Ben Bernanke popularized the term “global saving glut” in March 2005 when speaking to the Virginia Association of Economists in Richmond, Va. In his statement, he argued that several forces had created a high volume of global savings and that this “saving glut” helped explain the many years of historically low yields. And that was long before the Fed and its fellow central banks, through their coordinated actions, engineered the virtual extinction of interest rates! Read More

In last week’s edition of our Guest EVA, we ran the first half of a condensed version of Grant Williams’ exceedingly popular Things That Make You Go Hmmm. No one ever accused Grant of short-changing his readers as his weekly missives often run to 30 pages or more. But they are chock full of some of the best non-consensus insights, spiced with biting humor, this side of another Grant (as in Jim Grant). Read More

Definitive statements tend to separate “legends” from “losers”. “Legends” live in lore as women or men with the clairvoyance and courage to make a bold (and correct) prediction in a time of uncertainty. Think of Winston Churchill’s stirring speech: “Men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’ ” Read More

The relative absence of borders limiting participation in global markets has enabled internationally-minded investors to find opportunities that domestic-minded investors might miss. Much like the Silk Road, which opened opportunities to traders throughout Asia, Europe, and Africa, those willing to invest internationally have generally been rewarded for doing so. Read More

Warren Buffett is famous for his disdain of “investment strategies” that involve making small gains while taking big risks, even if those risks rarely erupt. He has described this approach using the above analogy, although he has said “pennies” instead of “millions”. In today’s $28 trillion US stock market, however, “millions” is a much more appropriate word. Read More

In early April, one of the “wise guy girl” talking heads released a video on the rise of robots where she claims that within a decade, we could be looking at dramatically different non-farm payroll data. In fact, she even quotes a Forrester study that suggests net-net, for every one job created, fifteen jobs will be lost. Read More

The reaction to this edition of the Guest Evergreen Virtual Adviser (EVA) has the potential to be as incendiary as the subject matter itself. Read More

This week's EVA brings a special opportunity to hear from David Hay, Grant Williams, and Aaron Chan in an Adventures in Finance podcast.  In this 15-minute clip, you'll hear David candidly open up about one of the "things he got wrong." Enjoy! Read More

In this exclusive Quarterly Webinar, David Hay reviews what's happening with the economy, inflation, bonds, energy and the stock market.  You don't want to miss this! Read More

Zero interest rates have made a great many people a great deal richer. But paradoxically they have strangled wealth creation. The reason for this is that enterprise is overwhelmingly a phenomenon found among smaller companies. Among big companies it is a rare quality. Read More