Insights Investments

The recent market pullback has offered a useful reminder: in certain environments, traditional safe havens don’t behave the way you’d expect. Since the Middle East conflict escalated on February 27, both bonds and gold have failed to provide much cushion, and understanding why matters more than the headline. Bonds: The Inflation Problem Treasury yields have …

Life is transitory, and so are inflation shocks (caveat: on a long enough timeline). The Federal Reserve (Fed) held rates steady in the 3.50-3.75 range at its March meeting, as expected. But all eyes were on the Fed’s updated Summary of Economic Projections (the “dot plot”), where each of 19 members jot down their estimates …

“If everybody is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.” General Patton The quote above is one I use all the time and I’d put it at my second most used quote, after Mark Twain’s “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” While our team remains constructive on this bull market and we don’t see …

The most dangerous shortages are the ones you don’t see coming. What happens when global oil flow is disrupted and the Strait of Hormuz becomes a bottleneck for the world economy? In Episode 179 of Facts vs Feelings, Ryan Detrick, Chief Market Strategist at Carson Group, and Sonu Varghese, Chief Macro Strategist at Carson Group, …

Let me start here: if inflation averages 2% over 10 years, that translates to an 18% cumulative loss of purchasing power, i.e., $10,000 of a typical basket of goods and services today would cost $12,190 in a decade. If inflation averages 3% over 10 years, that translates to a 26% cumulative loss of purchasing power, …

Thanks for reading this week’s Charts of the Week. This week’s charts focus on the current oil situation, labor markets,  inflation, macro data, and historical comparisons to prior performances. We’ll keep publishing Charts of the Week every Monday. To view this week’s Charts of the Week, click here: Charts of the Week: Mar. 9-13

March is synonymous with a “madness” in the air due to the NCAA tournament, which provides the country with a captivating energy that only comes once a year. The tournament is filled with underdog stories of schools and/or athletes, upsets that even the most calculated would not have predicted, and buzzer beaters that are heard …

“Don’t trust a skinny ice cream man.” Ben & Jerry’s Ben Cohen   The volatility and confusion continue. On Monday, hope was the war in Iran would be over soon, but that quickly lost steam and crude oil soared back up close to $100/barrel later in the week. There are a couple ways to look …

Markets in 2026 are looking an awful lot like they did this time last year. Yes, the drivers are different, but the similarities are eerie. Let’s take a look (numbers as of Tuesday’s close)… The S&P 500 is down year to date. The Bloomberg Aggregate Bond Index is outperforming the S&P 500. Gold is having …

In the world of portfolio construction, the classic 60/40 split, 60% equities and 40% bonds, has long been hailed as a balanced approach to weathering market storms. It’s like the reliable minivan of investing: not flashy, but designed to get you through various terrains with a mix of growth potential and stability. But what if …

The last several years have been unusually favorable for investors. Equities have delivered strong returns, bonds have recovered meaningfully, and credit has remained resilient. For many portfolios, nearly everything has worked. And when everything works, diversification often goes unquestioned. There is an irony in how we respond to diversification, or more precisely, to correlation. When …