Sometimes, academic economists are worth paying attention to. A recent paper published by the Hoover Insti-tution provided one of the best sum-maries we have read of the current state of the U.S. economy, its recent history, its troubles and the reasons behind them, its future prospects, and the policy changes

Consumers who use credit and debit cards are typically aware only of the card they’re using and the merchant they’re buying from; the payment pro-cess is a “black box” from a consumer’s perspective.   But as the first image below shows, the black box hides a complex ecosys-tem of firms

The world stock and metals markets got a correction earlier this week. We knew a correction was coming because the markets had a big run   without much of a pullback. On Tuesday, we recommended selling the Vanguard Emerging Market Fund (NYSE: VWO) as we thought the pull-back in emerging

It’s hard to believe, but the Republican campaign circus has been in full swing for almost six months already — remember the Iowa straw poll in August? It’s been wildly entertaining, and has narrowed from ten rings to   four. But in the past two weeks, with the unveiling of

As we explained in detail last week, the global markets are being flood-ed with expanded liquidity. The sources of this liquidity are the usual   suspects: quantitative easing (QE), interest rate declines, bond purchases, equity purchases, and other means. As the number of countries all over the world that are

Our open positions include positions in two commodities: gold and wheat.     Gold   Gold is in a very attractive position for a host of reasons. Many governments are acquiring gold to be held in their national reserves. Worldwide, many countries are working to expand liquidity and lower interest

Overall, we remain bullish on our previous recommendations. As we discussed last week, everybody around the world seems to be working together to create massive liquidity for the markets and to raise   asset prices. We do expect corrections in the markets between now and mid-March, but we expect them

It’s time to make money! Get on the train and invest while the market is in an uptrend.   Guild Investment Management strives to provide the best institutional-grade analysis. In order to fulfill our objective, we constantly scan the globe for political, social, and economic trends, events — and especially

  In last week’s letter we recommended investors buy the U.S. S&P 500 for a rally. Here are some of the reasons behind our recommen-   dation:   The U.S. labor market is gaining some traction. Job creation is slowly turning up. We aren’t getting overexcited because once again the