Are Disasters Really Natural? Insights from a Disasterologist March 15, 2021
Many questions are still unanswered following Winter Storm Uri, which left millions of Texans without power and water for days. Could this disaster have been prevented? Who is responsible? How will we prepare for the next climate-related event? In this episode, Sage interviews Dr. Samantha Montano, an expert in emergency management and author of the forthcoming book
Disasterology: Dispatches From the Front Lines of the Climate Crisis. Dr. Montano sheds light on the lessons learned from previous disasters, how such events can be escalated by changing climate risks, and how they can be mitigated through progressive planning.
Up 10% for the seven-day period ending late Monday, Bitcoin is again on a torrid pace though it's backing off from highs around $61,000 set last weekend.
“Scary” Stocks Go Up Most of The Time
Even a quick perusal of a few investing references or media articles will leave you with the clear impression that stocks are “scary” and bonds are “safe”. That seems to be the conventional wisdom.
But the conventional wisdom is predicated on the misleading idea that routine volatility equals risk. And because stocks have higher routine volatility than bonds, stocks must be scary. However, it turns out that routine volatility tells us remarkably little about our likely long-term outcomes when investing in these two assets.
For example, in my early February post, I wrote about the chances of losing inflation-adjusted money over various time periods, when invested in stocks (as represented by the S&P 500) versus bonds (as represented by the U.S. 10-Year Treasury Bond). These two graphs tell the tale using Aswath Damodaran data going back to 1928.
March 16, 2021
Confluence Investment Management offers various asset allocation products which are managed using “top down,” or macro, analysis. We publish asset allocation thoughts on a weekly basis in this report, updating the report every Friday, along with an accompanying podcast and chart book.
March 12, 2021
With the U.S. dollar apparently poised for what could be a long phase of depreciation, investors are naturally looking more closely at foreign stocks for future growth. Japan has been a prime focus, not only because it sports the world’s third-largest economy and the third-largest equity market, but also because Japanese stocks have recently performed well. Over the last six months, for example, the MSCI Japan Index provided a total return of 17.3% (in dollar terms), almost double the return on the U.S. index. But are Japanese stocks set for further gains over the ong term? Have Japanese stocks really overcome their long period of underperformance since the count