets experienced drama in positive and negative directions in the year’s first quarter, as the Federal Reserve and most other world central banks continued to flood their respective economies with newly printed money. Only risk-free securities avoided the excitement. In fact, Three-Month Treasury Bills barely registered a pulse with a 0.01% return. By [...]

April 22, 2021

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by: Tom Feeney

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Categories: Economics, Investment Thinking, Markets & Economy, Quarterly Commentary, Stock & Bond Markets

2020 4th Quarter Market Commentary

2020 4th Quarter Market Commentary

-The Good, The Bad and The Ugly- This graph highlights the stark dichotomy between what investors view as “good” and “bad” on the current investment landscape. The tan line traces the cumulative growth of the S&P 500 over the past half century. Most noteworthy is the explosive growth in the nearly dozen years since the [...]

January 22, 2021

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by: Tom Feeney

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Categories: Investment Thinking, Quarterly Commentary

2020 3rd Quarter Market Commentary

2020 3rd Quarter Market Commentary

Investors continue to face a serious quandary: How to proceed with historically overvalued equity markets, worldwide economic malaise, minimal interest rates and a Fed seemingly committed to eliminating any danger of significant loss to either stocks or bonds? Throw in a highly acrimonious political scene with questions on both left and right about whether the [...]

October 20, 2020

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by: Tom Feeney

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Categories: Investment Thinking, Markets & Economy, Quarterly Commentary, Stock & Bond Markets

Can the Fed Prevent Overvalued Market Leaders from Falling?

Can the Fed Prevent Overvalued Market Leaders from Falling?

For several years, investors have wrestled with a profound dilemma. With Federal Reserve and other substantial government stimulus, stock prices have risen to and remained at valuation levels that have, throughout history, ultimately been severely punished. As the years rolled on and the Fed consistently provided one sort of stimulus or another whenever stocks appeared [...]

September 1, 2020

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by: Tom Feeney

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Categories: Investment Thinking, Markets & Economy, Stock & Bond Markets

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