On July 30, 2007 Jeremy Siegel — Wharton professor and author of the popular investment book Stocks For The Long Run — appeared on CNBC to give his take on the stock market. To put things in perspective, this was before the credit crisis had erupted, at a time when the economy was still considered …
Stock markets around the globe have experienced a pronounced sell-off in recent weeks, culminating in yesterday’s 500 point Dow Jones Industrial Average decline. For investors that follow our blog and quarterly newsletter, these events should not come as a major surprise, as we have repeatedly expressed our skepticism with the sustainability of the stock market …
So you want to invest socially responsibly, but aren’t really sure how to do it. Maybe you have a company retirement plan with SRI options or maybe you’ve saved some money and decided you want to put it to work. For those new to investing, mutual funds can be a good place to start. What’s …
The second quarter of 2011 saw equity markets close down slightly over the last quarter – the S&P 500 began the quarter at 1,325.83 and ended at 1,320.64. Losses were on track to be far more substantial until the last week of June when the S&P 500 rallied over 50 points in the final …
So let’s say you’ve got some money you’d like to put to work in a socially responsible investment. Maybe you received a bonus at your job, maybe you inherited some money from a relative or maybe you’ve just been diligently saving over the past few years and want to earn more than the pitifully low …
We recently re-read a very good piece on Risk management lessons to remember from the credit-crisis 2007-2009 published by BlackRock. The document is well worth a read, and we recommend it highly for all professional investors. There are, however, a couple of things we wish the authors had added to the note. Particularly with regard …
The sharp drop in silver last week made us think of price-support in different markets and how that depends on the constitution of market participants. When a significant percentage of a market is composed of financial buyers and speculators, many of them leveraged, it is prone to sharp, steep drops. It doesn’t matter whether the …
People are scratching their heads about Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype and the price they paid. They shouldn’t be. Microsoft had to purchase Skype and in our view they would have paid even more to do it. It was a must-have strategic acquisition. Google is running circles around Microsoft in cloud-based office-productivity and communications tool adoption …
We read a number of startup, entrepreneur and venture blogs with great interest, and since many of our clients are entrepreneurs we have an interest in matters that touch on personal finance issues specific to them. We were struck by Fred Wilson’s blog post on his own experience recycling capital earned from investments in startups …
We held our first “webinar” earlier this month on the timely topic of municipal bonds. We have posted the narrated presentation at www.youtube.com/wsqcapital for the benefit of those who were unable to attend. We plan to host three webinars this quarter: Thursday, April 21: What Makes an Investment Socially Responsible? (April 22 is Earth Day!) …
Earlier this week, Paris-based banking giant Societe Generale announced the launch of its first socially responsible investment vehicle. What’s interesting about this particular investment is that SocGen plans to donate 100% of their management fees to charity. The exchange traded note or ETN will trade on the London Stock Exchange and will invest in …
As the tragedy in Fukushima continues to unfold, and the world watches helplessly, hoping for the safety of the Japanese people, a debate over the viability of nuclear power as a safe energy source has come to the fore, particularly in energy policy circles. Many environmentalists have long supported nuclear power as an efficient, low-carbon …
There’s a spate of coverage for the 100 year anniversary of the fire at New York’s Triangle shirtwaist factory. The tragedy led to the death of 146 workers and a national discussion about workplace safety rules and labor rights. Various news organizations have coverage, some of the more interesting articles are: WSJ: 100 years after Triangle …
We held a webinar earlier this month on municipal bonds. We provided a basic overview of the municipal bond market and discussed recent events. We’ve now posted a replay on youtube, the links are below:
We always recommend national portfolios when managing a substantial allocation to municipal bonds. Clients often ask about losing the state tax income benefits by buying out of state municipal bonds. Our answer has always been that we believe it is crucial to control geographic risk and concentration, particularly since these can be idiosyncratic, tail-event type …