There must be more words written about the Federal Reserve and tightening of interest rates than any other issue that affects financial markets. A Google search throws up an imprecise “about 750,000” results! If each one is 250 words (less than your blogger’s typical post) that is 239 versions of the King James Version of the Bible. […]
The collapse in oil prices was the dominant story of 2014, and it’s shaping up to be the dominant story of 2015 too. In the popular narrative, development of unconventional shale oil and natural gas in the U.S. has led to a supply imbalance. Saudi Arabia has decided to inflict a lesson on the upstart […]
A persistent problem for investors is constructing a balanced portfolio with an acceptable risk/return profile when Fed policy has rendered bonds an impractical component. Indeed, much of our business at SL Advisors revolves around providing solutions to this problem. High yield bonds, the closet equity refuge of many fixed income investors willing to move out […]
I’m currently reading Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics, by Richard H. Thaler. It’s a fascinating book that tells the story of the development of Behavioral Economics as a discipline, and a constant theme is the ongoing debate with his academic colleagues who adhere to the Efficient Markets Theory (EMT). Basically, EMT holds that security prices […]
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, as far as long term investment returns are concerned, are excessive fees, leverage, taxes and over-trading. Any one of these can be relied upon to eat into the results sought by the long term investor. Add an excess of all four and you wind up with a toxic brew […]
Energy investors have seen their holdings buffeted of late by the price of oil, and Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs) have been no exception to this. Their prices have moved as if they have substantial exposure to oil, whereas midstream MLPs are most notable for their cashflows being predominantly fee-driven. Over the past few days several […]
If the arcane tax accounting of the mutual funds and ETFs that invest in Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs) is of no interest to you, let me save you some time and advise you to skip reading. As the rest of you who have proceeded past the warning probably know, the attractive tax-deferred yields offered by […]
MLPs continue to be weak. Through yesterday the Alerian Index is -15.1% YTD and has now fallen 26.6% from the peak last August. This trend has accelerated in recent weeks. Since we are only now heading into earnings season for many names, the moves of late have been driven largely by macro issues. The drop […]
Over the past week we’ve witnessed a negotiation of monumental incompetence. Greece’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras successfully won a referendum rejecting bailout terms that were no longer on offer, presided over the subsequent freezing up of the economy as the banks were forced to close and finally agreed to worse terms than he and Greek […]
Countless investors and financial advisors wrestle today with the conundrum of how to approach bonds. We are reminded constantly of the likelihood of rising interest rates; most recently Fed chair Janet Yellen reiterated the case for a hike in short term rates later this year. She argued that uncertainty over Greece was likely to be […]
