Resources

Dear Clients and Friends of Insight, We began 2017 with our positive outlook for the performance of client portfolios. We felt that stock prices would continue advancing, despite their high valuations at the start of the year, due to the improving global economy and the likelihood of double-digit earnings growth. Further, we believed that our high-quality intermediate-term bond strategy would contribute positive results, even though the Federal Reserve was poised to raise short-term interest...

Dear Clients and Friends of Insight, October 2017 marks the ten-year anniversary of the end of the prior bull market, which foreshadowed numerous company failures, the Great Recession, and the pricing collapse of nearly every asset around the world. Major stock markets declined for well over a year, bottoming in early 2009 after losing more than 50% of their value. Since then, the market has retraced its lost ground to finally surpass its previous high in March 2013, and it has proceeded to...

Dear Clients and Friends of Insight, In our April letter, we discussed implications of the Federal Reserve’s appetite to continue raising the Federal Funds rate throughout the year, which they increased again a few weeks ago. There have now been four rate increases since December 2015. We proposed that just because short- term rates were headed higher, not all bonds would see the same impact on their interest rates, and in some cases, their interest rates could even decline. Additionally, we...

Dear Clients and Friends of Insight, The Federal Reserve recently raised the Federal Funds rate, and indicated they will raise it several more times this year, potentially setting the stage for rising interest rates for many years to come. Perhaps this widely anticipated event is finally going to happen after years of expectation. There has been continual discussion among market participants about the implications of rising rates on financial markets, and many fear they will act as a...

Dear Clients and Friends of Insight, This time of year leads most of us to reflect on the accomplishments from the year we are leaving behind and to establish expectations for the year ahead. With this letter, I would like to share my thoughts on Insight’s 2016 successes, and some brief thoughts for 2017. Ultimately, the measure of our success is determined by how well we serve our clients as their trusted advisor. In The Insight Client Experience (enclosed) we have thoughtfully articulated...

Dear Clients and Friends of Insight, Summer has come and gone and we begin the final season of the year. Stock markets throughout the last several months have been pretty tame, especially compared to earlier in the year. Recall that stock prices declined considerably in January and February, stoking investor fear and uneasiness. What followed, of course, was a surprisingly strong rally through the spring which erased the year’s early losses. This reinforced for investors the supposed wisdom of...

Dear Clients and Friends of Insight, Once again unexpected news, this time from Great Britain and the European Union, has shocked the investment community and stirred investor anxiety. Global markets for stocks, bonds, currencies and commodities have had adverse reactions and become more volatile. This serves as a good reminder of the need to manage risk in client portfolios. A portfolio’s asset allocation – the mix of stocks, bonds and cash – is considered one of the fundamental indicators...

Dear Clients and Friends of Insight, In spite of the gloomy sentiment that preoccupied so many investment strategists and commentators for the first few months of the year, the market, once again, surprised the consensus thinkers and reversed its negative course. Although many challenges for a healthy economic environment remain, investors’ moods improved (thank you Chair Yellen), which helped boost the major U.S. indices into slightly positive territory to end the first quarter! In our last...

Events often do not materialize when or even as expected. As 2015 began most market prognosticators predicted positive returns for global stock markets of 5% to 10% or more. However, market indexes around the world closed out the year on a downbeat, which was particularly disappointing given the sharp rebound in stock prices we experienced this past fall. This left many U.S. investors with their first negative annual return from stocks since the current bull market began in March of 2009 — a...