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Monthly Outlook: June 2026 Global stock markets continued to make new highs in May, especially the technology and AI memory chip markets. Nothing seems to stall this bull market and every dip gets bought. Since the 2022 pullback in both stocks and bonds, the S&P500 is up almost 100% with only two small dips. The first dip was April 2025 from the Trump Tariff Tantrum that only lasted one month. And the second dip was the start of the Iran war in April 2026, causing stocks to dip, but for only three weeks. The war is far from over, but the dip sure is! Again, despite myriad catalysts for a downturn, investors just shrug off any bad news and buy, buy, buy. We certainly benefit from such bullishness with impressive YTD gains across all portfolios. But we’re also aware that new highs have left many stock markets overvalued and extended [...]

Monthly Outlook: May 2026 Markets have traded like a yo-yo for the past two months, with the S&P500 index down 4.9% in March and up 10.5% in April, closing at new all-time highs. Other markets like the NASDAQ 100, and the INTL index, are trading in the same way. If it feels like a little déjà vu to last year’s Mar/Apr, that’s because it looks similar. Last year, we had the Trump tariff plunge & recover. This year, I guess we can call it the Iran war plunge & recover. As long-term growth investors, we’re not really used to such volatile geopolitical policy changes. But I would say that markets and investors aren’t nuts, they’re just efficiently and quickly pricing in the data as it comes in. Markets just reflect reality, volatile as it is. With global stock prices trading at new highs, investors should be happy about the sizeable [...]

Monthly Outlook: April 2026 What a wild ride it’s been for markets in March! The U.S. and Israel war with Iran has investors feeling skittish and taking off risk by selling. As proof of the focus being all about the war, consider how markets traded on March 31st, when there were rumors that maybe the war could end soon. On that one day, U.S. stocks bounced about 3% higher. Still, for the month, and even with the bounce on the 31st, most markets were meaningfully down. The S&P500 dropped -4.9%, the NASDAQ100 fell -4.8%, and the international EAFE lost -7.8%. Bonds also lost ground in March over concerns about higher oil prices and potential inflation, falling – 1.7%. The benchmark for a 70%/30% stock/bond portfolio (how typical investors are invested) fell -5.1%. How then, are our managed iFolios only down about -0.5% to -1.5%, YTD? It’s not magic; it’s discipline. [...]

Monthly Outlook: March 2026 Markets, and our managed portfolios, continue to trend higher in 2026, with gains of +2% to 4%, YTD. But hidden in this headline are undercurrents and subtle shifts that are taking place. The U.S. stock market (let’s use the S&P500), is actually near-flat, YTD, with a modest +0.6% gain. But last year’s darling, the NASDAQ 100, which has all the Big Tech names in it, is down -1.1%. It’s the international stock market that is the star of the global equity market, with a YTD gain of +9.7%. Within the emerging market equity markets, we see overall uptrends but splits between countries. Korea, Taiwan, and Brazil are up, while China and India are down. Lastly, the “boring” bond market is up +1.8%, YTD as the 10-year U.S. Treasury rate slides lower from 4.16% to 3.96% this year. We see parallels to this bifurcated market story elsewhere. [...]

Monthly Outlook: February 2026 Most markets are off to a good start in 2026, with global stocks, bonds, commodities, REITs, and other markets posting solid gains in January. One market, however, is clearly losing ground and that is the US dollar. And isn’t that the market we’re really most concerned about? Isn’t that our “bottom line?” The US Dollar Index measures the value of the US dollar against a trade-weighted basket of foreign currencies including the euro, yen, Canadian dollar, and Aussie dollar. This index shows that the US dollar has lost 11.7% in the last year (since its peak in January 2025) and lost 1.2% last month, alone (January 2026). Currencies fluctuate against each other all the time, but when our currency falls nearly 12% in a year and the trend continues to be lower, we have to ask, where does it stop? Why Do We Care About US [...]

Monthly Outlook: January 2026 As we wrap up another very successful year of investing, Wall Street analysts are busy making their 2026 predictions and recommendations. You’ll see article after blog after post claiming to know, often with great precision, where the S&P500 will end up at year-end 2026, how many times the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates, where inflation will go, how high gold will go, and so on. It’s all bunk. At year end, we’re always reminded of Yogi Berra’s famous quote, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” But that doesn’t seem to keep Wall St. from trying. And you’ll notice that analysts are notoriously optimistic, and consistently wrong. According to Barron’s Big Money Poll, not one of the analysts surveyed expect a negative return for the S&P500, with the average expectation coming in at +9% growth. Over at Standard & Poor’s, the average analyst [...]