Real Estate

The strong economic and market trends of the first half of 2021 wavered during the third quarter. The coronavirus delta variant caught up with the US at the height of the summer, just as vaccinations slowed and concerns grew that inflation might flare and persist.

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With potential tax increases on the horizon, advisors can take steps now to minimize the impact of any changes in tax policy.

We do not expect widespread contagion across China’s real estate or banking sectors despite the challenging outlook.

Shanghai Surprise is a 1986 movie about a con man, a nurse, and a coveted supply of opium. Markets got a Shanghai Surprise of their own in the third quarter, as China’s “common prosperity” movement led to crackdowns on myriad industries.

Gold’s average daily trading volume for the one-year period was $183 billion, compared to the S&P 500 with nearly $235 billion. That dollar amount is enough to beat currency swaps as well as all government and corporate debt.

A few months ago in Xi’s Big Mistake, I said Beijing risked killing the entrepreneurial activity that had spurred the country’s rapid growth. As we learn more, this is looking less like a mistake and more like a mistakenly-conceived plan.

We’re upgrading the Staples sector, but only incrementally. Here’s why.

The country’s leadership has designed a new development model, based on a ‘common prosperity’ philosophy, aimed at modernising the economy by improving the country’s future demographic profile via lowering inequality and promoting sustainable, even if slower, GDP growth which is both less dependent on financial leverage and in harmony with nature.

The Berlin Wall came down 32 years ago this November, ushering in a new era of freedom and opportunity. But judging from the results of a recent local election, it looks as if socialism is trying to stage something of a comeback in Germany’s capital city.

The Chinese government may yet succeed in insulating the broader market from the financial crisis at real estate giant Evergrande. But the larger challenge is to rebalance an economy that has depended for far too long on the bloated housing market for jobs and growth.

Evergrande Group, the “too big to fail” Chinese property developer, rattled markets last Monday when it missed interest payments to at least two of its lenders. This gave more than a few investors flashbacks to Lehman Brothers’ demise in 2008, which helped trigger the global financial crisis.

The talk of inflation today looks much like housing did in 2007. Evidence is mounting everywhere that this is a real long-term problem that is only getting worse. You can read this in the media, but yet security prices don’t reflect how damaging this may be.

Against the backdrop of a potential Evergrande failure, gold and Bitcoin look very attractive as stores of value, and both happen to be on sale right now.

Today, I want to show you how richly valued the market is and then review some of the top risks that could force it downward. Like those sandpiles I talk about, we don’t know exactly what will trigger a collapse. We know something will do it. Sandpiles don’t grow to infinity.

The recent issues with China Evergrande Group have raised concerns over the broader health of China’s real estate market, the potential risk to its financial system and, more broadly, whether this could trigger a global financial problem. In our latest Q&A, Portfolio Manager Teresa Kong, CFA and Investment Strategist Andy Rothman provide their views and insights.

Senior Sovereign Analyst Bo Zhuang shares his perspective on China's Evergrande situation and how the government may respond.

The Delta variant and supply constraints are the biggest worries for the global outlook.

Prior to today, the S&P 500 index was down four days in a row, and many market observers are blaming China, specifically the recent news about Evergrande, a major Chinese real estate company that looks to be heading to default on its loans.

Senior Sovereign Analyst Bo Zhuang clears up some key questions about China's regulatory crackdown.

For those who haven’t heard, global markets slumped yesterday as a Chinese real estate developer, Evergrande, was reported to be approaching bankruptcy. For many, this news brings to mind the great financial crisis of 2008.

It’s becoming more and more difficult to be in the fossil fuel business. On both sides of the Atlantic, lawmakers and unelected bureaucrats are turning up the heat, so to speak, on companies over the issue of climate change.

Today we’ll take another walk through the inflation debate. Is it still transitory or should we expect a light-1970s inflation going forward? The answer is critically important.

Evergrande is an example of the risk of debt defaults to China's financial stability.

Markets now know that the taper can be divorced from interest rate hikes. But for how long? What are your expectations on the timing of tapering?

Uncertainty always exists in financial markets.

In this edition, Chris Brightman, chief executive officer and chief investment officer of Research Affiliates, explains their outlook on long-term inflation and discusses how investors can prepare for this risk.

The stock market could use some mouthwash.

The business development companies (BDCs) sector could follow a growth path similar to REITs.

In the summer of 2020, we didn’t know quite a few things about how Americans would react when they got their social and entertainment choices back.

Just over a year ago, the biggest prevailing worry in the Canadian financial system was the risk of house prices falling in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.

You’ve probably heard of Ron Baron, founder of Baron Funds which has grown to a stable of not just mutual funds but a variety of private investments and Ron’s own capital—something like $50 billion in total. We were thrilled to have him on the SIC virtual stage, where my good friend David Bahnsen ably interviewed him. I’ll give you some extensive quotes from that session’s transcript, interspersed with comments from me.

“Past Performance Is no guarantee of future of results.” Such is the disclaimer below every performance chart produce by the financial marketplace.

Optimism around GDP growth, employment and earnings has, for now, outweighed worries related to COVID-19 variants.

In this past weekend’s newsletter, I discussed the issue of the markets next “Minsky Moment.”

Inflation has been on the rise recently, raising concerns about long-run inflation and its impact on the spending power of those who can least afford it—investors approaching or already in retirement.

I am worried the Fed will either let inflation become psychologically entrenched, or wait too long to stop it and spark crisis with a too-hasty response, but there are other possibilities. None are especially good.

Howard Marks doesn’t make bets on economic predictions. That’s especially true now when the biggest wildcard is inflation – a phenomenon no one fully understands. But just because something is unknowable doesn’t mean it’s unimportant. That’s why Howard has devoted his latest memo to a topic he largely disavows: macro forecasting.

What is the degree of Emerging Markets (EM) stocks’ undervaluation relative to United States (US) equities?

Despite a strengthening economy in the second quarter, investors were highly focused on the Federal Reserve’s response to the recent spike in inflation data.

Only 10 of 30 stocks are attractively valued blue-chip stocks making up the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) today.

The great philosopher, John Locke, brilliantly captured the way the world works.