When I first got in this business oh so many years ago, my mentor told me that I shouldn’t waste my time worrying about the things everyone else was worrying about. As I’ve related in these missives before, he called those things “well worried”. His point was that once everyone was aware of something it was priced into the market and not worth your time. That has proven to be valuable advice over the years and I think still relevant today. We continue to hear, on an...
Read More »Bi-Weekly Economic Review: Housing Market Accelerates
The economy ended 2017 with current growth just slightly above trend. In general the reports of the last two weeks of the year were pretty good with housing a standout performer going into the new year. We are still trying to get past the impact – positive and negative – from the hurricanes a few months ago though so it is probably prudent to wait for more evidence before making any definitive pronouncements about the...
Read More »The Politics of Balancing Brazil’s Budget
As a country, Brazil has many things going for it: a large economy, a young population, and plentiful natural resources. But if it is to enjoy the economic growth those assets can provide, it needs to make structural reforms that can help close budget deficits, slow the growth in public debt, and remove obstacles to economic growth. Former presidents and central bankers, economists and industrialists, all agreed at the Credit Suisse 2016 Latin America Investment Conference (LAIC) that for...
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