Barry Gilbert
The Rate Regime Hasn’t Fundamentally Changed
Bonds have made a modest comeback lately as rates have retreated amid slow progress in negotiations with Iran and the start of some movement through the Strait of Hormuz. The 10-year Treasury yield peaked at 4.66% on May 19 and now sits at 4.37%, not far off from the median of 4.29% since the start …
Barry Gilbert
June 30, 2026
4 Lessons on Investing in Political Outcomes from Brexit on Its 10th Anniversary
A little more than 10 years ago, on June 23 2016, United Kingdom voters went to the polls to vote in a referendum on whether or not to leave the European Union (EU). The next day, it was announced that the UK electorate had voted to leave the EU, 51.8% to 48.2%. The outcome was …
Barry Gilbert
June 26, 2026
How Many Positions in a Portfolio Is Optimal?
You would be surprised how often I’m asked how many positions there should be in a portfolio or simply hear concerns that there are too many (or too few). A variant on this is concern about position sizes—more often that they’re too small, but occasionally that they’re too big. The mushy but true answer is …
Barry Gilbert
May 27, 2026
Updated Bond View – Time to Opportunistically Rotate Cash to Bonds but Diversify Your Diversifiers
Yields have been on the rise for the last few months. On February 27, the day before US hostilities with Iran began, the 10-year Treasury yield was 3.96%, just 0.01% above its low dating back to early October 2024. Since then, the 10-year yield has climbed nearly 0.50%, closing at 4.47% on May 13, the …
Barry Gilbert
May 14, 2026
Portfolio Defense During Inflationary Growth
Today, we take a look at what’s worked defensively during the current rising rate period. I’m emphasizing “current” because every rising rate period has its own characteristics. To do this, we’ve looked at all S&P 500 drawdowns of more than 5% since September 2020. In some of these periods, bonds did “work” as a diversifier—in …
Barry Gilbert
April 28, 2026
Why Investing in Long Maturity Municipal Bonds May Be Attractive and How To Handle the Risk That It Creates
Today, we tackle a topic that we don’t write about a lot relative to its importance—municipal bonds. Why are munis important? A basic principle of investing (and one of the most ignored), Investment outcomes potentially should not be evaluated on returns but on the returns that you keep—returns after taxes. This is where municipal bonds …
Barry Gilbert
April 16, 2026
Echoes of 2025 in First Quarter Returns
In the first quarter, the S&P 500 had a total return of -4.3%, with the Russell 1000 Value Index outperforming the Russell 1000 Growth Index by 12.1% while energy led all sectors. Oh, wait, sorry, that was the first quarter of 2025. In the first quarter of 2026, the S&P 500 posted a total return …
Barry Gilbert
April 2, 2026
Markets in 2026 Are Looking a Lot Like 2025—That Could Be a Good Thing
Markets in 2026 are looking an awful lot like they did this time last year. Yes, the drivers are different, but the similarities are eerie. Let’s take a look (numbers as of Tuesday’s close)… The S&P 500 is down year to date. The Bloomberg Aggregate Bond Index is outperforming the S&P 500. Gold is having …
Barry Gilbert
March 12, 2026
Markets Coming Back to Our Rate View and How to Invest
If you haven’t read it already, in yesterday’s insightful blog, Carson’s Chief Macro Strategist Sonu Varghese provided an update on inflation expectations given the expanding (for now) conflict in the Middle East. For the basic takeaway, just look at the title: The Inflation Outlook Doesn’t Look Good. Now that’s not 2022 “doesn’t look good.” But …
Barry Gilbert
March 4, 2026
The Dirty Dozen Equity Drawdowns Versus the Current Market
In our 2026 Outlook: Riding the Wave, we took a look at the average return for the S&P 500 (and the likelihood of a positive year) for all years versus only years when the economy is growing (avoids a recession), consistent with our base case for 2026. Not surprisingly, when you take recessions off the …
Barry Gilbert
February 18, 2026