Mike on Markets

Happy Friday! No weekly due to the holiday, but I wrote a primer on the debt ceiling a few months ago in anticipation of this clown show underway. Happy to send it your way if you so desire. Of all the dumb stuff at the intersection of politics and finance, the debt ceiling rises to the…More

Happy New Year! Let’s never speak of 2022 again.  Ok, now that that’s out of the way, the SECURE Act 2.0 is official, so I wrote about some of the key components of this legislation. Overall there’s nothing groundbreaking, but there are a handful of nudges in here that could once again explain why Richard…More

Happy Friday! Back when I worked on the sell-side, I hosted an “idea dinner” for several of my hedge fund and institutional buy-side clients.  I started the dinner by asking everyone where they thought the S&P would end the year. Of the 30 or so in the room, only one client thought the S&P would…More

Happy Friday! Hope everyone had a nice and relaxing Thanksgiving holiday.  There’s been a lot of chatter about the diesel fuel situation. One of our wealth management clients reached out to us and suggested we write about it, so that’s what I did this week.  I am in no way an expert on (1) diesel…More

Happy Friday! I feel like I write about the debt ceiling every 12-18 months, but it’s important to remind clients, or else they can succumb to the dangers of the nightly news. But if the Republicans split the government, I’d wager this drama could become the next big story over the coming months. Spoiler alert:…More

Happy Friday! I get asked a lot by investors if we’re ever short the market or a particular stock. There seems to be a conceptual understanding of short selling but also a misconception of the mechanics and risks involved. Hence, I wrote a primer on short selling and why it’s best left to hedge funds…More

No weekly this week, but I recorded a 3Q2022 Market Update on Thursday for about 40 minutes. Feel free to send it along. Click Here, Passcode: Wmv0@Gq$ Moving on… $1.7 million down the drain. One of my business school professors conducted a study years ago – to see if an entrepreneur could follow the rules…More

Happy Friday! The Quarterly Update was released this week. As always, reach out if you’d like a copy. The TLDR version is that just as Metallica taught us long ago, it’s all up to the Fed, and nothing else matters. What happened? I was on the runway when CPI was released yesterday. Just as futures started…More

Happy Friday! This week I wrote about five options for clients sitting in cash. Think of it as a call to action away from the big banks. There’s free money out there, and it’s time our clients seized it! Much to discuss this week… Under pressure Without question, the most overplayed song in business school…More

Happy Friday! I wrote about why gold hasn’t been the inflation hedge that so many had expected. It’s down around 8% this year and 14% over the last six months. While it’s surprised many gold bugs, I’ve always felt that gold is more influenced by the U.S. dollar than inflation.  But don’t take my word…More