The White House has announced a new set of broad tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. The measure is surprising in its scope, its targets and its break from the long-prevailing trends of international trade.

Note: The NYSE has suspended their NYSE Member Firm margin data as of December 2017. We have replaced our Margin Debt data with FINRA data, which includes data for all firms, not just NYSE member firms.

FINRA has released new data for margin debt, now available through January. The latest debt level is up 3.6% month-over-month. The January data gives us an additional sense of recent investor behavior.

Ron and Jeff Muhlenkamp explain that recent tax cuts and deregulation should help keep the economy moving. Asset markets, on the other hand, could be affected by monetary tightening as the Federal Reserve and other central banks reduce or reverse their easy money policies.

We’ve developed a new way to measure a company’s ESG (environmental, social and governance) score. Our research suggests that these material ESG scores can potentially provide more insight than traditional ESG scores.

With market volatility on the rise, consider a broad set of relative value opportunities across global markets.

The US corporate credit cycle is nearing its end, and the cycle in parts of Europe isn’t far behind. This can create treacherous conditions for unprepared investors. The first line of defense, in our view, is knowing what to expect.

We view the events of late January and early February as healthy – the final “death spasm” of market reliance on central bank policy, and a return to more normalized market conditions – volatility returns, earnings and fundamentals matter, and a reminder that stocks can go down sometimes as well as always up.

There are logical explanations for why the size premium may have shrunk. But there also remain simple, intuitive, risk-based explanations for why the premium should persist.

In my view, the idea that higher risk means higher expected return is one of the most dangerous and misunderstood propositions in the financial markets. The reason it’s dangerous is that it ignores the central condition: “provided that one is choosing between portfolios that all maximize expected return per unit of risk.” Presently, the S&P 500 is both a high risk and a low expected return asset.

Key principles in your portfolio construction decisions.

We are amused when commentators cite just one factor for a market movement because there's almost always a confluence of factors influencing the markets at any one time.

This week, the White House signaled its intention to place punitive tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum. Markets and analysts reacted quickly, and negatively.

Stock market volatility appears to be largely a consequence of the economic environment returning to a more “normal” status.

The accompanying chart is a way to visualize real GDP change since 2007. It uses a stacked column chart to segment the four major components of GDP with a dashed line overlay to show the sum of the four, which is real GDP itself. Here is the latest overview from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Commission has released the latest report on Traffic Volume Trends, data through December. "Travel on all roads and streets changed by 0.7% (1.8 billion vehicle miles) for December 2017 as compared with December 2016. Travel for the month is estimated to be 261.8 billion vehicle miles." The 12-month moving average was up 0.06% month-over-month and 1.2% year-over-year. If we factor in population growth, the 12-month MA of the civilian population-adjusted data (age 16-and-over) is unchanged at 0.00% month-over-month and up only 0.7% year-over-year.

Now that we've had a correction, where are we likely headed next? In this letter to clients, Erik Conley looks at the prospects for more new highs and the likelihood of more downside to come.

Blackstone is pleased to offer the following Market Commentary by Byron Wien which shares his thinking on global economic developments, market insights and other factors that may influence investment opportunities and strategies.

President Trump wants to spend $1.5 trillion rebuilding America’s infrastructure – roads, bridges, airports, railroads, ports, water systems and whatnot – over the next decade.

Cracks are starting to appear in five highly leveraged economies: Canada, Australia, Norway, Sweden and New Zealand. For several years following the global financial crisis, these five countries all shared a common theme—a multi-year housing boom, fueled by low interest rates, which resulted in very elevated levels of household debt.

What a great question! I recently reread the above quote from Bob Prechter. It’s an excellent quip and virtually everybody can identify with it. On the surface the question seems laughable; who can’t accept huge gains? But in order to set yourself up for such gains you have to possess the courage to take an oversize position and maybe even leverage it.

Many investors are now willing to sacrifice liquidity in the search for higher yields, more attractive risk-adjusted returns and the flexibility to hedge against downside risk.

February 2018: A case study in VIX exposure

The authors believe that with today’s heightened valuations across global equity markets, and volatility no longer cheap, now is a fitting time for investors to take a careful look at put writing strategies and consider swapping a portion of their traditional equity exposure for index put-writing. The piece concludes with a “Special Topic” dedicated to examining the recent VIX Blowup.

The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will impact advisors and muni bond investors. Here’s what they should expect moving forward in 2018.

In biblical tradition, the four horsemen of the apocalypse are a quartet of immensely powerful entities personifying the four prime concepts – war, famine, pestilence and death – that drive the apocalypse. For today’s investors, the equivalent is historically high equity valuations, historically low bond yields, increasing longevity and, as a result, the increasing need for what can be very expensive long-term care.

On March 9, 2018, the bull market in U.S. stocks will celebrate its ninth anniversary. And, what we find most amazing is how few people truly understand it. To this day, in spite of massive increases in corporate earnings, many still think the market is one big "sugar high" – a bubble built on a sea of Quantitative Easing and government spending.

In a new quarterly letter to GMO's institutional clients, head of asset allocation Ben Inker considers the hypothetical question posed by chief investment strategist Jeremy Grantham in his third-quarter 2017 letter, "What should you do if you are tasked with managing Stalin's pension portfolio?" ("Don't Act Like Stalin! But maybe hire portfolio managers that do?").

I am a traditionalist when it comes to outdoor cooking: wood and charcoal are the only suitable fuels.