Rising Interest Rates: The Glass Half Full View

by John DeBiase and Don Gould Following last Friday’s employment report, which indicated increasing upward pressure on wages, anticipation of an initial rate hike from the Federal Reserve grew stronger. The consensus expectation is for an increase in the federal funds...

Timing the Fed’s Rate Hike

by Don Gould and Derek Baldwin, CFA Ahead of the March FOMC meeting, many observers were looking for more guidance on the likely timing of the Fed’s first rate hike. Shortly after the Fed’s March press release, financial headlines focused on removal of the word...

The Latest Washington Crisis

by Don Gould In the latest partisan skirmish among our Washington legislators, we find the US government in partial shutdown. Added to that, the government has reached its legal borrowing limit (the so-called “debt ceiling”), and the Department of the Treasury says it...

Detroit’s Bankruptcy and Municipal Bonds

by Don Gould The City of Detroit, burdened by huge financial obligations it cannot meet, declared bankruptcy yesterday. This was no surprise—the city’s industrial base and population have been shrinking for decades. Still, for investors, it’s a reminder that lending...

The Bernanke Storm

by Don Gould One of the market’s periodic storms washed ashore in earnest last week, with both stocks and bonds tumbling together. Actually, bond prices began their downtrend around May 1, while stocks followed suit about three weeks later. Both stocks and bonds...