Back in September, the U.S. Federal Reserve announced that their massive bond-buying program known as Quantitative Easing (QE) would begin to be reversed on October 1st, 2017. Given this momentous occasion (at least for bond nerds like us), we thought it would be useful to summarize, in laymen’s terms, the…
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Author: Charlie Smith
Charlie’s month-end reading list
Here are the latest informative and interesting articles circulating at Fort Pitt: The first article, "2017 deferred interest study: Which retailers use it?" is a WalletHub piece by reporter Alina Comoreanu detailing the lure of deferred interest. As the holiday shopping season approaches, shoppers need to be aware of the specific terms…
Charlie’s month-end reading list
Here are some of the latest topics of interest at Fort Pitt Capital: The first article, "Landlord's view of the brick and mortar meltdown," published on Wolf Street by reporter John McNellis discusses the decline of traditional retail from a landlord’s perspective. McNellis indicates that clicks have not yet completely replaced bricks,…
What can we expect from the markets and the economy?
When President Trump took office, investors expected to see tax cuts, economic deregulation, infrastructure spending and Obamacare repealed. Of these four agenda items, only one (deregulation) gained any traction. Given these political “failures,” one would’ve expected markets to be disappointed, yet the S&P 500 index is up 14 percent for…
Charlie’s month-end reading list
Start the fall season right with the latest from the Fort Pitt reading list: The first piece, "Amazon slashes Whole Foods prices as much as 43 percent, channel checks reveal," is a Zero Hedge article that examines Amazon’s recent acquisition of Whole Foods. Amazon has slashed prices on many Whole Foods items…
Charlie’s month-end reading list
Here are a few items for your “back to school” reading list: The first piece, "Baby boomers who refuse to sell are dominating the housing market," is a Bloomberg article by Prashant Gopal that examines the lack of supply in the U.S. housing market. Real estate website Trulia notes that people 55…
Risky business
We hate to admit it, but academicians have pretty much overrun the money management business since the late 1960s. A key weapon in their conquest of investor thinking is Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT). First conceived by Harry Markowitz in the 1950s, MPT states that portfolios can be optimized for expected…
Charlie’s month-end reading list
Here are a few articles to add to your end-of-summer reading list: In the first piece, "Reasons emerge for worst chain-restaurant slump since 2009," Wolf Street reporter Wolf Richter examines the traffic decline in chain restaurants. While the overall restaurant business is doing OK, national and regional chains seem to be suffering…
Charlie’s month-end reading list
With the Fourth of July around the corner, we found a few “sparklers” for our reading list: The first piece, “Investing costs have never been this cheap,” is a CNBC article by Jeff Cox that examines today’s historically low money management costs. Investors are migrating from actively managed funds to passive accounts…
Charlie’s month-end reading list
Kick off the summer season with another batch of timely articles circulating at Fort Pitt: The first piece, "Napolitano: The GOP didn't touch the core of Obamacare," is a Mises Institute piece by reporter Ryan McMaken that summarizes Judge Napolitano’s impression of the GOP’s repeal of Obamacare. Napolitano believes that…