December 13, 2013 By Steve Blumenthal I was in Scottsdale, Arizona this week presenting at the IMN 18th Annual Global Indexing and ETFs Conference.  Goldman Sachs was the lead sponsor and all of the big industry players were there.  The content was particularly rich this year.  It was a two and [...]Read More >

December 6, 2013 By Steve Blumenthal It was a rough call with an advisor friend.  Corporate profits are on the rise and he is of the view that those profits will continue rising thus proclaiming, “we are in a unique new period”.  I’m of the view that he’s wrong.  Boy - do we all want to be [...]Read More >

November 29, 2013 By Steve Blumenthal Today I share our UK partner, Niels Jensen’s, November client letter.  I always enjoy Niels thinking and particularly enjoyed this letter.  It begins, “In his masterpiece The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, John Maynard Keynes referred to [...]Read More >

Barron's reporter, Shuli Ren poses the question "How Much Weight Should EMs Have In Your Portfolio?" She spoke with Steve to talk about exposure in Emerging Markets and whether or not the MSCI ACWI’s 8% exposure is enough. To read the article on Barron's, click here. [...]Read More >

November 22, 2013 By Steve Blumenthal Each week it is the same routine. As I read through a diverse pool of research my head clicks, "doesn't matter, doesn't matter, matters." Who are the players at the table (prop desks, market makers, hedge funds, pension managers, foreigners, individuals, [...]Read More >

November 15, 2013 By Steve Blumenthal I’m in San Diego this week speaking at the Bloomberg ETF Master Class Conference– an interesting group of advisors seeking further knowledge on trading ETFs.  Throughout the conference, I kept thinking about being in the midst of a speculative spike in the [...]Read More >

"For near-term boost, go with high-yield fixed income" By Jeff Benjamin Excerpt: "Yes, high yield is attractive right now, but there are also significant risks when your starting point is low interest rates and narrow spreads,” said Steve Blumenthal, chief executive of CMG Capital Management [...]Read More >

October 18, 2013 By Steve Blumenthal For now, interest rates look to be range bound between 2.40% and 3% as illustrated on the following chart.  Which way are they headed and what should we keep our eyes on?  In today’s piece, I share some thoughts around the direction of interest rates and [...]Read More >

In last week's Wall Street Journal Voices column, Steve discussed benchmarks and how to have a conversation with your client that sets proper expectations for portfolio returns relative to benchmarks. Excerpt: As human beings we're competitive and we want what's best. So when clients see the [...]Read More >

October 11, 2013 By Steve Blumenthal “It would be insane to default, but it’s no longer a zero-percent probability,” said Simon Johnson, a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund who teaches economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is a columnist for Bloomberg [...]Read More >

September 20, 2013 By Steve Blumenthal If you asked me five years ago if the largest investment manager on the planet, BlackRock, would suggest to a room of professionals to “allocate to flexible core bond alternatives, find unconstrained managers and implement long/short strategies”, I would [...]Read More >

Click here to listen to Steve's interview on Taking Stock with Pimm Fox & Carol Masser on Friday. He touches on high valuation in the markets, expected forward returns and why it's important to set proper expectations in today's market environment. [...]Read More >

"Japanese Yen Still a Clear Short" - Emerging market stocks are cheap buys following the summer's sell-off  but investors should short the Yen, says Steve. Click here to take a look at the full clip from Steve's conversation with Gregg Greenberg of TheStreet.com on September 27. [...]Read More >

September 20, 2013 By Steve Blumenthal   I have had the same hair stylist for 15 years.  Fancy word, “stylist”.  I’d say barber but he would definitely take offense, so stylist it is.  Don’t tell him but I think stylist means $45 and barber means $15.  Anyway, I’m totally loyal, I trust [...]Read More >

September 13, 2013 By Steve Blumenthal Looking for a feel-good financial read this weekend?  I highly recommend Gary Shilling’s Advantage America that John Mauldin highlighted in his most recent Outside the Box. Speaking of Mauldin, he and I spoke in Chicago at the Trinity Financial Investor [...]Read More >