The Evergreen Virtual Advisor is nearly 10,000 subscribers strong, up from just 500 readers, 7 years ago. Roughly 10% of subscribers are clients, leaving us with the sometimes-difficult task of writing to two distinct audiences. Clients are keenly interested in Evergreen-specific happenings, whereas outside readers are more interested in our macro market outlook. This week’s newsletter attempts to carefully thread the needle between both interests.

On December 14th, 2017 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruled in favor of overturning Obama-era net neutrality regulations by a vote of 3-2. While not necessarily underreported, the ruling was, in many ways, overshadowed in the financial media by two parallel events: tax reform and the Bitcoin bubble. Case in point, we have used these pages to share our view on both of these topics over the past several weeks, while completely ignoring the FCC’s landmark decision.

Well, they did it. The gang that couldn’t shoot legislate straight managed to get their tax bill passed before year-end. Despite the GOP controlling all three elected arms of government, it wasn’t pretty to watch. In fact, by comparison, sausage-making looks like a pristine process.

With the Holiday Season upon us, this might seem like an odd time to launch this new version of our Evergreen Virtual Adviser (EVA) considering the subject matter. However, no one ever accused me of being normal! Yet, to show that I’m not a distant descendant of Ebenezer Scrooge (at least that I know of), I do want to point out right up front that there are attractive places to invest money these days despite the reality—to be outlined below—that Bubble-mania is fast approaching a fever pitch.

One of the many oddities of our current American culture is its fascination with zombies. The number of TV shows, movies and computer games devoted to these mythical creatures is nearly endless.