Market Insights
With a full-time dedicated analyst in-house, Head Investment Partners isn’t just reliant upon sharing the opinion of a New York analyst with our clients. We parse through the opinions of our trusted resources on an ongoing basis to both help direct our investments and provide timely communication to our clients. By providing timely insights and a targeted message, we believe we can not only foster better long-term performance, but better investors as well.
HIP Insights: Understanding Bond Math
“People worry about the riskiness of stocks, but bonds can be just as risky.”
Peter Lynch
The Pause or the Inflection Point?
Investors seeking calm heading into the back-half of 2023 found little during Q3. Equities largely sold off around the globe while bond yields rose.Global Central banks (including the US Federal Reserve) continue to remain center-stage, despite efforts to push them aside for other news stories.
Historic, Unprecedented and Unusual
In the lexicon of the investment community, the words historic, unprecedented, and unusual are tossed around recklessly to the point that they sometimes lose their true meaning.
HIP Mid-Year Update
Skepticism, anxiety, uneasiness, and doubt…the foundational principles of the first half of 2023’s rally. This YTD rally isn’t like many of the past, driven by greed, speculation, and exuberance. Instead, equity markets outperformed despite all the negativities. They exceeded the expectations of most Wall Street “experts.”
Does the Fed Pause Mean Anything?
In late 2020, Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell ushered in a term to describe inflation in the US that he will unlikely ever escape: Transitory.
In the Spring of 2021, the Federal Reserve said rates would stay near 0% until at least 2024.
After hiking for 10 consecutive meetings to the tune of 5% in total, the Fed clearly changed its mind!
Q1: Better than Anticipated?!
Had we told you that we would see two of the largest banking failures in US history in the first quarter, few would have expected the outcome we garnered. Yet another tumultuous ride concluded far from how many would have projected it to play out…at least so far.
A Market of Stocks
Not a day goes by without investors referencing “the stock market.” On a recent webinar, we were reminded by JPMorgan’s Global Market Strategist, Gabriela Santos, of a simple, subtle, and often forgotten truth of investing. Rather than a stock market, we should more precisely focus on a market of stocks.
2022 Market and Economic Recap
Calendar Year 2022 has served investors many slices of humble pie. It didn’t just seem unusual…it was!
Insurance is Full of Characters
The commercials have been among the most iconic in television history. Talking geckos, a deranged, villainous character, an average guy in khakis, and everyone’s all-too-talkative friend have helped permanently cement their companies in the minds of audiences. Each has also helped their companies sell lots of insurance to lots of impressionable customers.
The Economy is STILL not the Market
Just a couple of months after COVID-19 reached American shores in 2020, we published a similarly titled and timely piece. It is reprinted at the end of this update for easy reference. We felt a refreshed version appropriately addressed many of the most common questions we field from clients today.
A Challenging First Half
The word “historic” has been thrown around a lot in the last 2.5 years, nevertheless it still seems like the appropriate term to describe the first stanza of 2022. So far, 2022 stands as a year marked by the highest inflation in 40 years, lowest consumer confidence in 50 years, lowest unemployment in decades and the first major invasion in Europe since WWII.
Shock and Awe Lead Markets Lower
Had we told investors that Russia would invade the Ukraine, China would shut down several major cities because of their Zero-Covid policy, and the Federal Reserve would make one of the most hawkish pivots in recent memory, investor expectations for returns would have been low.
