A Tale of Two Halves: If we simply evaluate global market returns last year, one might conclude 2016 was a fairly uneventful. Global stocks and bonds finished up 8%, and 4% respectively, which is generally what you’d expect in a typical year. However, if we dive a bit deeper “uneventful” wouldn’t be an appropriate description.
Read MoreBye-bye buy-backs? First of all, Happy 2017 to all our EVA readers! Hopefully, the coming year will provide an opportunity for those few remaining contrarians out there—amongst a swelling throng of passive investors—to generate respectable profits and nail down some attractive yields. It’s also my hope that what I’m going to convey next won’t severely undercut the happy New Year sentiments I’ve just expressed.
Read MoreLegend has it that Richard Nixon once said: “We’re all Keynesians now.” In reality—and most ironically—those words were actually uttered years earlier by the ultimate anti-Keynesian economist, Milton Friedman. However, former President Nixon did riff off of this when he declared, after removing the US from the gold standard in 1971, “I’m now a Keynesian in economics.” Unsurprisingly, this turned out to be bad news for the American public as Mr. Nixon’s conversion unleashed a decade of stagnation and inflation. As a result, this wrenching experience produced a new term that the disciples of Keynes had previously believed was impossible: stagflation.
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