Matthew Kerkhoff's Blog

By Matthew Kerkhoff – The stock market is made up of millions of participants, acting on their own subsets of knowledge and emotion, pushing prices around for a variety of reasons. This group is who we typically define as...

By Matthew Kerkhoff – We’re going to look at a bunch of economic data today, but before we do, there’s something we need to clear up. Most economic data is released in a monthly cadence, but if you focus on monthly figures...

By Matthew Kerkhoff – Last month’s meltdown in the stock market began in earnest on February 2nd, the day that the January jobs report was released. The culprit, at least for the initial bout of selling, was an acceleration...

By Matthew Kerkhoff – Most investors are familiar with the seasonal pattern in stocks, encapsulated by the old adage, “sell in May and go away.” But is there a similar pattern on the fixed income side of the equation? That’s what...

By Matthew Kerkhoff – What’s the difference between a correction and a bear market? This seems like a straightforward question, but if your answer has anything to do with percentage declines (as in, a correction is a...

By Matthew Kerkhoff – Fourth-quarter earnings season is just getting started, and so far signs are pointing towards surprisingly good results. In particular, companies are seeing revenue growth exceed expectations by the widest...

By Matthew Kerkhoff – During an extended period of low volatility and high returns, such as we’ve had recently, the notion of risk tends to fade away. This draws more investors into the market and before you know it, everybody who was sitting on the sidelines...

By Matthew Kerkhoff – One of the topics that seems to be on the minds of investors right now is the idea of rising inflation. The recent global economic upturn, combined with a stimulative tax package, is causing some to believe that we’re about to see the whites...

By Matthew Kerkhoff – With tax reform now a done deal, investors and analysts alike are scouring over what the new policies will mean, and what companies will do with all this newfound wealth. One of the major changes now allows...

By Matthew Kerkhoff – If you could predict where inflation would be during 2018, you’d have a good idea of where long-term interest rates will head, how monetary policy is likely to develop, and therefore how the equity...