Do Municipal Bonds Believe the Tax Reform Hype? The bond market is a highly opinionated market. The yields and total return of bond markets reflect investors' sentiments on not only today's prevailing interest rates, but all income over the lifetime of a given type and maturity of bond. For example, a 10 year Treasury Bond's [...]
Portland Real Estate Index Increases Again Portland Real Estate had its largest month-over-month increase of 2017 in March. The Portland Case Shiller housing price index jumped 1.03% from February to March, beating the national average rate of increase. This new data from Standard & Poor's is interesting, given local media reports that apartment rental prices [...]
What's in the Trump Budget Proposal? On Tuesday, May 23rd, the Trump administration released it's first budget proposal. The Trump budget proposal contains many "deep" cuts, many of which are attracting media and finance sector attention. There are also notable expansions in the budgets of select Agencies and programs, all of which we will detail. [...]
Housing versus REIT's Real Estate is a unique class of investment. For many, Real Estate is both the largest asset and the largest liability in their financial life. We have classic personal finance dichotomies such as "own versus rent" related to Real Estate. Even the sages of the Talmud weighed in on the topic of Real Estate investment, with [...]
Global Economic Growth What predicates strong economic growth? We look at one World Bank studyThe Global Growth Study In 2008, the World Bank funded a study by Nobel Prize winner Michael Spence to answer questions such as "why have only 13 developing world economies achieved sustained, high growth since World War II?" 1 The 198 page [...]
Closed-End Funds: An Investment Company The Investment Company Act of 1940 established the framework for today's "funds." Closed-End Funds (CEF's) are one of the four main investment company types commonly operating, the other three being the Mutual Fund, the Exchange Traded Fund (ETF), and the Unit Investment Trust (UIT). Closed-End funds are professionally managed investment companies that [...]
Asia Pacific ETF's Have Very Different Portfolio Compositions The top ETF's in this sector are taking very different stances on weightings of various countriesAsia Pacific ETF's Asia Pacific ETF's are Exchange Traded Funds that invest in equities based in the Pacific basin. They're often lumped into one broader category by investment advisors, but as we [...]
Oregon, Idaho, Washington Lead US Average in Recent Economic Report Pacific Northwest Relatively Strong in the BLS Coincident Economic Activity Index for January, 2017The Index Every month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) publishes an index of Coincident Economic Activity for all 50 states. This coincident index is produced a number of days after the [...]
US March Jobs Grew by 98,000 Though the economy added March jobs, it did so at half the expected rate of 180,000The Index The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports on job growth monthly. It's a widely watched statistic, as it is considered to predict broader economic growth and gauge the health of the American [...]
US Economy Still Expanding According to New Data The ISM Purchasing Manager's Index (PMI) showed strong numbers for MarchThe Index The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) publishes an influential report called the Purchasing Manager's Index (PMI) monthly. The US PMI is used by traders, asset managers, and manufacturing industry executives as a barometer of current business conditions. [...]
