After listening to the array of speakers, many of great notoriety, at the Mauldin/Altegris Strategic Investment Conference (SIC) held in San Diego last week, the Evergreen Exchange team elected to select one speaker—and his/her main theme—to highlight for our respective section of this month’s edition. Our selections were driven by what we felt was the most urgent topic based on the current state of the financial markets.

Not-so-safe assumptions. One of those simple but clever old sayings goes, “You know what happens when you assume: You make an ass out of you and me.” Despite that admonition, we all continually make assumptions every day. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in the oft-intersecting worlds of investments and economics.

For example,

Not-so-safe assumptions. One of those simple but clever old sayings goes, “You know what happens when you assume: You make an ass out of you and me.” Despite that admonition, we all continually make assumptions every day. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in the oft-intersecting worlds of investments and economics.

For example,

We can’t help it. Charles Gave inspires us so routinely that his musings are, once again, the highlight of this month’s Guest EVA. I had an immediate and visceral reaction to his April 10th published essay How Indexation Killed Growth. As you’ll see, he calls index investing stupid and compares it to Socialism—and that’s just the first paragraph!

Two nays and a yea. There’s little doubt that the two most important developments in the financial markets over the last six months have been the stunning rise in the US dollar and the equally shocking collapse by oil prices. In this month’s edition of the Evergreen Exchange, we are taking a closer look at the former and debating whether the buck’s bolt might be coming to an end.