For business owners accustomed to evaluating companies, gold can be puzzling.   Some look at gold and the see Keynes’ “barbarous relic,” nothing more than an inanimate piece of metal with no economic utility (most famously, Warren Buffett). Others look at gold and see its inert qualities, its role as a medium of exchange over millennia, and conclude that gold has a role as a hedge against monetary debasement (for example, Jean-Marie Eveillard).    Our take: on the one hand, o

As investing commentator Howard Marks often says, we cannot predict the future but we can observe today's investor behavior and note whether others are speculating and chasing risk or hoarding cash and avoiding risk. No prizes for knowing where we stand today. A quick tour of the investing landscape reveals many examples of clear speculation - here are a few: Behavior marker #1 : yes, there is an ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) for everything today - even an ETF for meme stocks (

Here’s a snapshot of S&P 500 index company sales, dividends, earnings, and stock price performance, all expressed on a per share basis, for the 10 years ending 9/30/2025, courtesy of Mauldin Economics1: Margin expansion has been impressive (earnings per share growth almost 2x sales per share growth); but stock price performance has been even more impressive (with price up more than 3x sales) over the last decade.   Some way wonder if the extra price performance relates to the

When most people here the words “conservative investor” they think of somebody who owns more bonds and less stocks – bonds being associated with lower risk of loss.   But there is a better definition of the conservative investor and it was offered up by Andy Redleaf (mathematician, formerly of Whitebox Advisors and now at X Cubed Capital Management) many years ago, where Redleaf contrasts the conservative investor and the speculative investor:   To us, the fundamental differe

It’s commonly understood that the 3 golden rules of real estate investing are location, location, and location.   It’s less commonly...

An incredible amount of money has flowed into "private strategies" over the last 5 years. And that growth continues…take a look at...

Trade tensions remain elevated between the US and China and Liberation Day added fuel to that fire. China’s response included export...

Ted Seides (of Warren Buffett bet fame, where he wagered with Buffett that a portfolio of hedge funds would beat the S&P 500 index over...

In January we wrote to clients and told them: we are going to prioritize resilience for the foreseeable future. Why? Two things: scarcity...

We feel so strongly about what we do that we wrote a manifesto  about it.   Most businesses begin when an entrepreneur identifies someone...

“Deficit spending has taken the baton from Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing, but the net result remains stimulative capital flowing...

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”  – Henry David Thoreau   While researching U.S.-China relations on January...

Late 19th century and first half of the 20th century was a time of great economic development but a time of the great economic...

Are you confident things can get done the way you need them to get done without your presence? One way to think about culture: it's what...

More than 5 years of studying hard asset-related industries, businesses, and investment managers leads us to conclude that we are in the...

As for where we’re finding opportunity, I would argue non-U.S. markets today are generally mispriced. The focus has been on the U.S.,...

A common refrain at Bluestone is that the future is inherently uncertain. It reminds us not to get too wedded to our ideas about the way...

Seems like everyone in the economic and investing worlds is obsessed with the question of when the Federal Reserve is going to begin...

Once upon a time, stock prices responded (sooner or later) to the fundamental performance of the companies those stocks represent. Cash...

When you step into our world you will hear the term "capital allocation" a lot. But what does capital allocation mean, exactly? As...