When labor and management, from both the private and public sectors, meet to discuss contract terms, it’s just about them. The empty chair, symbolically, is where the customer/tax payer should be sitting, as that’s who is paying the bills.  Historically, labor and management have eventually come to terms, and, after all the wrangling is done, … Continued

Week of October 7, 2024 We are less than a month out from the US Presidential election on November 5th. Investors continue to parse through potential impacts of election outcomes as detailed policy proposals by each party become more clear. China’s broad policy reform aimed at stimulating economic conditions led to the Shanghai Composite Index … Continued

Wikipedia defines corporate responsibility as a term which has come to characterize a family of professional disciplines intended to help a corporation stay competitive by maintaining accountability to its four main stakeholder groups: customers, employees, shareholders, and communities. Others have also addressed this issue.  Samuel Gompers, a key figure in American labor history and the … Continued

Week of September 30, 2024 The local sports news has been overwhelmingly positive about the resurgent Detroit Lions and playoff-bound Detroit Tigers. However, when people think of Detroit, they often associate it with the “auto industry.” Most Sigma clients know that we’ve never purchased auto company shares directly in their portfolios. This is intentional and … Continued

There appears to be an increasing interest in Washington in finding new ways to tax the super wealthy (definitions vary).  Recent proposals seem to include an additional annual tax on large net worths and a tax on unrealized capital gains.  These proposals claim to be modest and directed at a very small percentage of the population. This … Continued

Week of September 23, 2024 Exploding Hezbollah terrorists pagers and walkie-talkie’s could be a “game-changer” in the cauldron that is the Middle East, one of our Signals. Arguably, the intelligence advantage apparently inuring to Israel – and promoting paranoia in Lebanon – might actually result in some type of angry truce. One cannot ignore that … Continued

Week of September 16, 2024 We have changed our Monetary Policy Signal to green.  With inflationary pressures appearing to have abated, the Fed is poised to begin lowering interest rates to aid the US economy.  All other Signals remain unchanged. Bob Bilkie, CFA

As of the second quarter of 2024, aggregate household debt approached $18 trillion, up from approximately $11.5 trillion, 10 years ago, and the Federal deficit topped $35 trillion, an increase of approximately $17 trillion, over the last ten years.  Obviously, the average US household is spending more than it earns and the Federal government is … Continued

Week of September 9, 2024 “Price gouging” is not the same as “price controls.”  If government policy is enacted to investigate price gouging, and gouging was deemed to have occurred, THEN AND ONLY THEN, do price controls become the remedy. Two totally different concepts. But, the devil may be in the details. This policy has … Continued

In market economies, governments try not to intervene and allow market forces to allocate resources.  Prices are supposed to bring supply and demand into equilibrium. In centralized or command economies, the government tries to supplant these decentralized decisions with its own, typically to favor some specific group or agenda. The foregoing represents an attempt to … Continued

Week of September 2, 2024 Beginning with last week’s edition of the Sigma Signals, we made slight changes to improve the clarity of each Signal’s definition and what the color of the Signal represents.  ‘US Treasury Note Yield’ is now ‘US Interest Rates’ to define a wider range of interest rate durations.  Additionally, ’S&P 500 … Continued

When the stock market takes one of its wild rides, there is an immediate torrent of nonsense from all the usual “experts” and everyone else with an agenda or a plan for making money from investor concerns or panic. Investors should understand that markets fluctuate.  That’s normal.  It is not a reason to suddenly abandon … Continued