Independent market analysis
Long-form research on portfolio construction, risk, macro and the tools that actually move returns. No hype, no tips, no paywall.
The S&P 500 has had eleven bear markets since 1950. The median one took 24.5 months to regain its previous peak in price terms — but price ignores dividends and inflation. Count both, and the 2000 peak was not recovered until May 2013: one drawdown of nearly thirteen years, not two separate crashes.
A hedge is insurance with a running premium, not a strategy. Rolling put protection on the S&P 500 has compounded at 6.64% a year since 1986, while simply holding 65% equities and 35% Treasury bills beat it by 0.6% a year with lower risk. What each instrument actually costs.
Rebalance about once a year, and only past a five-point drift. Rebalancing keeps risk at target; it does not reliably add return. What the research finds, what drift costs in drawdown, and how to do it without realising a gain.
The Federal Reserve is holding at 3.50%-3.75% while the US 10-year Treasury sits near 4.8% and the 30-year is at levels last seen in 2007. The policy rate and the bond market are two different prices set by two different mechanisms, and in 2026 they are moving apart. What duration and the term premium actually mean for a portfolio.
Investing a lump sum immediately beat a three-month phase-in 68% of the time in Vanguard research, costing about $500 of expected return per $100,000 to spread it out. Dollar-cost averaging is not the return-maximising choice; it is insurance against regret, and the premium is small but real.
Position sizing determines whether being wrong is a setback or an ending, and it outranks security selection. Consecutive losses compound faster than intuition suggests: risking too much per trade makes ruin likely even with a genuine edge, because the arithmetic of recovery works against an account that has already shrunk.
The 60/40 portfolio was never a magic ratio — it was a bet that stocks and bonds move in opposite directions. That bet stopped paying in 2022. Here is what actually changed, and the four checks that matter more than the number.
Midterm years have historically brought muted returns before the vote and stronger performance in the twelve months after it, as uncertainty resolves. The president's party usually loses seats, which markets tend to read as gridlock and price benignly. The pattern is real but the sample is small, so it belongs in context rather than in a trading plan.
Japan's Nikkei 225 crossed 62,000 for the first time in May 2026, making it the best-performing major market of the year on four structural drivers rather than one rally. For a foreign investor the yen is the decisive variable: currency moves can erase the entire index gain unless the exposure is hedged.
The May 2026 Beijing summit was the first state visit to China by a sitting US president in nearly nine years, and it touched five issues that move markets: tariffs, technology export controls, agriculture, currency and Taiwan. For most portfolios the right response is position sizing, not repositioning around a single diplomatic event.
