When John Mousseau, Patty Healy, and I discussed ESG factors at the Rowan University-GIC conference, we and others tried to explain the multifactor analysis used in applying the tools of ESG. We will be offering videos of the conference in a future part of the ESG series. John…

The trends that we experienced in the second quarter — rising inflation, increasing geopolitical risks, declines in both stock and bond markets, and the risk of recession posed by Fed actions to fight inflation — continued into the third quarter.

The classic formula is simple. Take the population growth rate and add to it the change in the productivity of the working portion of the population and you get the growth rate of the economy in real terms. Inflation changes the nominal pricing of the elements.

There are many positive analyses demonstrating the importance of ESG.

Fred Feldkamp gave us permission to share this exceptional history lesson, which includes work on credit spreads, markets, war, and the defining characteristics of our country’s national durability. Fred is a retired lawyer with skills in the securities and financial services business and a…

A number of readers responded thoughtfully to the second installment in our series on ESG, which was focused on water system woes in Jackson, Mississippi: “ESG Part 2: Jackson, Mississippi.” ESG Part 1 introduced the series and the upcoming ESG conference at Rowan University on October 14.…

On Tuesday, the Labor Department released its Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) data for the month of August. Given that we are already a week into October, that reading on the labor market is really for the second month of the third quarter is a bit old.

Global equity markets outside of the United States have completed a third negative quarter, with the MSCI ACWI ex US IMI Index down 11.26% in the three months through October 30. For the year to date, this index is down 27.19%, which clearly indicates a “bear market.” By historical standards,…

Treasury yields continued to rise during the third quarter of 2022. The largest movement was seen in T-bills as the Fed raised the fed funds rate by 150 bps during the quarter. This trend has resulted in much of the yield curve being inverted. The largest movement was in the 3-month bill that…

The third quarter was marked by a rise in interest rates across the entire yield curve, particularly on the short end as the Federal Reserve continued to raise short-term rates in their battle to slow inflation.