A Changing Story This past year experienced a change in the investment story. The year started with the belief that inflation was transitory. Now, the story is one of higher for longer inflation. With historic changes in interest rates and global central banks determined to fight it at almost all costs, the story increasingly became...Read More

We started Auour almost ten years ago with the desire to invest people’s hard-earned savings in a way to mitigate market downturns without sacrificing the market’s potential during the good times. It is a challenging objective. Our means of outperforming is to lose less in bad markets—though great over the long term; it feels like...Read More

It is hard to shake a stick without hitting an economist these days. And given how lousy a job they have been doing forecasting the economy, we would argue that a giant stick is needed so that we can hit more of them! We want to focus on two economists with different ideas, Thomas Malthus...Read More

We would like to introduce Nobuya Nemoto, our guest for this month’s newsletter. Nobu has been a great resource to Auour for the past year as we all navigate a unique economic landscape. “Inflation is the tiger whose tail central banks control,” according to the ex-Chief Economist of the Bank of England (forced to resign...Read More

Let’s start with a few historical observations: Equity markets have gone up 80% of the time when viewed on a 6-month rolling period. They have experienced 10% or greater declines over a 6-month period approximately 10% of the time. Of the worst downturns over the past 60 years, the market has recovered to its past...Read More

“It is more sekyr [certain] a byrd in your fest, Than to haue three in the sky a‐boue.” – John Capgrave’s The Life of St Katharine of Alexandria, 1450 The last four months have seen investors move from a futurity (new word for us) approach to a more here-and-now approach. The prices of companies focused on...Read More

“So I just don’t think a lot of people have seen this. When’s the last time anyone here has seen interest rates up 2 years in a row and 6 or 7 times this year and 4 or 5 next? Nobody has seen that. Nobody has seen a lot of a lot of things that...Read More

Two thoughts from Oliver Burkeman (h/t @jposhaughnessey) “True security lies in the unrestrained embrace of insecurity—in the recognition that we never really stand on solid ground, and never can.” “Uncertainty is where things happen.” Over the past two long-drawn-out years, we have discussed the idea that market participants swing between uncertainty and complacency. We have...Read More

The world’s addiction to low interest rates reminds us of the Sirens of Greek mythology who allegedly (never convicted) inhabited an island between Aeaea (and you thought Auour had a lot of vowels) and the rocks of Scylla. Their sweet songs (low interest rates) attracted sailors (borrowers), only to lead them and their ships to...Read More

In our May 2021 newsletter, Breaking Windows, we discussed inflation and its impact on the investment markets. We said the primary drivers of inflation were the large stimuli injected unevenly into the global economic system through governments and central banks. That newsletter focused on one side of the equation—demand—and in it we noted: “There is...Read More