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After Boston: Why the US Market is Vulnerable
Monday’s events in Boston were a terrible tragedy. The loss of life was devastating and all of us at BlackRock are praying for the city today. For investors, the news was a tragic reminder that markets...
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How to Access Emerging Market Growth – No EM Stocks Required
As I’ve mentioned before, although emerging markets have gotten off to a poor start in 2013, I still expect them to outperform developed markets this year thanks to cheaper valuations and more...
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Has Gold Lost its Luster?
Of all the investment topics I’ve discussed with clients, whether to invest in gold usually elicits the most divergent opinions. As an investment that is almost impossible to value, people’s views on...
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CASSHing-Out
In late 2011, I introduced the concept of investing in the CASSH countries – Canada, Australia, Switzerland, Singapore and Hong Kong. These smaller, developed countries exited the financial crisis with...
View ArticlePOV: Getting Defensive For A Springtime Swoon (Video)
As sequester-related furloughs kick in across a number of federal agencies, investors are being reminded that the US economy likely won’t escape unscathed from these government-imposed spending cuts....
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Beyond Gold: 4 Reasons to Think Energy
While the selloff in gold has dominated headlines lately, another commodity – oil – has also experienced price declines in recent months. The main US benchmark for crude prices is down roughly 5% from...
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Ask Russ: Inflation Fighting Investments
Though US inflation likely won’t be a problem until 2014 and beyond, it’s not too early for investors to start implementing long-term inflation hedges. But with so many possible inflation fighting...
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Slow US Growth Won’t Stall Stocks
Though last Friday’s better-than-expected payroll report was a relief for those worried about another springtime swoon, it also showed that monthly job creation has barely budged in two years and wage...
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Why Reinhart & Rogoff Still Matter
Last week, my colleague Daniel Morillo wrote that investors would be remiss in writing off Reinhart and Rogoff’s larger body of work merely because of a spreadsheet error in the economists’ widely...
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3 Reasons to Explore the Frontier
Emerging markets’ under-performance so far this year hasn’t spread to the frontier. While emerging market equities have under-performed developed world stocks recently, equities in “pre-emerging”, or...
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How to Take Advantage of the Great (Sector) Rotation
One beneficiary of the 2013 US stock market rally: defensive sectors. Until recently, classic defensive sectors like utilities, healthcare and consumer staples outperformed as investors were just...
View ArticlePOV: Time to Abandon Bonds?
While Warren Buffett has said that bonds are a “terrible” investment at the moment, Russ Koesterich, our chief investment strategist, takes a different view than the Oracle of Omaha. In this short...
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4 Reasons to Still Hold High Yield
As a number of market watchers have pointed out recently, high yield doesn’t look so junky anymore. High yield spreads are historically tight, at levels not seen since the fall of 2007 as the chart...
View ArticlePOV: How the Fed will End QE
It has taken the Fed nearly five years to build up the size of its balance sheet through its quantitative easing program, so ending the stimulus is not going to be simple. Russ explains why it’s likely...
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Putting Cash to Work: 3 Ways to Enter the Market Today
With global equities up more than 25% since their bottom last June, many investors are wondering: “Is it too late to move cash from the sidelines? Should I wait for a pullback?” My answer to both...
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4 Ideas for Today’s Low Inflation Environment
There’s certainly no shortage of things to worry about right now related to the US economy. But one thing we’re not too worried about right now: Inflation. Not only is inflation low, but the latest...
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4 Market Risks Worth Worrying About
“What worries you the most?” “What keeps you up at night?” I get these questions a lot from investors looking for insight into what might cause the next market correction. These questions are even more...
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After the Sell Off in Japan: 2 Reasons Not to Panic
The Japanese market experienced a major sell off Thursday, prompting many investors to ask me for an update on my view of Japanese stocks. The bottom line: I wouldn’t rush to sell Japanese equities. I...
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The Fixation on the Fed: 3 Investing Implications
The real cause of last week’s market losses: investor anxiety about monetary policy changes. As I write in my latest weekly commentary piece, in a world where risky assets have been driven higher...
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The Most Important (and Widely Ignored) Economic Number
While economic numbers like GDP or the monthly non-farm payroll report typically garner the headlines, the most useful statistic in my opinion– the Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI) – often...
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