On March 26 Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke reaffirmed the Fed’s desire to hold interest rates low for the foreseeable future. With current annual price inflation (CPI) running close to 3.0 percent and 90-day Treasury bills yielding 0.10 percent, it appears investors will continue to confront negative real returns on cash equivalent assets for some […]

In the current low interest rate environment many investors are “reaching for yield” by increasing their exposure to bonds with greater credit risk as a means of generating higher income or pursuing higher expected returns. Corporate bonds are an extremely valuable tool for managing risk, but caution is in order. For most individual investors, the

Headlines are proclaiming a rebound in the residential housing market, but investors and homeowners should be cautious. In March home prices rose on a national average by 10.9 percent from a year earlier, as measured by the Standard & Poor’s Case Shiller index, marking three straight months of year-over-year growth. Prices are still off the

The investment industry is quick to tout investment products based on the latest research. Firms are under intense pressure to quickly bring compelling new products to market. Eye-catching results that appear to break new ground tend to get attention, while less spectacular but often very important findings get ignored. These distorted incentives exist not only

Lowell Harriss, the late great economist and former Chairman of the AIER Board of Trustees was known as much for his humility as for his knowledgeof economics. At a recent event commemorating his mentor’s life, author and financial commentator Ben Stein recalled that in his lectures Professor Harrisswas never reluctant to admit that with regard

The MSCI Emerging Markets Index lost 9.9 percent of its value year-to-date as of August 31. The so-called BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China) have led the way down, as the MSCI BRIC Index lost 12.2 percent. The year thus far has been marked by social unrest in Brazil, chronic political corruption in Russia, a

Five years ago this month the Federal Reserve embarked upon a quantitative easing (QE) policy in an effort to bolster an economy that was on the ropes. Though it is difficult to measure QE’s contribution to growth it is clear that QE has created winners and losers among investors. QE is a technique distinct from

As 2013 draws to a close most of our recommended asset classes are poised to deliver full-year returns worth celebrating. At the risk of spoiling the party, however, we’ll take a more constructive approach and instead address head-on those concerns that might nevertheless be on the minds of our readers. Gold in particular is worth

Discipline, once again, was the watchword during 2011. Throughout the year worrisome news emerged from all around the globe. Yet, by year end most investors who followed our recommendations would have seen little change in the value of their portfolios (see our AIS Model Portfolios table on page 2 for hypothetical returns). • I will

AIER has developed a new and very useful index that measures price changes among goods and services that most of us purchase regularly. This greatly improves our ability to measure the cost of unanticipated price inflation and the impact it might have on investors’ household budgets. It is clear that the Consumer Price Index (CPI-U)