Interbrands Best Global Brands 2019 Just Released-BRANDS MATTER

DO YOU HAVE OWNERSHIP STAKES IN SOME OF THE MOST RELEVANT, BLUE CHIP BRANDS FROM AROUND THE WORLD? WE CAN HELP.

I look forward to the two big brand consulting firms’ Top Global Brands reports each year. Interbrands just reported theirs and here are the brands they deem to be the most relevant and valuable brands around the world. Most are public companies, some are divisions of bigger companies and a handful are private companies that we wish we could invest in. All in all, these are great businesses serving global consumers and/or strong business-to-business brands leading important business investment categories.

Not every great brand is always a great stock, we like to buy the “best of the best” brands we think offer the most attractive risk/return potential. Here’s what we like currently: Dynamic Brands Portfolio Holdings

We understand how important these businesses are to the global consumption economy which accounts for 60% of world GDP. Naturally, these are wonderful businesses that should be part of every investors portfolio. Thats why we created the Alpha Brands suite of equity strategies. Investors and Advisors can get access to these portfolio’s through our Separate Accounts and through a mutual fund we sub-advise, Rational Dynamic Brands. My team and I from Accuvest took this fund over 10/17/17. To learn more about the Brands fund, click the blue button below and then click the bright orange button that says “Fund Fact Sheet”.

What the future looks like when rates fall this much

RATES AND FORWARD STOCK RETURNS - A contrarians view

Today’s post will be quick and comes from Sean Avory at Avory & Company, a very good stock picker friend of mine. You can find more information about him and his firm here: https://www.avory.xyz/

We’ve had a significant ramp in recession calling and fear, for a lot of good reasons but…

FACTS:

Interest rates, as measured by the 10 YR are down 34% over the last 24 months. Here's when it happened over the last 35 years. The future doesn’t always look like the past, but historically when rates fall this much, there’s a major stimulative effect on the economy. This comes at a time when the masses are over-exposed to “safety assets” and under-exposed to stocks, particularly pro-cyclical ones.

Still in a Bull Market or New Bear Market Confirmed?

There’s been a lot of talk about an imminent recession given all the bad news, slowing economic data, etc. I don’t know about you but I do not manage peoples assets based on opinions, I like proof.

How do we know the bull market has finally ended and a bear market has now begun? The answer is we never know with 100% confidence but historically there’s one measure that’s been a pretty good “line in the sand” mark. Below I have posted a chart of the S&P 500 going back to 1990 with a purple line denoting the 200-week moving average. As you can see, the 200 week line is a decent level to assess the difference between a correction in a bull market and a bear market beginning. As you can also see, the really bad things happen once the market breaks down from the 200 week level, currently around 2503 on the S&P.

With all the doom and gloom, am I the only person who’s surprised to see the S&P 500 within 3% of its all time high? Based on the media and investor sentiment one would assume the market has already fallen by 50% given all the headwinds that everyone see’s.

The market is smarter than the news media folks. Build a plan for de-risking and mine is to watch for a weekly break of the 200 week moving average, currently around 2503. Yes, that would not feel good to fall this far and I would likely do some de-risking before 2503 but the major draw-downs tended to happen AFTER we broke the 200-week level.