The Pause That Refreshes By Tom Richmond, Co-Head of Taxable SMA Strategies, Senior Portfolio Manager The first quarter of 2024 was relatively quiet and relatively good from a domestic, macroeconomic standpoint. Economic activity as measured by real GDP growth was estimated to be a shade over +2%; while not as strong as the pace seen […]
Thank you, Santa! By: Tom Richmond, Co-Head of Taxable SMA Strategies, Senior Portfolio Manager In honor of the recently completed holiday season, I hope you can indulge me for a moment for a story of good tidings, seasonal cheer, and apparently, redemption. Picture if you can a white-bearded, red-suited, jovial Chairman of the Federal Open […]
View the Full PDF Here How soft is your landing? By: Thomas Richmond, Co-Head of Taxable SMA Strategies, Senior Portfolio Manager If you ask a stranger how the U.S. economy is doing, you will undoubtedly get responses that fun the gamut from “great” to “lousy”, depending on the circumstances of the individual. We can, however, […]
View the Full PDF Here For the Fed and the Economy, So Far, So Good By: Thomas Richmond, Co-Head of Taxable SMA Strategies, Senior Portfolio Manager In the quarter just ended, with few market-moving headlines or geopolitical dustups to muddy the market waters, bond investors were left to contemplate macroeconomic data and central bank monetary […]
View the Full PDF Here Never a Dull Moment By: Thomas N. Richmond Jr., Co-Head of Taxable SMA Strategies, Senior Portfolio Manager The first quarter of 2023 was certainly an interesting and action-packed time in the bond markets. With COVID more or less relegated to the back pages and no new, attention-grabbing political or geopolitical […]
… and Make Sure Your Seat Belt is Securely Fastened By: Thomas N. Richmond Jr., Co-Head of Taxable SMA Strategies, Senior Portfolio Manager In a word, investing in 2022 was bleak. The bond market was not spared in the carnage, as a toxic mixture of generationally high inflation and monetary policy tightening in response caused […]
It Ain’t Easy Being Jay Powell By: Thomas N. Richmond Jr., Co-Head of Wasmer Shroeder Taxable Bond Strategies If professional athletes carry the weight of the fans and cities on their shoulders while playing their chosen sports, earning both high praise and abject derision based on their actions on the court or the field, imagine […]
We Wish We Had Better News By: Thomas N. Richmond Jr., Co-Head of Wasmer Shroeder Taxable Bond Strategies When the best thing to be said about the second quarter of this year is that it wasn’t as bad as the same period in 2020, when lockdowns due to COVID-19 were in full effect and the […]
Fortunately, We’ve Still Got Seven and a Half More Years… By: Thomas N. Richmond Jr., Co-Head of Wasmer Shroeder Taxable Bond Strategies As human beings we like to categorize things neatly, and we certainly like to sum up specific periods of time, like decades, in a word or two for ease of memory and historical […]
Step Away from the Punch Bowl By: Thomas N. Richmond Jr., Co-Head of Wasmer Shroeder Taxable Bond Strategies The economic backdrop in the fourth quarter of 2021 was somewhat uneven. Domestic GDP growth reaccelerated in October and November (it had dropped to 2.3% in Q3 but is estimated to have grown close to 7% in […]
