September Commentary: All Gas, No Brakes!

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All Gas, No Brakes | Steve Henderly, CFA

Printer Friendly PDF: September 2025 Commentary

Sports teams love slogans – some memorable, some regrettable. One of the more overused in recent years is the phrase “All Gas, No Brakes”.  Catchy yes, but good advice?  Probably not.  “All Gas, No Brakes” seems apt for describing markets since mid-April: surging forward with little hesitation, fueled by optimism around rate cuts, artificial intelligence, and resilient corporate earnings. The trouble is, cars – and markets – need brakes. Without brakes, even the best things can become unstable.  With the return of football and other fall activities, it seems forgivable to again draw analogies between sports and investing.

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August Commentary – Christmas in July

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Christmas in July | Steve Henderly, CFA

Printer Friendly PDF: August 2025 Commentary

Most think of Christmas as a December holiday, but the idea of “Christmas in July” dates back to the 1930s. Summer camps and resorts in the U.S. began celebrating the holiday in July to capture some of the magic of the season during the warmer months, and the idea spread as a lighthearted excuse for festivities and gift-giving well outside the traditional Christmas season.  Today, many retailers run black Friday-like sales events, which some consumers look forward to with much anticipation.  Over the last month, investors received their own version of “Christmas in July,” as several long-standing policy uncertainties finally delivered “gifts” in the form of new all-time highs for many US market indexes.  Since the start of the year, tariffs, trade policy, taxes, and government spending weighed heavy on the markets.  July delivered unexpected joy and excitement.Continue reading→

2025 Q2 Nvest Nsights Newsletter

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Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There! | Steve Henderly, CFA

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The title phrase is most often attributed to the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, yet again proves to be sage investing advice when thinking about the markets during the 2Q and 2025 YTD.  From a painful drawdown of -15% at the April lows to finishing +5.5% by June 30, it was a remarkable turnaround.  It took just 55 trading days for the S&P500 to fully recover back to its all-time highs – the fastest return to a new high following a drawdown of that size or greater in history (see below)!  Similar to the sharp drawdown experienced in March 2020 during Covid, the most successful investors this year are likely those who “just stood there” in the face of wild swings and multi-faceted uncertainties linked to trade (tariffs), tax policy, interest rates, and unsettling geopolitics (a 12-day war) to name them broadly.

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June 2025 Market Commentary – Kindness of Strangers

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Kindness of Strangers | Steve Henderly, CFA

Printer Friendly PDF: June 2025 Commentary

The phrase “kindness of strangers” originates from Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer Price-winning play, A Streetcar Named Desire, which was first performed in 1947.  Character Blanche DuBois utters the phrase as she’s taken away to a mental institution following the loss of her home and reputation, revealing her vulnerability and reliance on others for emotional support and her detachment from reality.  Is the US government and our Treasury similarly detached from reality when it comes to how it spends, overly reliant on the kindness of strangers?  What if that kindness “dries up” and foreign investors and/or governments shun US debt and trade?

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May 2025 Market Commentary – A “Tarrif-fying” Ride

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A “Tarrif-fying” Ride | Steve Henderly, CFA

Printer Friendly PDF: May 2025 Commentary

Game theory is the study of strategic interactions between individuals or groups.  It provides mathematical models to analyze competition, cooperation, negotiation, and conflicts. Game theory is also a useful framework for predicting behaviors of individuals where everyone is trying to outsmart each other.  For example: In blackjack, players share a common opponent (the dealer) but make individual decisions.  Inexperienced players often make suboptimal choices, such as flipping another card despite a mathematically strong hand.  These “sub-optimal” decisions alter card flow for all the other players which can be frustrating.  Dating back to President Trump’s first term, game theory is often cited when trying to explain or understand his unpredictable, sharp departures from established norms.

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2025 Q1 Nvest Nsights Newsletter

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 It was the Best of Times, Then The Worst of Times | Steve Henderly, CFA

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“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”… the famous opening line from Charles Dickens’ novel, ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ seems one of the most frequently used quotes when it comes to financial market commentaries.  That’s probably because so often the mood in markets appears to change abruptly and with little warning.

It’s hard to believe that just seven weeks ago the S&P 500 was basking at all-time highs.  But since that time, the S&P500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq indexes officially entered a “correction” (defined as a pullback of 10% or more) in March.  The S&P500 finished the quarter down -4.3%.  The Magnificent 7 constituents, representing the heaviest weights in both the S&P and Nasdaq are at the epicenter of weakness – Nvidia down -19%, Tesla off -35% for the 1Q.

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Special Market Update: March 13, 2025

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Warm and sunny weather appeared this week in Ohio. Unfortunately, the stormy stock market conditions appear to be sticking with us.

Since an all-time high on February 19th, a more uncertain mood is gripping the markets. Today, the S&P500 officially joined the Nasdaq in “correction” territory – defined as a pullback of more than 10%. Volatility is to be expected as part of long-term investing and the current drawdown remains shy of the average pullback experienced in any given year (-14%). Why then does the experience so often feel akin to climbing the stairs to ascend but hopping on the elevator when going down?Continue reading→

March 2025 Market Commentary – If You Don’t Know, Don’t Shoot

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If You Don’t Know, Don’t Shoot! | Steve Henderly, CFA

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Did you know that the U.S. unfortunately experiences nearly 1,000 hunting-related injuries annually? Most are not fatal (thankfully), but 80% stem from human error. The golden rule of hunting safety is simple: if you can’t identify your target, don’t shoot. This principle feels remarkably relevant to today’s investing and economic landscape.

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