The years sure do fly by! 2025 was no exception. A lot happened this year in the investing world (tariff tantrum, AI trade, AI bubble panic, ongoing Fed drama, and many more events). All told, it was a great year to be an investor, with most major indexes exceeding their long-term return expectations by meaningful […]

The Federal Reserve was back in focus this week as the US central bank announced its December rate decision. This rate move has been a topic of much debate in markets ever since the last cut was announced. Markets were anticipating a cut, with 88% odds of such a move in advance of the meeting. […]

If you’ve been dismayed and concerned by the blurring of the line between investing and gambling in financial markets, this post is for you. During 2025, there has been a sharp uptrend in the popularity and use of prediction markets. Prediction markets (run by companies such as Kalshi and Polymarket) are exchanges where people can […]

April wasn’t all that long ago but fortunately for us, we as humans tend to have very short memories. As a result, many of us have already forgotten the extreme market volatility we experienced just over six months ago. The recovery from that swoon has been remarkably quick (matter of months) and remarkably strong (S&P […]

After another year of strong performance for US markets, there is increasing chatter regarding what will lead to its demise. This is just how markets work – the more they go up, the more participants look for reasons they will soon go down. One common refrain from bears (ie: those betting the market will decline) […]

If you followed the financial news this week, you undoubtedly heard the story about a US investor named Michael Burry, famously known for the bet he made against the US market prior to the 2008 financial crisis (focused on the complex instruments linked to the US housing/mortgage market). Spoiler alert – he was right (despite […]

This week’s Fed meeting reminded me of the often-asked refrain “do you want the good news first?” The Fed meeting started off with good (albeit fully expected) news for markets when the Fed announced a 0.25% rate cut (taking the range to 3.75-4% range). The Fed also confirmed an end to quantitative tightening (discussed in […]

Each month, Rick Rieder, head of Fixed Income for Blackrock, hosts a monthly investment call that is always very informative. Him and his team present exhaustive data on several market trends and concepts. One that caught my attention this week was a discussion of the ongoing divide between certain age and income groups within the […]

If these were normal times, I’d be writing about the September CPI and PPI inflation reports. However, as the government shutdown marches on and economic data reports are delayed, it gives me the chance to write about some new & different topics. This week, I’m writing about another excerpt from a great book I’ve discussed […]

Another week has passed and the government shutdown continues. This has resulted in a very quiet flow of economic data as many of the key reports (such as the jobs report, CPI, and PPI) are calculated by government agencies that are currently furloughed. Markets seems to have shrugged off this information vacuum – at least […]