July 2026 Market Commentary and Newsletter

As America celebrates its 250th birthday this July, investors have an opportunity to look back at another milestone year—the nation's Bicentennial in 1976. While the country was wrapped in patriotic celebrations, the economic backdrop was anything but festive. President Gerald Ford was leading a nation recovering from the Watergate scandal, the end of the Vietnam War, and the painful inflation that followed the 1973 oil embargo. The term "stagflation" (high inflation combined with weak economic growth) had become part of every investor's vocabulary.

June 2026 Market Commentary and Newsletter

Many investors have been amazed to see the market roar back from its late March, Iran War lows. The Dow was at 49,500 prior to the war starting, and bottomed out at 45,166 on March 27. That represented an 8.75% drop.  To end the month of May the Dow hit an all-time high of 51,022. That’s a 13% reversal for the Dow, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq index powered up +28%. So, the question I pose this month is, “Is the Stock Market in a Bubble?”

May 2026 Market Commentary and Newsletter

Momentum with our investment process is the idea that recent past performance tends to persist into the near future. ETFs or mutual funds that have done well in recent months often keep performing well, while those with poor recent results tend to continue performing poorly.

Think of it as Sir Isaac Newton’s first law of motion applied to investing: “A body in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted on by an outside force.”

April 2026 Market Commentary and Newsletter

When I was finishing last month’s newsletter, the war in Iran was just beginning. We are going into week five, and the turbulence has been rough. I tend to have an optimistic outlook on most things in life, including client portfolios this year. We were up so much in January and February that the big pull back in stocks in March wasn’t as bad as it could have been. If you recall, I mentioned last month that at some point the Core Strategy would have a down month, and it happened in the month of March. It’s hard to remember that the last negative month was December of 2024, which was 15 months ago.

March 2026 Market Commentary and Newsletter

As I mentioned at the beginning of this year, it was my contention that while we might have double-digit returns again in 2026, it would also come with more volatility. January was great until its last day, and in February it was first week up, second week down, third week up, fourth week down.

We are all familiar with the pilot coming over the intercom and saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, please fasten your seatbelts. We may be encountering turbulence.” Dropping 50 feet or bouncing around in-flight isn’t pleasant, but it’s not like plummeting 3,500 feet. The financial equivalent is bouncing between -2% down and +2% up. On February 10th, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA or Dow) hit an all-time high of 50,188. Two weeks prior to that we were bouncing between 48,000 and 49,500, and two weeks following we have done the same thing.