News & Insights

With the recent conclusion of March Madness and its associated bracket pools, many Americans will not place another sports bet until the Super Bowl next year. However, since the 2018 Supreme Court decision, legalized sports betting has expanded to 38 states (and D.C.), including Vermont, this year. This tremendous geographic expansion has made it easier […]

In 600 words I am not going to try sum up Generation Z, those born between 1997 and 2012, who are now aged 12 to 27. But I will lay out a big concern about them and also a big reason to be heartened. First the concern. Gen Z is the first generation to grow […]

Welcome to the 38th year of the Hanson Index, our annual snapshot of prices in the local Vermont economy. From an espresso at Leunig’s to a trip on the new Amtrak route from Burlington to New York City, our index provides a non-scientific yet insightful view of inflation trends. Inflation rates in the United States […]

With the freshly minted 2024 edition of the Hanson Index (see page 2), inflation is on our minds. Surging used car prices got a lot of attention during the pandemic. While prices at the dealership have moderated, the all-in cost of car ownership has crept steadily higher (chart on right). As it turns out, each […]

In the early pages of her most recent book, Beaverland, Leila Philip writes “The conversion of natural resources into power has always been the propelling force of empires.” Knowing a little about early American history, I assumed the book’s narrative would largely be an examination of the fur trade as a key driver to our […]

Morningstar.com recently published an article, “12 Lessons the Market Taught Investors in 2023,” that explores some of the big picture teachings from an interesting year. Here are a couple themes we want to highlight. The first is that it’s really hard to predict what is going to happen and how those events will impact financial […]

The 401(k) has become a retirement savings institution—over half of civilian workers have one. But the government might not want to keep paying for the advantaged tax treatment it currently allows. For some quick context, 401(k)s are a “defined contribution” plan, where the employee contributes x% of salary in the current year and the employer […]

This is how The Economist put it in a recent article. Apple will most likely have a long and bright future, but most of its products will be more fleeting. They will come and go. Remember the Apple II computer and the original Mac? They are in the dustbin of history now or selling on […]

Social Security’s fragile state is hardly news. Its Trustees’ most recent annual report issued back in March 2023 showed that the Social Security Trust fund (technically the OASI fund which backs retirement but not disability benefits) will run out of money by 2033. While this is certainly not good news, it is important to point […]

This is how Seth Klarman, the well-known Boston investor, describes value investing. Benjamin Graham pioneered value investing with the publication of Security Analysis in 1934. His style emphasizes rigorous fundamental analysis of a company to determine its real value independent of its stock market price, waiting for an entry level that ensures a margin of […]

Over the past decade, a diversified portfolio of U.S. stocks has returned about twice as much as an equivalent portfolio of international stocks. That’s an exceptionally long period of exceptional U.S. outperformance — an absolute trouncing. But like many others, we wonder how much longer this can go on. There are legitimate reasons for the […]

At a time when U.S. pessimism is running high, Joseph Nye provides a good reminder: America still has plenty going for it. In a recent article for Project Syndicate (“American Greatness and Decline”), the Harvard professor and foreign policy expert pushes back against the perception that America’s greatest days are behind it. While it may […]