The bottom line is that global stocks ended at or near record highs again, with US Treasury yields slightly higher. The BoE – after a struggle – managed to lower its policy rate. Fitch published an interesting article on tariffs, Apple CEO Tim Cook met with the president, and the recent Pivot podcast interview with Anthony Scaramucci is very interesting.

This article is an update of my personal portfolio at the end of 1H2025 (June 30, 2025). To say it was a volatile quarter is the mother of all understatements. Fortunately, I came out OK thanks to the fact that investors – especially in the bond market – provided guardrails for the nutty economic policies of Mr Trump. I saw the train wreck coming, but I failed to anticipate the shockingly fast recovery. You can read the gory details in this article.

This article contains tables and commentary regarding the rather volatile but ultimately positive first half of 2025.

Better late than never, in that this article is about my views on American exceptionalism, both economically and as far as US stocks.

I "guessed" at how markets would perform in 2024 last year at this time. Some I got right, some I got wrong, not different from the pros.

This is an update of my personal portfolio performance in 2Q2024 and 1H2024, good on the surface but worse than the indices would suggest.

This article is an update to an article I penned in February regarding my personal portfolio. For me, it's painful reading!

It was a holiday shortened, rather lacklustre week in markets. Good that 2022 is over. FY returns were poor across equities and bonds.

This is a primer on corporate bonds, investment grade & high yield. It also discusses the pandemic and its effect on the corp bond market.