Wednesday Reading List

Treasury Bond Market Faces Policy Tug-of-War by Charles Schwab Asset Management

Yields have come down in the past week, helping bond prices, but the move lower could be capped by our unusually high peacetime deficit spending, election volatility, and inflationary tariffs. Focus on quality and higher duration to combat the reinvestment rate risk that comes with lower short-term yields.


Powell Says Fed Must Try to ‘Stick to Its Knitting’ by Bloomberg

Five key takeaways from Powell’s interview this week include that he plans to stay through his full-term into 2026, he’s more confident that inflation is heading down to 2%, but wouldn’t give guidance on when rate cuts would happen.


AI’s problem: The missing revenues by Axios

Various research reports show that all the money firms spent on AI (including Nvidia chips), and are planning to spend, could be wasted waiting for an AI revolution that could take longer to arrive and be less impactful to revenue than expected.


Follow Harry Dent at Your Own Peril by Think Advisor

Dent predicted an 86% market crash, which might be scary until you realize he’s been predicting the same nonsense for the last 30 years.


A Balanced Portfolio Always Comes with Regrets by A Wealth of Common Sense

We’re hearing this question more often given how well stocks are doing, and that question is why own bonds at all? Stocks have a higher expected return, but come with more short-term risk, and it’s also an unfair time to be making the evaluation since bonds are coming off their worst ever run. Diversification means being upset about something in your portfolio. Right now, it’s bonds. There are plenty of times when it isn’t. You can’t eliminate investment regret, but you can diversify to protect yourself and deal with the consequences.


ICYMI:

In Your Money This Week we’re looking at how the lowest inflation number we’ve seen in three years caused a stock market day we’ve only seen once since 1979, why it means something important for your portfolio, and how and why to invest in private credit.


In Heritage Financial’s Real Deal Economy quarterly video series Michael Waldron, Heritage Financial’s Director of Portfolio Management, digs into the most recent economic news making headlines and breaks down which data points matter for your investments, and which ones are noise that you can largely ignore. In less than ten minutes Michael summarizes the recent data, portfolio allocations, our expectations for equity and bond markets, and how we are strategically positioning portfolios for the future. 

  • The latest on interest rates and inflation
  • Why we are watching the residential mortgage market closely
  • Market expectations when the Fed begins cutting rates
  • Why a diversified fixed income portfolio is imperative, especially now
  • How presidential elections have historically impacted the markets

Book Recommendation

In This Economy?: How Money & Markets Really Work by Kyla Scanlon

For anyone trying to make sense of disorienting headlines, there’s no better interpreter than Kyla Scanlon. Through her trademark blend of witty illustrations, creative analogies, and insights from behavioral economics, literature, and philosophy, Scanlon breaks down everything you need to know about how money and markets really work. This indispensable handbook reveals the hidden forces driving key economic outcomes, the most common myths to steer clear of, and the dusty, outdated assumptions that constrain our political imagination, offering a bold new path to building a prosperous society that works for everyo


Boston Corner

New England has high share of boomers still working

Beacon Hill crunch time: what we’re watching

Things to Do in Boston This Weekend

The Boston Calendar

Things to Do This Week in Boston