As investment products go, hedge funds have to be considered a big success. Today over 10,000 funds manage an estimated $2.8 trillion in assets, a level that has tripled since 2004 alone. Ironically, this growth has taken place in the face of rather lack-luster performance results. For the sixth consecutive year, hedge funds failed to […]
News & Insights
Hanson & Doremus Relay Team Finishes in Top 30% on May 24, 2015
Runners Michelle Everleth-Trull, Anne Doremus, Eric Lafayette, Jordan Boyle, Sven Eklof The Vermont City Marathon & Relay is a USATF certified course and starts at Battery Park overlooking Lake Champlain and the Adirondack Mountains. The opening miles are run through tree-lined residential streets and Burlington’s pedestrian Marketplace where enthusiastic spectators cheer. On the Northern Connector there […]
Have Goals? Then Keep it Simple
When we resolve to eat healthier, read more, watch less television, or become more productive at work, it’s hard to actually follow through and become that better person we want to be. What’s easy is avoiding the hard projects at work while we check Facebook and email first, or grabbing a quick cookie instead of […]
A Journey on the Old Silk Road
“We travel not for trafficking alone: By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned: For lust of knowing what should not be known We make the Golden Journey to Samarkand.” – James Elroy Flecker The Golden Journey to Samarkand (1913). Central Asia brings to mind many images: vast uncharted deserts, camel caravans […]
The Stock Price Valuation Debate
Fed Chair Janet Yellen’s early May pronouncement that “…equity market valuations at this point are generally quite high” caused quite a stir with investors concerned that another market “correction” was just around the corner. Many who believe that stocks are overvalued today point to recent readings of the Cyclically-Adjusted Price to Earnings (CAPE) ratio. This […]
Investment Success
“Investing is not a game where the guy with the 160 IQ beats the guy with the 130 IQ… what you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble in investing.” Warren Buffett Professional money managers need to become proficient in a wide range of subjects including statistics, accounting […]
The State of your Wallet
Yogi Berra, the New York Yankee catcher/philosopher once said, “A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.” Prices just keep going up, up and up every year. Well there is some good news on this front in this year’s edition of the Hanson Index of Essential Burlington Prices. First, the Consumer Price Index (CPI- all urban […]
It’s More Important Than You Thought
The first Social Security check was mailed in January, 1940 to Ida May Fuller of Ludlow, Vermont. She received a monthly benefit of $22.54. Times have changed and Social Security is now an even bigger part of everyone’s life. It is estimated that a married couple who have earned at or above the payroll tax […]
A Look at the Short and Long Term
In an era of ever improving living standards, it’s hard to believe that growth was non existent for most of human history. But take a look at the very long run – and by that, I mean a few millennia – and that is what you’ll see. The chart below, from a speech by Andrew […]
Where You Stand Depends On Where You Sit…. Literally
This is a bit of a different page for us. The International New York Times (formerly the International Herald Tribune) had two stories, three pages apart on February 20, 2015. They couldn’t deal with more different worlds. The first story is about King Salman, the newly installed king of Saudi Arabia. The ruling families in […]
Measuring the Market
“So how’s the market?” Most likely whoever you ask will tell you how the Dow Jones Industrial Average is doing. The Dow has been around since 1884 when Charles Dow first published a list of stocks in his Customer’s Afternoon Letter. The Index morphed into the Industrial Average in 1896 (see below) and the Dow […]
Thinking… It’s Not as Easy as You Thought
There was a wonderful article in The New Yorker recently (February 2, 2014) titled, “The Pursuit of Beauty.” It is about a Chinese mathematician at the University of New Hampshire who received a MacArthur Award for solving a problem in pure mathematics that has baffled theorists for 150 years. Pure math is done with no […]
