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Putting It All Behind Us
by Brad Houle, CFA Executive Vice President More than anything, the financial markets dislike uncertainty and the most recent source of angst was the election. With the mid-term elections behind us,...
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Negative Interest Rates: What Color is the Dress?
by Brad Houle, CFA Executive Vice President In Europe there are now more than $4 trillion in bonds that have a negative yield, a number which is about 15 percent of the global bond market. The...
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Connecting The Dots
by Brad Houle, CFA Executive Vice President Last week’s Fed announcement had something for everyone. The Fed removed the word “patient” from its forecast for increasing interest rates. This is an...
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Moving Out
by Brad Houle, CFA Executive Vice President In the month of March, sales of previously owned homes increased to 6.1 percent. Sales of 5.19 million homes is the highest level we’ve seen since 2013. At...
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Changing Liquidity in the Fixed Income Markets
by Brad Houle, CFA Executive Vice President The bond market is a dealer market with no central exchange. This means that all bond trades are over-the-counter trades whereby market participants trade...
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Multifamily Living Multiplies
by Brad Houle, CFA Executive Vice President Demand for commercial real estate from investors has been robust for the past few years. In a world of low interest rates, the relative yield advantage of...
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Smoke and Mirrors
by Brad Houle, CFA Executive Vice President Gyrations in the Chinese A-share stock market have been a big topic in the financial press recently. The questions that we are getting from clients all...
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All the Beer in China
by Brad Houle, CFA Executive Vice President Currency markets are extremely difficult to grasp and most people’s experience with foreign currency is limited to travel. These experiences generally...
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Slow Ride
by Brad Houle, CFA Executive Vice President I had a terrible first car – a 1978 Honda Wagon. It came equipped with vinyl seats, a manual choke, AM Radio and was a shade of brown that resembled a...
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To Beat or Not to Beat …. Expectations
by Brad Houle, CFA Executive Vice President Today the Federal Reserve released the September change in nonfarm payrolls which came in at 142,000 jobs versus the estimate of 201,000 jobs. Also, August...
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A Lack of Household Formation Participation Trophies
by Brad Houle, CFA Executive Vice President Millennials get a bad rap. They are characterized as the generation that was born between 1980 and 2000 and are often considered to be indulged and coddled....
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Inflation Is Like Wine
by Brad Houle, CFA Executive Vice President This week, a few of us at Ferguson Wellman had the opportunity to attend a lunch presentation where Dr. John Williams, president of the Federal Reserve Bank...
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Junk Bonds on the Naughty List
by Brad Houle, CFA Executive Vice President Last week, Third Avenue Management announced that they were freezing withdrawals from a leveraged credit fund. This announcement sent a wave of fear of...
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Ferguson Wellman Featured in Portland Business Journal
Don’t Sweat China, Says One of Oregon’s Largest Wealth Managers January 8, 2016 By Matthew Kish The slowing Chinese economy is ripping through markets, but Ferguson Wellman Capital Management is...
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Ralph Cole and Brad Houle Quoted in Bend Bulletin
Posted on Bend Bulletin’s website Experts express optimism to investors Advisers tell Bend clients trends from 2015 to continue By Joseph Ditzler January 22, 2016 For investors, this year started with...
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Earnings Season Underway
by Brad Houle, CFA Executive Vice President As of Thursday this week, roughly one-third of the S&P 500 companies have reported earnings for the fourth quarter of 2016. Of the 171 companies that...
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A Negative Space in a Positive Outlook
by Brad Houle, CFA Executive Vice President Currently, nearly 30 percent of the world’s sovereign debt has a negative yield. Said differently, owners of $7 trillion worth of government bonds issued by...
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The Circus Is in Town
by Brad Houle, CFA Executive Vice President Our clients regularly ask about the financial impact of elections, especially as Election Day nears. We do know that, on average, the market is up 11 percent...
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“Brexit” Angst
by Brad Houle, CFA Executive Vice President While interest rates barely moved this week, a positive mood settled in over global stock markets. This S&P 500 was up over 2 percent, and international...
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When the Metrics Don’t Fit
by Brad Houle, CFA Executive Vice President Investor confidence rallied the S&P 500 this week with the index climbing to all-time highs mid-week and returning more than one percent by the week’s...
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