Author: CLS Investments
505 posts written by CLS Investments
Is the Super Gold Bull dead?
April 25, 2013
Content provided by Kostya Etus, CLS Investment Research Analyst Throughout history, gold has been a widely recognized symbol of wealth. In the past, gold was mainly used for making jewelry, but it has also been used for monetary exchange. Most recently, it has been used as an investment vehicle to hedge against a depreciating currency…
Thoughts on the Japanese Economy
April 24, 2013
Content provided by Rui Wang, CLS Investment Research Analyst The Japanese economy has been weak for two decades. One of the obvious symptoms has been its pro-longed deflation. To help mitigate the deflation, the Bank of Japan (BOJ) plans to double its balance sheet within just two years, and they’ve set a 2 percent annual…
MEOW: Pet Spending Continues to Rise
April 16, 2013
Content provided by Steve Donahoe, CLS Senior Portfolio Manager One of my favorite sayings is to “never underestimate the propensity of the U.S. consumer to spend money.” Along that line, I found this interesting: Americans spent an estimated $53 billion on their pets in 2012, a number that’s grown nearly 30% in the past five…
Playing Defense
April 11, 2013
Content provided by Grant Engelbart, CLS Investment Research Analyst As a basketball player, I pride myself in playing stellar defense. In my mind, there are only a few things in life more degrading to a person than blocking their shot halfway across the court. I’ll often let an opponent past me only to inconspicuously follow,…
Discipline + Focus = Success
March 28, 2013
Content provided by Sadie Brewer March 17 was a good day. After a year-long deployment, my brother returned safely to friendly ground. Afghanistan is one of the last places on the planet you would ever want someone you care about to be, and anyone who has ever had a loved one deployed understands the fear,…
Optimistic, But Cautious
March 27, 2013
Commentary provided by Paula Wieck, CLS Investment Research Manager While markets have pulled back a little in the last week, we’re still near record highs for the S&P 500 and Dow. The S&P 500 has returned over 125% since the low on March 9, 2009. On the 14th of this month the S&P 500 was…
Risk Budgeting White Paper
March 25, 2013
Content provided by Rusty Vanneman, CFA, CLS Chief Investment Officer We recently updated the CLS Risk Budgeting White Paper. Thanks to many hours of work led by Scott Kubie and Rui Wang, along with numerous contributions from the entire Investment Team and Investment Committee, we believe we were able to improve our risk budgeting methodology…
Adventures of a “Bail In” – Featuring the Little Island that Couldn’t
March 19, 2013
Content provided by Matt Santini, CLS Portfolio Manager As I write this, the island of Cyprus has just agreed to keep banks closed through Thursday. If you were looking to drawdown on your offshore cash before the NCAA tourney, you are out of luck. And ultimately, unless they own gold or have mattress reserves, Cypriot’s…
The All-time Highest Level in the History of the World EVER
March 12, 2013
Comments provided by Grant Engelbart, Investment Research Analyst As the Dow surpassed its all-time high last week, CNBC had a heyday blasting various orange ‘warning’ signs and ‘countdowns’ and what-not, enticing retail investors. To the informed investor, this should almost seem a fluke. The Dow of course only contains 30 stocks, but yet is synonymous…