Chris Kamykowski, CFA, CFP® – Head of Investment Strategy and ResearchTim Side, CFA – Investment Strategist Monthly Observations Dispersion of Returns Highlights First Month of Summer The haves and have-nots were obvious in June as…
Aoifinn Devitt – Chief Global Market Strategist Illinois is currently in the middle of a 17-year cicada brood which is overlapping with the normal emergence of a regular brood. The last time this brood emerged…
Chris Kamykowski, CFA, CFP® – Head of Investment Strategy and ResearchTim Side, CFA – Investment Strategist Monthly Observations Markets Rebound Sharply Heading into Summer Markets rebuffed the adage of “sell in May and go away”,…
Mark Webster, CFA – Senior Investment Research Analyst Artificial Intelligence (AI) is thriving these days to speed up analysis, sift through noisy information, create procedural efficiencies, and enable human workers to improve their productivity. Within…
Aoifinn Devitt – Chief Global Market Strategist Have we now entered the antifragile era for markets? This concept, made popular by Nassim Taleb, loosely means something that benefits from chaos and volatility and is made…
Monthly Observations Sharp Downdraft Upends Markets Markets were doused with a bit of seasonal April showers as an uptick in geopolitical drama, surprise to inflation trends, and a sharp change in interest rate expectations weighed…
Tim Side, CFA – Investment StrategistChris Kamykowski, CFA, CFP® – Head of Investment Strategy and Research Early this year, January 11th to be exact, we received an email from our Fixed Income team following the…
By Anna McDonald, Director of Family Learning When your child walks across the high school graduation stage, it’s a significant moment in a child’s life, your life as a parent, and the lives of those…
Markets continue to be noisy this week – as they digest market jitters at the end of last week (when the SPX fell by the most in one week – 1.6%, since October, and lost…
Following 2023’s sweeping comeback performance, 2024 wanted a piece of the action. It was a quarter of warm springs and chill winds from the Middle East and Russia/Ukraine. Japan continued to rise, while China continued…
Aoifinn Devitt – Chief Global Market Strategist It feels like the end of an era – in many ways. Firstly, we may have seen the end of global central bank convergence. Just as the Bank…
Aoifinn Devitt, Chief Global Market Strategist Coming off of the usual post-Oscars drama, the real original screenplays kicked off mid-week with inflation numbers and a concern that 2024 is already getting too hot to handle.…
Monthly Observations Records Broken in February Strong economic data and earnings reports were supportive of a risk-on month with the S&P 500 breaking the 5000 level for the first time, surging over 5%. Even non-US…
Aoifinn Devitt, Chief Global Market Strategist Maybe it is because it is an election year, but we still have China on our minds. Despite the fact that China continues its decline on the global market…
By Aoifinn Devitt, CFP® – Chief Investment Officer After a bruising 2022, 2023 was the “comeback kid” of a year. But in the fourth quarter, it seemed to defy gravity itself. All year, the rumblings of a…
Tim Side, CFA® – Investment Strategist “From thirty years as a practicing historian, I have come to the conclusion that there is but one, singular, lesson of history. It is this — there are no permanent winners…
Last month, the Sward Team celebrated our ten year anniversary. It’s a big milestone, and one that requires gratitude, as well as a sigh of relief. We have certainly had our ups and downs over…
Aoifinn Devitt – Chief Investment Officer Markets have digested a volley of information in the past week. This ranged from a surprising – and still not fully resolved – Mid-term Election result, to better-than-expected inflation data,…
Aoifinn Devitt – Chief Investment Officer As the mid-term elections approached the usual partisan chatter focused on issues surrounding the economy – namely inflation, government spending, interest rates, and house prices, and there was not…
The third quarter was dominated by continued market volatility as the Fed maintained a tough and determined stance regarding inflation.
Aoifinn Devitt – Chief Investment Officer As we write today, more earnings numbers are rolling in and, as so often this year, the word on the street from “Main Street” is somewhat incoherent. While some consumer…
Aoifinn Devitt – Chief Investment Officer As Mid-term election debates are dissected and chatter intensifies, now at T- 21 to Election Day as we go to print, the results still evince some uncertainty. This, together with…
Our team marked a significant milestone in March. It has now been a year that we have been working from home. We want to recognize this anniversary by thanking each of you for your patience…