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Wednesday, October 12th, 2011 | no comments
Find Out What’s Driving Your Investment Performance – Has Fear Replaced Reason?
We are experiencing unprecedented volatility in the financial markets. As you watch your investment performance, your stomach may be queasy from what feels like a never-ending rollercoaster ride! And the volatility continues with no apparent reprieve.
Many seasoned market analysts would say that this cycle of volatility is largely driven by headlines and will most certainly end. These analysts think that fundamentals (reasonable analysis), and presumably more predictable times, will once again prevail over the financial markets. Others disagree and claim the market has shifted from what has historically driven performance to what is being called the “new normal,” a normal that most of us will not necessarily like.
Please join us for a discussion with Starmont’s Harvey Rowen and Steve Cassriel, Vice President at Dodge and Cox Funds, a firm which has been investing on behalf of investors like you for over 80 years. Steve will talk about the role of fundamental investing-why and when he thinks fundamentals will prevail and value based investing will once again drive the markets.
See more details below…
WHEN
Conference Call – through your phone or PC with slides
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
12:30 PM TO 1:30 PM (Pacific)
RSVP
To register and receive webinar call-in instructions email Suzanne Monaco at smonaco@starmont.com
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Tags: asset management, economic outlook, equity allocations, Harvey Rowen, Investments, market performance, Portfolio Managers, Starmont, Stock Market
Monday, October 10th, 2011 | no comments
October 7, 2011
To Our Valued Clients,
The last few years have been very volatile. In reporting to you on where we are today, I thought that it might be helpful to review where we have been over this wild ride, how Starmont has been able to preserve and grow your assets during this time, and what we plan to do going forward.
How We Got To Where We Are
In 2007 Starmont became concerned with the write downs US banks were taking on the mortgage backed bonds they carried on their books. Our concern was that those write downs could lead to failed banks and to a serious disruption in our country’s financial system and markets.
In December 2007 we started to sell down the equity funds held in our Clients’ portfolios. We continued selling through June 2008. We invested the proceeds of the sales primarily in bond funds.
In September 2008 Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, Merrill Lynch sold itself to Bank of America, and the U.S. government “invested” $80 billion in AIG.
The result was a panic in the financial markets, (more…)
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Tags: asset management, economic outlook, equity allocations, financial planning, Harvey Rowen, Investments, market performance, Portfolio Management, Starmont, Stock Market, Wealth Management
Wednesday, September 21st, 2011 | no comments
| September 20, 2011
To Our Valued Clients,
We finished trimming equity allocations last week, as we said we would do in our previous e-mails.
It was a good week for equities, mostly because of positive news out of Europe, but the outlook is still cloudy-at best.
Vivian and I went to a PIMCO conference last week. They are still on the “bumpy road to a new normal” theme, and the new normal is not positive. Their current forecast for the next 3-5 years:
- –One or more members of the European Union will default or restructure their debt, causing dislocations across the financial markets;
- –The United States will deal with its debt problem through a combination of austerity (driven by Congressional Republicans) and inflation (driven by the Fed). Neither is good for the stock and bond markets;
- –The Emerging Countries (led by China, and including India and Brazil), will continue to grow, but at slower rates as they try to contain inflation in their economies.
While PIMCO is not necessarily right, (more…) |
Tags: asset management, economic outlook, equity allocations, Harvey Rowen, Investments, market performance, Portfolio Management, Portfolio Managers, Starmont, Stock Market, Stocks, Vivian Groman, Wealth Management
Monday, September 12th, 2011 | no comments
September 5, 2011
To Our Valued Clients and Friends,
Welcome back.
Labor Day marks the end of the summer season (even though Autumn does not officially begin until September 23rd). Kids go back to school, or off to college. The baseball season enters its final days, and the football season kicks in. Everyone comes back from vacation, and the pace of life picks up. The weather turns cooler (except that I am predicting a very hot Indian summer here in the Bay Area); swim suits get put away and sweaters and jackets begin to appear.
It has been a full summer for the Starmont community. People got married; people got divorced. Babies were born and others were conceived and are cooking for delivery in other seasons. No one in the Starmont community died, but we have had deaths in the past and expect them in the future. People went away—on trips across the United States; to Canada, Mexico, South America, Europe, Asia and the Pacific. People stayed home and had staycations. Body and soul were nourished and made ready for whatever is to come.
During the summer the global economy slowed and the U.S. debt rating was lowered from AAA to AA+ for the first time in history. (more…)
Tags: asset management, Congress, Harvey Rowen, market performance, Portfolio Management, Starmont, Wealth Management
Friday, August 19th, 2011 | no comments
July 27, 2011
To Our Valued Clients,
With a week to go until the United States government runs out of cash, there is still no resolution concerning the debt ceiling.
I said in an earlier communication (all of which you can find on the Starmont website, www.starmont.com) that Congress would resolve this on August 1, which is this coming Monday. I’m sticking to that, notwithstanding the seeming lack of progress to date.
As things go unresolved, however, some Clients are getting anxious and have decided to hedge themselves against the possibility that the debt ceiling will not be raised. For those Clients we are raising some cash by making sales in their IRA accounts (no capital gains taxes) to raise up to $250,000 per IRA account. We are holding the cash at the Charles Schwab Bank, and $250,000 is the FDIC limit for IRA accounts.
The cash can be used in various ways, depending on what happens with the debt ceiling legislation:
(more…)
Tags: Debt Ceiling, economic outlook, Harvey Rowen, market performance, Starmont, Stock Market
Friday, August 19th, 2011 | no comments
August 4, 2011
To Our Valued Clients,
Global equity markets were pretty ugly today. But since you have a diversified portfolio and bonds are holding their own, and since many of you raised cash in advance of the debt ceiling vote, you did not do nearly as badly as the Dow being down 500 points today would lead you to believe.
Indeed, if you have a portfolio that is 20% in domestic stocks, 12.5% in developed international stocks, 12.5% in emerging markets stocks, 45% in bonds and 10% in cash, your portfolio is down around 2.4% for the day. Not a great day, but not down the 5% represented by the Dow decline.
Why the sell off?
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Tags: Debt Ceiling, economic outlook, equity allocations, Harvey Rowen, market performance, Starmont, Stock Market
Friday, August 19th, 2011 | no comments
August 8, 2011
To Our Valued Clients
Another terrible day in the equity markets, with domestic stock market indexes down 5.5%-6.5%, and international stock market indexes down 7.5-8.5%. Bonds are holding their own, and US Treasury bonds actually are going up (even though they have been downgraded).
If you have a portfolio with 50% allocated to stock, your portfolio was down around 3-4% today.
But it really wasn’t the downgrade of the United States debt that was at the root of the decline today. While that action by S&P (the company that graded bonds backed by subprime loans as AA in 2006 and 2007) was the spark, the fire was caused by two factors:
1. The United States economy is weakening and on the verge of another recession; and
2. The United States government is not willing to do anything about it—which Standard & Poor’s commented upon when they issued their downgrade.
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Tags: Debt Ceiling, economic outlook, equity allocations, Harvey Rowen, market performance, Starmont
Thursday, August 4th, 2011 | no comments
Starmont’s Vivian Groman quoted. Read a recent article about how advisors can be mindful of gender differences .
Advisors: Clients’ Gender Clue to Understanding Financial Behavior
Tags: asset management, financial planning, Gender differences, Portfolio Management, Starmont, Stock Market, Vivian Groman, Wealth Management, Women Clients
Thursday, August 4th, 2011 | no comments
Here is Starmont’s Vivian Groman’s latest blog on the Women Advisor Forum website.
Turning the Behavioral Finance Lens Inward
Behavioral Finance was originally developed as a set of psychology-based theories to explain stock market anomalies—anomalies caused by human emotions, beliefs or intuition versus “logical” reasoning. Now it’s being discussed as a tool to help advisors improve their relationships with Clients.
Indeed, Behavioral Finance may help a financial advisor understand Clients better by shedding some light on their point-of-view and motivations. But I propose that financial advisors—one of most Clients’ chief professional resources—might want to look at themselves through a Behavioral Finance lens.
By this, advisors can cultivate a greater understanding of our own behaviors or tendencies. Knowing our tendencies and when they are useful and, more importantly, not useful, helps us identify what we need to develop to be better advisors.
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Tags: financial Advisors, financial planning, Portfolio Management, Portfolio Managers, Vivian Groman, Wealth Management
Tuesday, July 19th, 2011 | no comments
To Our Valued Clients,
We sent to you a week ago an e-mail that included a discussion of what is going on with the debt ceiling legislation under a heading that read, “July Could Be A Volatile Month-Buckle Up.” If you didn’t have a chance to read it, here is a link: http://www.starmont.com/2011/07/market-and-debt-ceiling-update/
Where Are We Now?
The date at which the United States Treasury runs out of cash and could start defaulting on the payment of principal and interest on Treasury bills, notes and bonds is only 15 days away.
No resolution is in sight from the White House and Congress, although there are numerous plans being floated in Washington.
Stock and bond markets have been rather blasé about this until today, when the Dow closed down around 100 points. As the drop dead date of August 2nd gets closer with no resolution, we expect increased volatility in the markets.
Ask just about anyone in the investments business why there has been little interest in this topic and they will say, “It’s all a bunch of political posturing, and by August 2nd they will have raised the debt ceiling.”
Maybe. But maybe not.
And the consequences of Maybe Not could be severe.
We are only speculating, since the United States has never defaulted on its debt in its over 200 year history as a country. But here is what could happen:
(more…)
Tags: asset management, Bonds, Congress, Debt Ceiling, economic outlook, Harvey Rowen, Investments, market performance, Portfolio Management, Starmont, Wealth Management
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