"We have nothing to fear but the lack of fear itself." - Walter Deemer Hi everyone, Earlier this month, the Nasdaq 100 had been higher for nine straight days, tied for the longest streak in the last four years.  The semiconductor index had been up eight straight days, tied for the longest winning streak in nearly eight years.  The largest "dip" in the S&P 500 since April has been a paltry 3.3%. 

"There are two ways to use money. One is as a tool to live a better life. The other is as a yardstick of status to measure yourself against others." - Morgan Housel Hi all, It's been a little bit since my last update, and the valuation of the S&P 500 remains stretched.  It is currently in the 93rd percentile of valuation in history, which is only to say there is a lot of optimism built into the market.

"A bull market is a bull.  It constantly tries to throw off its riders." - Richard Russell Hi all, As the S&P and Nasdaq make all-time highs it's important to look back and where we've been, why we continue to stress the boring (low-cost ETFs, diversification, etc.) and while those dynamics are not the holy grail of investing, we don't see a need to change our tune until the market changes first.

"Everybody in the world is a long-term investor until the market goes down." - Peter Lynch Hi all, As you may know, we were looking for a "snapback" rally after the S&P 500 had dropped over 21% from its all-time high on February 19th until April 7th.  Since then, we've seen a 23% rally off those low prices, and we now sit about 3% of the way from all-time highs on the S&P 500, and most portfolios are now slightly positive on the year.

Hi everyone, I’ve spoken to a lot of you individually already, but it’s definitely time to increase the pace of communication, so we’ve decided to do an intra-month blog post. This past week was just the fourth time since 1952 (when five-day trading began) that we had a 10%+ two-day drop for the S&P 500.  The other times?  October 1987, November 2008, and March 2020. 

Hi all, The word of the month on Wall Street has been "Uncertainty".  Uncertainty surrounding fiscal policy (government spending/cutting).  Uncertainty surrounding monetary policy (will the FED cut rates this year, and if so, how many times?).  Uncertainty surrounding geopolitics. We believe the reason so many investors have been caught off guard to start 2025 was because they believed uncertainty was low. 

"There are far better things ahead than any we leave behind." - C.S. Lewis" Hi all, As I write this post, the Nasdaq is down about 5% for the year, the Russell 2000 (small businesses) is down about 7% for the year, and the S&P 500 is down 2%.  Traditionally, after a 20%+ year for the S&P 500, weakness in the first few months is to be expected. 

Hi all, As you know, we've been cautious the last several months (especially on large cap companies) as the equity market valuations have kept us from committing some capital with relative confidence.  Hearkening back to November's post, we wrote: "This is not to say that the economy or the stock market is going to crash, but trees don’t grow to the sky. 

Hi all, Wednesday, December 18th, was the largest one-day drop for the S&P 500 (-2.95%) on a Federal Reserve rate decision day...ever.  This month has been the third worst month for the equal-weight S&P vs. the cap-weighted S&P since 1990.  March 2020 and June 2000 were the other two (not great). The precedent that keeps popping up in my historical research to the current time period is 1972. 

ALT: two cats laying on top of each other on a bed with pink sheets