Ascent Advisory

  The post last year [Inflation Perspectives] focused on timeframes for economic growth and estimating it over the medium to long term using the growth accounting formula. Specifically, the prediction that, “Increasing innovation in automation, robotics, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence foreshadow significant productivity gains due to technological innovation in the future.” That materialized rather …

The Productivity Boom and What It Can Mean for Investors Read More »

I would be remiss if I didn’t start this year’s blog, which centers on inflation, without acknowledging the questions we were considering at the beginning of 2023. Referring to the January 2023 post titled ‘2023: In like a lion, out like a lamb?’: “Questions to determine this year’s fate are: Is the engineered slowdown successful? …

Inflation perspectives: Factors to consider and how society ‘invents’ out of it Read More »

You name it. 2022 was the worst year for [Insert favorite Asset class] since [Insert historic year], and you’re probably correct. One that’s commonly quoted is that it was the worst year for the 60% Stock / 40% Bond portfolio since 1936. We can agree that 2022 was a painful year for most asset classes. Inflation …

2023: In like a lion, out like a lamb? Read More »

2021 was a banner year for the major U.S. indices. S&P 500 up 27%, Nasdaq up 21%, and the Dow Jones index up 19%. Large (by market capitalization) tech stocks led the way. F.A.N.G. names (Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Google) as well as Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla, most of which are trillion-dollar companies, helped the S&P …

Into the New Year – 2022 Read More »