News & Insights

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that two Chinese semiconductor foundries just went under and now are among the nation’s six failed chip making projects the last three years. China has thrown billions into building an independent semiconductor industry, but it hasn’t been easy. Throwing money at the problem hasn’t been enough. Everyone knows China […]

It’s been one year since Hanson + Doremus moved to leadership under Sven Eklof, Art Wright, and Julie Won, and we’re pleased to say it’s been a successful one. Though Eric Hanson & Anne Doremus (the H and the D in our logo) stepped down from management at the end of 2020, much about the […]

Not sure exactly who said this, but they were talking about making predictions. It’s just a fool’s errand to try to look too precisely into the future. Unfortunately, this is what we all must do when dealing with our investments. COVID has been a real disruptor to everyone’s daily lives but surprisingly not a big […]

This line is from a New Yorker cartoon dating back decades. We all want to know what is going to happen in the future but it’s a slippery slope. The temptation is there to forecast but the results are often random at best. As Wilmot Kidd, a very successful long-term portfolio manager, recently said in […]

Medical science has made tremendous strides over the past 100 years. New vaccines and antibiotics together with our understanding of the need for clean water and better food have helped global life expectancy levels more than double. And as Eric points out on page 2, the outlook for further progress is bright. But from an […]

We are talking about saving for retirement. Back in the days of Defined Benefit Plans if you worked for a company for 25 or 30 years you were guaranteed a retirement payment of as much as half your ending salary, for life. When you combined this with Social Security, you were all set. Sadly, those […]

Is the delight of a chocolate recipe extraordinaire. Each year since 1998, we have scoured the very ends of the earth for the right chocolate recipe for our December issue. This year’s comes from Art Wright, and it’s a winner. Don’t forget the whipped cream and enjoy. Happy holidays from all of us. Ultimate Bread […]

Wall Street has a long history of coming up with “innovations.” Some new products such as Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) have truly benefitted investors. But for every one of these good ideas there have been many more that did investors harm; the collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) that played such a central role in the 2008-2009 […]

From August through October my wife Yang Xin was in China helping to care for her father. Xin lives in Zhoushan, a series of islands off the coast of Zhejiang Province, once remote but now connected by high-speed expressways. Shenjiamen, the principal town of Zhoushan is a prosperous fishing port, a major oil terminal for […]

Health care is an enormous issue. For the elderly (over 65) it is not just about cost but also availability and choosing the right plan. Medicare, the government program covering hospitalization and outpatient physician costs for the elderly, was enacted under Lyndon Johnson in 1965. Before that you had to be lucky enough to have […]

According to Google’s Community Mobility data, we are visiting supermarkets and drugstores at the same level we did before the pandemic, and we are almost back to pre-pandemic levels when it comes to visiting restaurants, shopping centers, and recreational spots like theme parks, movie theaters, and museums. But the one place we still are not […]

Team Hanson+Doremus had a great time running in the 2021 Vermont City Marathon Relay! The event looked a little different this year, with everyone running the same 5-mile course at the same time (instead of handing off to each other across the regular marathon route). This was great for us because we could all keep […]