Investment Strategy Insights

There have been extensive debates about corporate stock buyback programs. Some critics argue that companies create inequity and do not focus on improving employee benefits, business strategies, and R&D programs. On the other hand, proponents argue that allocating capital to shareholders allows the capital to be reinvested in productive facets. Therefore, advocates believe that buybacks have, in some regards, taken the place of ordinary dividends to return cash to shareholders.

America is over-retailed with well over 1,100 malls across the country and thousands more strip-shopping centers. Many of these malls and centers are in physical decline and are filled with irrelevant brands that sell products and services that are no longer important. The retail cleansing had already begun before the Covid-19 pandemic, but the process has been accelerated dramatically.

It is, without a doubt, the most logical starting point for any portfolio that seeks both global diversity and risk balance. Preparation before prediction. First, do no harm. Yet there is a wide range of ways to structure and deploy Risk Parity – as always, the devil is in the details (for a deeper dive check out our recent whitepaper). We had the pleasure of speaking with Alex Shahidi and Damien Bisserier (co-founders of Evoke Wealth and ARIS Consulting), creators of the popular RPAR ETF.

Every time equity markets experience a major selloff, investors’ attentions are drawn to the handful of strategies that actually benefitted from the event. So-called crisis alpha comes in many flavors and iterations, which further complicates the allocation decision.

Equity and credit analysis rely on accounting principles and future financial performance. Analysts regularly determine a company’s fiscal strength by comparing financial ratios and accounting statements (income statements, balance sheets, cash flow statements, etc.) to their peers.

Since President Roosevelt’s victory in 1944, there have only been two losses during presidential election years: 2000 and 2008. Those two years corresponded with the “Dot.com Crash” and the “Financial Crisis.” On average, stocks produced their second-best performance in Presidential election years.

Investors have a content problem. The constant barrage of information – mostly useless noise – can be overwhelming. At MAP, we spend much of our time reading. We want to point you to our favorite articles. Here is our weekly curation of our favorite reads.

The big question for investors in today’s low interest rate environment is what they should do with their “safe assets” and whether they should invest in bonds. This reminds of the fact that I occasionally I like to end the day with a drink and my preferred fruit juice is the ruby red grapefruit. What kind of drink would it be if I used a grapefruit that had no juice left in it? A bad one is the correct answer.