This year’s Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting certainly had a different feel to it without the presence of Charlie Munger (who passed away in December 2023 at the age of 99). Despite Charlie’s absence, Warren (along with his deemed successor Greg Abel and Ajit Jain (head on insurance operations)) took the stage for several hours of […]

Another week full of market moving news – Treasury Refunding Announcement, countless earnings releases, the end of April, and the Federal Reserve’s May rate decision (and by the time you read this, jobs data). The highlight of this busy week was Wednesday’s rate decision and the following commentary and press conference by Chairman Jerome Powell. […]

Most Gross Domestic Product (GDP) reports come and go without any mention. The Q1 2024 GDP estimate (released this week) was not one of those releases. The report had a major impact on markets. Some of you may be asking, “what is GDP again?” Let’s review. GDP is the way we measure the US economy […]

I was listening to a webcast from one of our mutual fund managers this week, and he touched on one of my favorite mantras – time in the market matters more than timing the market. After a few weeks of market volatility and considerable micro and macro news, I thought it was worth sharing this […]

Welcome to April and Q2 2024. Let’s look back at the past two weeks and catch-up on things! Strong Start to the Year Let’s not dive into the second quarter without first revisiting how exceptional the past three months have been for investors. The S&P 500 (a popular index for the US equity market) rose […]

While most of America was focused on setting their NCAA brackets earlier this week, market watchers were placing “bets” of their own on the Federal Reserve and the path of interest rates. As was widely expected, on Wednesday the Federal Reserve once again left rates unchanged (leaving the Federal Funds rate range at 5.25-5.5%). They […]

There is something about the month of March as major market events tend to occur during the third month of the year. There are three major market events that are celebrating anniversaries this month – do you know what they are? Here they are – starting with the most recent in 2023 and going all […]

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell testified in front of the House Financial Services Committee for two days this past week. These briefings have become “must see TV” for market watchers as the question of 2024 remains – will the Federal Reserve cut interest rates this year, and if so when and by how much? Powell […]

The Federal Open Market Committee released the minutes from their latest meeting this week. As with all meetings, these recorded details of the actual conservations given market participants a bit more color regarding what the interest-rate setting body is thinking. These minutes covered the proceedings from January 30-31, 2024. There were a few interesting takeaways […]

This week, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for January 2024 was released. The popular inflation report came in ahead of expectations, showing an increase in inflation during the month. CPI rose 0.39% in January, 0.09% more than expected. On a year-over-year basis, the index was up 3.1% (lower than December’s 3.4% but higher than 2.9% […]