Newsletter Archive - 2025

December 30, 2025

On December 5, 1996, Fed Chair Alan Greenspan coined the phrase “irrational exuberance” which he apparently thought up in the bathtub. In his usual way, he was careful to not say that asset prices were too high, but posed it as a question: “How do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions?” ...

September 29, 2025

Normally I focus my end of quarter article on what happened last quarter and expectations for the next one. The interesting thing about writing so often and history tending to repeat itself is that I realized I’ve already said everything I was planning on saying. September is traditionally the weakest month of the year. ...

June 23, 2025

There was a TV show I used to watch in the late 90s called Early Edition. The premise of the show is that the protagonist, Gary, who ironically is a stockbroker, receives tomorrow’s newspaper each morning. Episodes revolve around him using that foreknowledge for good to try to prevent tragedies. His friend is a schemer who tries to use the newspaper to make money. Anyone who does forecasting knows it would be much easier if we had tomorrow’s news today. ...

April 5, 2025

What a week for the markets … in terms of sheer drop in value versus the time it took to happen, this is probably the worst week in my experience as a manager or investor.  I’ve lived through, most significantly, the crash of 2000 – 02, and the banking and insurance crisis of 2008-09 and several other less destructive short-term disruptions, all the way back ...

March 28, 2025

A few weeks ago I was contemplating a newsletter article centered around the market volatility we’ve been experiencing over the last month with a reminder that it's normal. Then, on March 11^th, I received an email from Jim with the subject line “Newsletter”, body that says “For review and publication” and a Word document attached. If you haven’t had a chance to read ...

March 11, 2025

Anybody who knows me at all knows I don’t spend any time defending President Trump.  I didn’t vote for him (and not Harris either) because I don’t agree with him on many issues.  My biggest dissatisfaction, however, is more around non-policy issues than on tariffs, for example, on whether he should dismantle the CFRB or IRS.  That said, I would also ...