Steve is a Director at Focus Partners | Wealth, was a Partner, Board Member, and Chief Economist at predecessor firm Hoyle Cohen, and previously founded Stellar Capital Management where he served as Managing Partner and Chief Economist. He has over 30 years of applied economics experience specializing in establishing economic outlooks, forecasting, and leading teams that provide investment, and portfolio management services.
He has written monthly interpretations of the economy & financial markets for both internal and external use, and co-authored quarterly summaries of the same for clients and general public for roughly 25 years. In addition, created monthly video clips of the same type of material and contributed to many additional video clips firmwide. He has spoken with groups ranging from 10 - 1,000 people across the country on those topics for the past 25 years. As a Certified Business Economist (CBE) and Certified Financial Manager (CFM), I easily create the links between global economics, the markets, and investors, which is a type of applied analysis not practiced by many.
Currently, Steve has a national reach and is focused on integrating investment teams and investment portfolios of recently purchased/merged firms with that of the "Mother Ship" so to speak. Challenging work, and the investment/economic expertise makes to process run better.
With all of the shiny objects around these days distracting us from getting accurate information and data, he has proven to be able to ut through much of the noise by providing very focused responses, quite possibly alternative viewpoints, and can respond quickly to initial requests, and of course follow up requests.
The stock market remains very strong as it continues to trade at/near record highs and refuses to pullback in a meaningful fashion. This environment leads many people to ask: Are investors too complacent?
Stellar Capital Management website
Over the last year, money has rushed into the short end of the yield curve to capture yields that exceed that offered by longer dated bonds. Despite that rush, in the last few months, longer-term interest rates have fallen, pushing bond prices higher, and stock prices have surged. What's up? Inflation is better contained than many think, and the economy is stronger than many think, thanks to a quite stable employed consumer. All else being equal, it is expected that the yield curve normalizes over the next 6-9 months, which will impact the money that has rushed into the short end of the yield curve as short-term yields drop below longer-term yields.
When asked why volatility has been so low for so long. FOMO (fear of missing out) has created enough new buyers to step in at the first sign of an opportunity halting the lower half of expected volatility based on historical standards.