Yield Curve - What's Going On?

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Yield Curve - What's Going On?

With the recent flattening of the yield curve, investors are beginning to get flashbacks to 2018 when the “inverted yield curve” was stamped across every financial rag. It is a legitimate pause point, as almost every recession has been predated by an inverted yield curve. It is crucial to follow up this up with the fact that not every yield curve inversion has actually led to a recession. In an analogy by Bespoke, “it is kind of like the square-rectangular phenomenon whereas in a square is always a rectangle, but a rectangle isn’t always a square.”

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The Beginning of the End

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The Beginning of the End

Oh what a difference a year makes. For a moment, and I know it’s scary, transport yourself back to where you were 365 days ago. The S&P 500 was down about 20% in the month of March, 2020. We had witnessed the Dow Jones fall almost 3000 points in a single day, panic and uncertainty was pretty much the only thing we had to hold on to. It was just a bit before this time when our firm released our first COVID - 19 related commentary.

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Beware of Behavioral Biases

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Beware of Behavioral Biases

The coronavirus (COVID 19) breakout has been a fascinating real life case study of behavioral finance and the effect it can have on investors, particularly those operating outside of a trusted advisor relationship. Behavioral finance is the field of study that looks at investor psychology as it relates to money. It reveals the many pitfalls and fallacies the brain is vulnerable to when dealing with decisions specifically relating to money or investments. It is no secret that people, in general, are not great at investing. Emotions can be powerful and counter productive. Separating one’s feelings from the facts is a high hurdle for many Americans, leading many to doing the exact wrong things at the worst times.

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The Potential Pitfalls of Big Data

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The Potential Pitfalls of Big Data

What do avocados, Superbowl Champions, and Sports Illustrated Swimsuit models have in common? They all have been used to predict market performance. With the increasing availability of computing power, financial experts are increasingly using big data to draw observations / trends. While this has produced some pretty important concepts, it has also introduced many eye rolling observations. In this post, James Chapman brings readers through some of the more odd indicators, and some of the potential pitfalls of big data.

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