Market Insights

Top 3 Blog Posts 2019

Happy New Year! 

We sincerely appreciate your continued interest and support of our market insights.  Below we recap our 3 most popular blog posts of 2019.  

As always, we welcome your comments or questions.

Thoughts on Risk Management and a Strong Sell Discipline

As portfolio managers, we are often asked how we think about risk management at both the portfolio level and the individual stock level. From a bottom-up stock analysis standpoint, we believe the way we view risk is quite different than most investors.

The Problem with High Dividend ETFs

Asset flows into exchange-traded funds (ETFs) over the past twenty years have been staggering, especially during the post-2008 period. In November of this year, U.S.-based exchange-traded funds surpassed a record $4 trillion in assets¹. The graph below illustrates the dramatic growth:

[MARKET UPDATE] Rising Premiums for Property-Casualty Insurers

The property-casualty industry is cyclical – a function of insurers being unable to know their cost of goods sold (i.e. claims) until well after the policies were incepted. One can see in the chart below where we are in the cycle¹.

The Repo Market: Why Investors Should be Concerned

Near the end of the third quarter, the overnight funding market (commonly referred to as the “repo market”) exhibited a level of instability not seen since the financial crisis. However, many individuals don’t fully understand the implications of this disruption, nor do they have a full grasp of...

Leverage Cycles, Banks and Our Outlook for the Remainder of 2019

“After a ten-year post-financial crisis period of consistent underlying conditions for equity investing, fundamentals are shifting.”

A Discussion of the U.S. Debt Situation: Consumer and Government Debt

“The national debt is akin to student loans – while not an immediate concern, it could become a major problem.”

Consumer Debt

Last week, we discussed the state of the corporate leverage. Consumer debt is also an area of concern, but to a lesser extent than corporate debt. Domestic consumer debt is...

A Discussion of the U.S. Debt Situation: Corporate Debt

“Debt, we've learned, is the match that lights the fire of every crisis. Every crisis has its own set of villains - pick your favorite: bankers, regulators, central bankers, politicians, overzealous consumers, credit rating agencies - but all require one similar ingredient to create a true crisis:...

Statutory Data: A Trove of Valuable Bank Information

“First-level thinkers look for simple formulas and easy answers. Second-level thinkers know that success in investing is the antithesis of simple…Your thinking has to be better than that of others…you must find an edge they don’t have. You must think of something they haven’t thought of, see things...

The Many Benefits of Analyzing Non-GAAP Data, Part 3 of 3

Over the past two weeks we have explored the concept of using other types of data (non-GAAP) to enhance our analysis on publicly-traded companies. This week, we focus on Consumer Companies.