INSIGHTS

June 12, 2019 | Terri Spath, Chief Investment Officer

For many, summer means days at the beach and, ideally, nights at the ice cream parlor. Picking a flavor of ice cream is never an easy decision. The same can be said for bonds. Like ice cream, bonds come in 31 flavors (or so). U.S. government bonds are really different flavors of vanilla, from just plain vanilla to French to New York. Interest rates are the driver of the prices of government bonds; a rise in rates pressures prices down and vice-versa. A risk of default is virtually nil so credit risk does not influence the price.

May 17, 2019 | Terri Spath, Chief Investment Officer

From basketball to tennis or chess to tic-tac-toe, winning a game involves strategic decisions, probability analysis and math. The best teams and players are not passive, generating the same moves over and over, but tactically adjusting to make the next best move. Investing is much the same.

March 22, 2019 | Terri Spath, Chief Investment Officer

A simple definition of investment diversification is conveyed in the overused statement, “don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” The basic buy-and-hold, set-it-and-forget-it style of investing is often premised in a 60% global stock and 40% bond allocation (known as “60/40”) and sold as enough diversification to handle whatever market turmoil might come your way over the long-term.

March 8, 2019 | Ocean Park

Santa Monica, CA (March 8, 2019) – Ocean Park Asset Management, a Santa Monica-based asset management firm with a unique investment approach that focuses on limiting downside risk, announced today that its Ocean Park Diversified Municipal Bond Model will be added to FTJ FundChoice, an open architecture Turnkey Asset Management Program (TAMP) based in Hebron, Kentucky.

February 12, 2019 | Terri Spath, Chief Investment Officer

So far in 2019, and really since Christmas Eve, we have seen a nice risk-on rally. Equities (as measured by the S&P 500® Index) were up about 8% in the month of January despite the U.S. government shutdown and international turmoil. While it is nice to have a breather from the march downward, it may be too early to pop the champagne corks and celebrate for the rest of the year. 2019 has only just begun, and (stop me if you've heard this) investing is a marathon, not a sprint!

January 15, 2019 | Ocean Park

A new year brings with it the elation of a renewed start. We proclaim resolutions about how we will make this year better than the one that just concluded. After the volatile close to 2018, investors should now be doing the same. Fortunately, there is the trailing-stop.

December 11, 2018 | Ocean Park

The persistence of volatility that has defined the capital markets for the better part of the last sixty days has resulted in a tactical de-risking of our Ocean Park portfolios.

Rebuild Your Core: Constructing a Bond Portfolio to Prosper in a Changing Environment

September 26, 2018 | Terri Spath, Chief Investment Officer | Joseph Letts, Research Analyst

Bond portfolio construction can be more effective in a dynamic environment by assembling the portfolio with puzzle pieces that are not included within the Agg. The biggest challenge may be knowing when to adjust allocation – a problem that can be solved by following a clearly defined investment process.

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August 22, 2018 | Terri Spath, Chief Investment Officer

Since early July 2016, the yield on the 10-year Treasury has rocketed from 1.38% to nearly 3%. Investors in intermediate Treasuries have lost more than 7% over that period as rising interest rates have resulted in falling bond prices.

June 13, 2018 | Terri Spath, Chief Investment Officer

We are consistently hearing that bonds are making advisors and investors pull out their hair. Nearly three decades of generally falling interest rates has translated into a bull market for traditional bond strategies, but times have changed.

June 6, 2018 | Terri Spath, Chief Investment Officer

The year 2017 went down in the record books as the calmest stock market in history. The worst decline from high to low (“drawdown”) was a scant 2.6% and the S&P 500 recorded just 8 swings of more than one percent, just about one every six weeks, all the while consistently moving to the upside.

March 27, 2018 | Ocean Park

Santa Monica, CA (March 27, 2018) – Ocean Park Asset Management Inc. (Ocean Park), a conservatively-oriented asset management firm and part of The Sierra Group of Companies, announced today it has partnered with LaSalle St. Investment Advisors, LLC to provide its investment strategies on the Salt Creek Investors (SCI) platform.

March 20, 2018 | Terri Spath

During the short nine days of trading from late January to February 8, the S&P 500 fell like a skydiver leaping out of a plane: fast and down. In a classic flight-to-quality response, investors pulled their parachutes, socking billions into the largest ETFs tracking the widely-watched Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond Index (the “Barclays Aggregate”). This time, though, it didn’t work.

February 21, 2018 | Terri Spath

Right now I am continually inspired by the competing Olympians and I just came across an obscure and just plain crazy sport: “skeleton.” In it, thrill-seeking competitors plummet headfirst down a twisting, frozen track at speeds over 80 miles per hour.

February 20, 2018 | Ocean Park

Santa Monica, CA (February 20, 2018) – The Sierra Group of Companies ("Sierra") is proud to announce that as of 12/31/17, the firm has reached over three billion dollars in combined assets under management and assets under advisement.

January 17, 2018 | Terri Spath

As Yogi Berra famously quipped, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” Nowhere is this truer than in the stock and bond markets around the world. It is a fool’s errand to make bold market predictions, but here we are at the beginning of 2018 and, as usual, economists, market pundits and fortune tellers alike are offering their best guesses for the next 12 months.

December 7, 2017 | Terri Spath

When it comes to the timing, likelihood and economic impact of a potential tax overhaul, who wins? Who loses? The answer is: Who knows? What we do know right now, though, is how to manage taxes between now and year end to minimize the bill.

Bond Market Warnings? The Real Message

November 16, 2017 | Terri Spath

After 5 down days in the last 7, the S&P 500 bounced back today, regaining more than two-thirds of its decline over the last few weeks. At yesterday’s lows, the index was down a little more than 1% from its all-time highs. That’s it! The market drop, however, caused investor sentiment (as measured by the weekly American Association of Individual Investors bullish sentiment reading) to crash in its largest one week decline in four and a half years. How negative will investors be when the market dips 3% or 5% or more?

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September 14, 2017 | Terri Spath

A widely followed bond guru recently declared that investment markets have entered “wacko season.” Some of his reasons include bitcoin mania and also European junk bonds that yield the same as U.S. Treasuries (which would you invest in)? We do not disagree and would add to his already long wacko and confusion list:

June 23, 2017 | Terri Spath

Stocks continue to teeter at all time highs and the outsized profits enjoyed since November of last year are really a continuation of the bull market that turned 8 years old this past March. Low starting valuations, improved [...]

First Quarter 2017 FTJ Strategist Commentary: Ocean Park Balanced Risk Model

April 10, 2017 | Terri Spath

The quarter was marked by a pivot from monetary policy and the role of central banks globally to a heightened focus on geopolitics and fiscal policy. The expectation of adrenaline shots in the form of tax cuts and deregulation [...]

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March 7, 2017 | Ocean Park

Santa Monica, CA, March 7, 2017 -- Sierra Investment Management today announced that industry veteran Colin T. Barber has been appointed as Senior Key Accounts Director for the firm’s third-party broker/dealer focused businesses, Sierra Mutual Funds and Ocean Park Asset Management, Inc.

March 1, 2017 | Terri Spath

About fifty days into the new administration and the trend we have observed since July 2016 remains intact: interest rates are going up.

January 12, 2017 | Terri Spath

Anticipation of lower taxes and higher infrastructure spending initially pushed investor enthusiasm and stock prices higher for several weeks following the election of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States. At [...]

November 2, 2016 | Terri Spath

What’s that smell? No political jokes. No celebrity ones either. That smell you smell is the faint whiff of inflation seeping into the economy. It’s also one of the big reasons for the cruel October bond selloff.

September 13, 2016 | Terri Spath

All else equal, given the choice between a 10% gain or a 5% gain, most (all) investors prefer the 10%, right? A degree in math or a course in probability and statistics isn’t needed to figure that out.

August 29, 2016 | Ocean Park

Santa Monica, CA (August 29, 2016) – The Sierra Group of Companies today announced that managing director and co-founder David Wright has been named to Barron’s Top 100 Independent Financial Advisors for the second consecutive year. Mr. Wright and Sierra are ranked 42nd out of 100, up from 56th in 2015. The Barron's rankings reflect the volume of assets under management, revenues, and quality of the advisors’ practices as of June 30, 2016.

August 8, 2016 | Terri Spath

A very smart investor (more than one very smart investor, actually) is saying to sell everything. These “smart guys” are very likely smarter than me. They most certainly are wealthier than I am. Some may argue they are also better [...]

June 24, 2016 | Terri Spath

In an emotional vote against crony capitalism, immigration fears and the widening gap between haves and have-nots, the UK voted on Thursday to leave the European Union, shocking pollsters and market makers the world [...]

June 6, 2016 | Terri Spath

As stocks reach record highs, it’s worth re-visiting the ride to get here. It’s not unusual to see pullbacks in stocks, but over the past 12 months, investors in U.S. stocks have suffered two 12+% drops in the S&P 500 and in the process [...]

April 29, 2016 | Terri Spath

Since the Federal Reserve raised its borrowing rate by 25 basis points (bps) this past December, the U.S. dollar keeps dropping to lower and lower levels relative to other currencies. The tanking dollar is the exact opposite of the […]

March 28, 2016 | Terri Spath

Stocks have rallied back into the green for 2016, recovering completely from the January collapse. The market breadth is convincing. Last year, we highlighted that “risk-on” assets were in fact at risk. One reason we held this view was […]

February 23, 2016 | Terri Spath

We’ve had a year’s worth of trading moves already in 2016. Seven weeks into the trading year and global markets, from commodities to stocks, went on a tear to the downside. Most recently, many market benchmarks have reversed […]

February 3, 2016 | David C. Wright

January was a very unusual month in the global markets. And the first days of February resumed those declines in equities, and surging Treasury prices. Equity markets around the world ended January down substantially, and the […]

January 26, 2016 | Terri Spath

Ever since the last of the revelers headed home from their New Year parties, it’s been a “risk-off” atmosphere for asset classes around the globe. For at least a full year and into 2016, the party has been well over in the high […]

January 26, 2016 | David C. Wright

The dramatic recent declines that originated from China’s Shanghai Stock Exchange have spread to all developed-country stock markets. This raises an important question: is this just another brief correction, or is the weakening [...]

January 14, 2016 | Terri Spath

Kicking off the start of the second full week of trading for 2016 did little to calm investors. The year started in an ugly way when The People’s Bank of China depreciated the value of its currency, the renminbi, causing shares [...]

December 29, 2015 | David C. Wright

There is extensive coverage in the financial press regarding the “income” that retirees supposedly need, or can safely take from their savings on an annual basis.

August 10, 2015 | Frank A. Barbera

2015 continues to witness a deepening global economic slowdown led by China and the Pacific Rim. The pace of economic growth fell consistently across the continents of Europe, Asia and North America in the first quarter and [...]

July 8, 2015 | David C. Wright

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) elected to close trading today from approximately 11:30 am Eastern Time to 3:10 pm. All issues within the S&P 500 Index are traded on other exchanges, and they traded in an [...]

June 29, 2015 | David C. Wright

Events on Saturday in Europe, regarding the “final” proposal by the ECB, IMF and Germany, roiled the global markets on Monday, June 29.

May 11, 2015 | David C. Wright & Frank A. Barbera

An unusual surge occurred in the yields of U.S. and other major industrialized countries’ high-grade bonds early in May. It began with spikes in European bonds led by a weaker German Bund, which ballooned from 5 basis [...]

March 23, 2015 | Frank A. Barbera

It is becoming increasingly clear that not all is well with the Dow Jones Averages. While the Industrial average continues to push to higher highs, we do see noteworthy deterioration taking place within two other Dow indices [...]

March 3, 2014 | Frank A. Barbera

Following Janet Yellen’s semi-annual report to Congress, the so-called Humphrey-Hawkins testimony, these headlines streamed across the Reuters newswire indicating the latest train of thought from the Yellen Fed.

February 19, 2015 | Frank A. Barbera

On November 4, 2014 the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) reached its 2014 peak of 1,484, and has since declined an incredible 65% in just under 13 weeks, during which time there have been only eight positive trading sessions out of a total of [...]

December 11, 2014 | David C. Wright

After a relatively productive start to the year, Ocean Park’s High Yield Corporate Bond (HYCB) Program is slightly negative for the year (as of 12/10/14) as a result of significantly increased volatility in this asset class during third and [...]