Left Brain Thinking

It's March Madness, but with this week's news, it's hard to tell if we are talking basketball or the banking industry! On this week's Jarvis® Update, CEO Noland Langford and Director of Research, Brian Dress, discuss the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, along with the troubles at First Republic (FRC). We first give our thoughts on how investors with money particularly in regiona...

Earnings season is so crucially important to investors that adhere to a philosophy of investing in the best businesses. Sometimes earnings reports come out and disappoint the market, causing a stock to fall 10, 20, 30% or more immediately. When a stock you own does this, it can be such a crushing and demoralizing blow. The question then becomes: What should you do when your stock flames out after...

Are you one of the lucky ones that have had cash building up in your checking or savings accounts over the past few years? With interest rates on the rise, there are plenty of ways to take advantage to outpace the rate of interest that your bank is paying you in those accounts. Our CEO Noland Langford and Director of Research, Brian Dress, sat down for a conversation on the best ways you can take...

Those of you who have followed us for some time know that we are strict adherents to fundamental analysis. And the most important time for fundamental analysts is earnings season. We stand smack in the middle of earnings, moving toward the end, and we have some interesting conclusions. In 2022, we saw negative stock price reactions to earnings almost exclusively, no matter if the business developm...

With the important February Federal Reserve meeting now behind us, it certainly feels like the mood of investors has changed dramatically. As investors begin coming to the understanding that inflation appears to be in check, there has been a pronounced rotation from the value stocks that dominated 2022 into the types of growth stocks that have struggled in recent years. On this week's Jarvis® Upda...

There is plenty of market uncertainty remaining in the air, as we move into 2023 and turn the page on a putrid 2023. There are a number of big questions left unanswered with respect to the direction of markets (stocks, bonds, and otherwise). On this week's Jarvis® Update, CEO Noland Langford and Director of Research, Brian Dress, ask and answer the key questions on our minds as we evaluate the bes...

The momentum the markets had built in recent weeks was derailed over the past few days, as fears again began to creep in ahead of next week's Federal Reserve meeting. Despite the negative price action we saw over the past five days of trading, we remain bullish for investors' prospects into 2023. CEO Noland Langford and Director of Research, Brian Dress, discuss the reasons we remain constructive...

Investors have been keying on inflation all year to determine the direction of markets. Finally this week we got some good news on that front, as the 7.7% print on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) came in below expectations. We saw one of the strongest market days in recent memory on Thursday after the report, with the NASDAQ gaining more than 7% in a single trading session! Plenty more to talk abou...

Things in the markets are finally starting to look up! We've cut a pessimistic figure over the last few months, and with good reason, but there seem to be signs that it could be time to become positive on investing again. This week CEO Noland Langford and Director of Research, Brian Dress, cover many of the major earnings reports of the week, including from Alphabet ($GOOGL), ServiceNow ($NOW), Sh...

Markets have floundered for most of 2022, but this week we moved again back to our favorite time of the year -- Earnings Season for the just-ended 3rd quarter. What we have heard more than anything from investors over the past few months is the question: "are we close to the bottom in markets?" Our honest answer to that question continues to be "no." In short, market volatility is too high and int...

With inflation running consistently above 8%, cash sitting in our bank accounts is losing purchasing power quickly! At the same time, both stocks and bonds have fallen throughout 2022. The flipside of downside in markets is opportunity. The opportunities we are seeing are coming mostly in the fixed income markets and in individual bonds, where we are finding a number of investment grade securities...

If we like energy and bonds, why not energy bonds? We love the synergy between two of our favorite segments of the investment markets today, as we see opportunities to lock in passive income streams in the fixed income markets as interest rates continue to rise. In the last couple weeks, we have seen impressive outperformance out of the energy markets. However, because of some issues with liquidit...

When is the right time to sell? This is a question we address in this week's Jarvis® Update, one that has been on the mind of many investors as markets continue to struggle. This week CEO Noland Langford and Director of Research, Brian Dress, cover the fact that macroeconomic conditions like interest rates and inflation, along with the Federal Reserve, are driving everything in this market. Our se...

Federal Reserve rate hikes and rising interest rates are taking their toll on financial assets of all types. We are always looking for the segments of the market that are performing in a difficult market environment. This week CEO Noland Langford and Director of Research, Brian Dress, discuss the impact the Fed is having on all investment asset classes and spend more time covering our favorite opp...

Stock market volatility is taking an emotional toll on investors. Interest rates continue to rise, which continues to drive bond prices lower. This is creating opportunity for investors that are looking for fixed income investments in the bond market. This week CEO Noland Langford and Director of Research, Brian Dress, discuss what investors need to be doing to respond to a difficult investment en...

Higher interest rates and volatility are now a fact of life for investors. At Left Brain, we're always looking for ways to take advantage of opportunities created by dislocation in markets. This week CEO Noland Langford and Director of Research, Brian Dress, discuss what stocks are actually working in this difficult environment and in our 2nd topic, we speak more on our new bond strategy, the "Enh...

It's been a challenging couple weeks in the market, to say the least. CEO Noland Langford,MBA,CFP® and Director of Research, Brian Dress, are back this week to help you make sense of the market weakness, both across stocks and bonds. The Federal Reserve seems determined to talk this market down and we've seen interest rates rising rapidly, as a result. We're calling this the "Nothing is Working" m...

I don't know about you all, but it seems like things are starting to feel different in the markets. We've gotten through most of earnings season and corporate profits are looking strong despite inflation. This week marked the 4th straight week of broad-base market gains. This week we received even more good news, as month over month inflation came in at 0.0% for the month of July, which has us ask...

It does certainly that the sun is peeking out from the clouds in the markets. We've always said a great indicator of changing market sentiment is a positive reaction to bad or neutral news. This week we had the Federal Reserve raising rates (bad news) and a set of earnings reports that were mixed (neutral). Through it all, we saw investors expressing improved sentiment in the form of higher stock...

As investors, we are all trying to make sense of the current market landscape and position for the eventual recovery. This week on the Left Brain Thinking podcast, we are joined by Andrew Horowitz, a Registered Investment Advisor and pioneer in the podcasting space. In our time together, we discussed why we don't do our own haircuts and the concept of "designing a portfolio like a flower garden,"...

This week we speak to some of the issues business owners face as they develop the type of succession plan that secures the future for their families, long after they are gone. We sat down with George Gore, CFP, President of Capitas Financial Midwest, who specializes in Estate Planning and Business Succession, along with Life Insurance Planning. We covered an awful lot of ground on this episode. Th...

Despite many portrayals in the media, the Millennial generation is coming of age, advancing in careers and starting families. As millennials enter a new phase in life, new financial challenges present themselves on a daily basis: saving for retirement, saving for kids' college, helping aging parents, and many more. With all these financial pressures, we think it's time for many millennials to thin...

For this week's Left Brain Thinking podcast we welcomed Vince Carter from the CFO at Home Podcast. Vince specializes in helping folks navigate the financial challenges that inevitably reveal themselves in any relationship or family. On the podcast, Vince gives us his views on personal finance in the context of family. We talk about how most people's opinions about money are formed at an early age,...

The real estate market has been overheated over the last few years, with the combination of low interest rates and low levels of housing inventory. Purchasing a home is often the cornerstone of investors' financial plan, so we wanted to welcome an expert to hopefully answer the types of questions that come up in the process. On this week's Left Brain Thinking podcast, we welcome Samir Rashed, Owne...

Two stories dominated the headlines this week: the Federal Reserve's 0.5% interest rate hike and more earnings reports. Initially, markets rallied sharply on Wednesday after the Fed's press conference, but gave it all back (and then some) on Thursday. This week, CEO Noland Langford and Director of Research, Brian Dress, discuss this week's earnings implosions, a few earnings reports that impressed...