News & Insights

Picture a factory that sucks carbon dioxide out of the air to reduce global warming, then turns it into stone. Well, it’s real, and it’s been operating outside of Reykjavik, Iceland since last September. It’s also been identified as one of the 10 breakthrough technologies of 2022 by the MIT Technology Review, which has been […]

It’s our 36th year of tracking the Hanson Index, our yearly lighthearted look at local prices for Vermont essentials like a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream cone or a Burlington beach permit. As you’d expect, prices are mostly up, but luckily, our Hanson Index doesn’t include the worst of the past year’s price hikes like […]

Barton Biggs was one of the absolute best stock market commentators in the 1980s and 90s. He was a partner at Morgan Stanley for over 30 years and the firm’s first Global Strategist. I saved one of his commentaries from 1982, which talks about the need for different strategies in different times. “Winston Churchill in […]

You have saved diligently for 20, 30, even 40 years. Now comes the big question: How much can you comfortably withdraw from your nest egg and not run out of funds by the time you die? This is not an inconsequential question since life expectancy is up significantly the past 50 years. The average 65-year-old […]

As professional investors, we spend a lot of time thinking about how to best construct portfolios for our clients. These efforts focus on identifying the combination of assets (stocks, bonds, cash etc.) that will produce the maximum return for a desired level of risk. A whole body of research, based on vast quantities of historic […]

This is one of those times. The invasion of Ukraine has produced horrors on the ground, a refugee crisis of one to two million Ukrainians fleeing to neighboring countries (and counting), and a response by the West that has been both strong and unified. Not only have Western Europe and the U.S. put lockdown restrictions […]

Now that we are getting back to some semblance of normal, we have all sorts of questions. Should we still wear masks even where it is no longer officially required? And what about restaurants? Some of us have not been inside one for months if not years. Everything still the same there? And what about […]

Companies are struggling to cope with rising wage costs. As reported in recent earnings calls, this fact seems to be true regardless of whether you are a firm trying to attract and retain hourly workers or highly paid software engineers. In some cases, the labor shortage is having an immediate impact; restaurants like Starbucks have […]

Finding proper care as we age is an important financial and emotional decision. I had the opportunity to talk with Martha Maksym, the CEO of Wake Robin. Located in Shelburne, Wake Robin is Vermont’s only Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC). Tell me about your personal experience and how you became the CEO of Wake Robin. […]

Over the year ending last July, the U.S. population grew by the smallest amount (+0.12%) since records began. Births exceeded deaths by 148,000, and net immigration (foreigners coming vs. going) added 245,000. Deaths increased as COVID became the third biggest killer in the country, and many births were probably delayed due to the pandemic. The […]

I am talking about the value of making market predictions. The yield curve (see chart) is rising now, meaning short-term rates are moving higher and long-term rates also. Starting from the bottom, the lines represent the yield curve at the beginning of 2021, a month ago, a week ago, and today. The point is rates […]

Two stock market truisms come to mind when I think about last year. The first is that “Markets climb a wall of worry.” The continued spread of COVID, rising inflation, and the threat of higher rates all weighed on investors’ minds in 2021. The second truism, “Don’t fight the Fed,” served as a kind of […]