The 21st century and our prehistoric past met near a parking lot at NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center. An amateur paleontologist spotted dinosaur tracks at the Greenbelt, MD facility, in an area slated for demolition to make room for an office building. Once unearthed, a 8.5 foot long sandstone slab revealed more than eighty prints of…
With the passing of Yogi Berra, the position of sports legend/philosopher is now vacant. While no obvious candidates have stepped forward, we offer to nominate Cam Newton, star quarterback of the Carolina Panthers. Second-guessed on a play call by a reporter at a press conference last October, he replied with a shrug, “Hindsight is always…
In the classic 1962 film, “Lawrence of Arabia,” two British officers watch the unfolding chaos as Arab tribes vie for control of Damascus. Eager to keep events from spiraling out of control, the colonel pleads with his commanding officer, “We can’t just do nothing.” The general, savvy to the political reality, replies calmly, “Why not?…
Leveraged loans occupy a unique position in the credit asset class. Like high-yield bonds they boast an active secondary market, but unlike junk they reside at the top of the capital structure. Also, like high-yield, these loans are extended to non-investment grade issuers so enjoy higher returns than their investment grade cousins. But unlike bonds,…
According to Merriam-Webster, the word “volatility” comes from the Latin, volātilis, meaning flying. Any investor who has remotely been paying attention to market events over the past several weeks can appreciate that etymological derivation. Even this community grown accustomed to wild swings of value over the past seven years was taken aback by the gyrations…
We had just polished off our second helping of pumpkin pie last Thursday evening when the first (of what we assume will be many) “2015 Market Outlook” hit our in-box. Always big supporters of the crystal ball crowd, we thought we’d begin our own prognostication series by sharing some of the contents of that forecast…