News & Awards

As we’ve discussed in our recent market outlook commentary, traditional economic indicators such as shrinking GDP, stubbornly high inflation, and rising interest rates mislead 70% of economists who expected a U.S. recession in 2023. Now that we are three months into 2024, where are these indicators? And what has changed about the outlook? 

At the start of 2023, investors and economists anticipated a challenging year for markets, and according to Bloomberg, 70% of economists polled expected a U.S. recession. Contrary to these predictions, it was an excellent year for the stock market and the economy.

On December 1st, less than 2 weeks prior to the December 13th FOMC meeting, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said in a speech that “it would be premature to conclude with confidence that we have achieved a sufficiently restrictive stance, or to speculate on when policy might ease.”

As we pass the halfway point of the final quarter of 2023, we find ourselves in another risk-on rally fueled by hopes of an imminent soft landing accompanied by sooner-than-expected rate cuts by the Federal Reserve.

Recent record-breaking wildfires have caused a reexamination of wildfire suppression policies in place in North America for over 150 years. Rather than allow smaller fires to burn periodically as Indigenous populations had done historically, we have instead focused on extinguishing fires whenever possible, particularly when they threaten lives or property.

Our macro updates are usually focused on the “will they or won’t they?” decisions of the Federal Reserve and the market and economic impacts of those decisions. With no FOMC meeting on the calendar for August, this month we will focus on the recent volatility in long term rates, over which the Fed has much less control than it does on the shorter end of the curve.

When evaluating ESG portfolios, a very important question to ask is if ESG data is being used as a process of evaluation, or is it being sold as a product?  ESG as a product refers to the data that companies like MSCI, Sustainalytics, and Thomson Reuters put out.  These data products overweight high-scoring companies and…

Jessica Skolnick, CFA, Director of Investments Adam Bernstein, ESG Analyst Macro Update As we wrap up the first half of 2023, we are astonished by and skeptical of the relentless rally in risk assets against a backdrop of escalating risks and near catastrophes. It reminds us of a Jenga tower in the late stages of…

Jessica Skolnick, CFA, Director of InvestmentsAdam Bernstein, ESG/IMPACT Analyst For over a year, we have been managing our portfolios defensively and writing about the myriad risks and headwinds we see facing the market. A defensive posture was easy to maintain in 2022. Fed rate hikes spooked equity markets and risk assets in general. 2023 has…

At Gitterman Wealth Management, we refer to ESG as the GPS of Investing®. Just as we historically used fold out maps when we would take a road trip, we now have GPS systems, which update constantly and include numerous additional data sets to make our trips smoother, easier, and quicker.  We now know more about…