Perspectives

Looks like this was just primping from the Fed in an election year and now we need to deal with reality. The bond market is always right, and it is indicating that rates are probably not going lower, and inflation is probably not in our rearview mirror. Lower returns in the year ahead seem inevitable, especially given already rich equity valuations and prospects for higher bond yields. Inflation will prove stickier and higher than central banks and markets are forecasting. That implies that cen… View More

Continuing a yearly tradition, Bob Doll, chief investment officer of Crossmark Global Investments, has released his 10 market and economic predictions for 2025. During 2025, the economy will slow, and unemployment will creep up, according to Doll.   These are his other predictions: Inflation remains sticky and fails to reach the Fed's 2% target, causing Fed funds rate to fall less than expected. Treasury 10-year yields trade primarily between 4% and 5% as credit spreads widen. Earnings … View More

The buzz (can we say, vibe?) surrounding the newly established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is undeniable. But the question remains: can DOGE truly deliver on their promise to reduce government spending? Proposing an extensive list of programs to cut is one thing—implementing those cuts is another. This isn’t the first time a president has launched a commission to identify ways to trim government expenses. The best comparison to today’s DOGE is the Grace Commission, formally… View More

Each year we like to post the 10 predictions from our friend Bob Doll. This week, Bob Doll reviews the predictions he made in December 2023 to see how they measured up. He did better than most with his below predictions. We will pass on his 2025 predictions after the first of the year.   Happy Holidays from all of us at Fortem Financial   Summary The U.S. stock market has experienced back-to-back years of 25+% returns. While a handful of stocks account for the majority of returns, most… View More

Until relatively recently, it was a decent bet that the second half of a President’s term would be better for market performance than the first. Generally speaking, Presidents would make the hard decisions when their political capital was at its highest and then it let it rip as they sought reelection. All that seemed to change with the election of President Obama, the introduction of QE, and the budget deficits that accompanied it. Since 2005, the best year for market returns has been the fi… View More

As December gets underway, here’s a quick bullet point update on our “base case.”   The market’s primary trend remains up with 77% of S&P 500 issues above the 200-day moving average and seasonality a strong tailwind through January… …But, leadership is still evolving – Tech’s complete grip on the market has eased considerably since summer and the sector has split (e.g., Software vs. Semis). Cyclicals continue to carry the flag of leadership, particularly Financials and… View More

Although they might register as barely more than a whisper on the decibel meter, requests for our Bull Market Top Checklist have started to trickle in recently as investors start to fear that the market is becoming a bit frothy. With the price of Bitcoin over $98,000 and an artwork that consists of a banana duct-taped to a wall selling for $6.2 million at Sotheby’s two days ago, it is understandable that some market participants are starting to worry about “irrational exuberance.” (Ironica… View More

'Tis The Season   Don’t forget to give to charity As the end of the year and the holiday season approaches, we will all see an uptick in the number of charitable solicitations arriving in our mailboxes and by email. Since some charities sell their contributor lists to other charities, frequent contributors may find themselves besieged by requests from all sorts of charities with which they are not familiar. Watch Out for Charity Scams – You need to be careful, as scammers out there ar… View More

This previous election has drawn historical comparisons to the election victory in 1980. Both elections underscored debates between approaches favoring government expansion and those prioritizing tax reforms and deregulation. Market reactions to both elections were positive, with the S&P 500 showing gains as confidence in the candidates’ policy proposals grew. Following the elections, markets appeared to respond favorably to policies emphasizing tax reductions and regulatory reform, while … View More

Ten-year Treasury yields bottomed at roughly 3.57% about two days before the Fed first cut its Fed Funds rate by 50 basis points on September 18th. The bad news, obviously, is that rates have backed up by 70 basis points since then. The good news is that our work has shown that this rise has been due more to expectations for stronger real growth rather than growing inflationary expectations. Unfortunately, the rate cuts have not yielded any easing in the housing market as had been hoped. Mortga… View More