Articles by Brian Kozel

We often take for granted how products arrive at our doorsteps or on store shelves. The pandemic has caused a snarled supply chain, and the resulting scarcity is driving up product prices.

Transitory disruptions to the global supply chain persist and the impact on long-term valuations grow as investors question how companies will recover and protect their profits against future disruptions.

History offers many examples of war and tragedy that can be used to analyze how markets make sense of the potential financial impacts during a crisis.

The prevailing story in the markets over the past year has been economic recovery, pandemic progress, and Fed support. The story has supported price growth but hinges on a “just right” middle path to keep those three pillars in balance.

The Olympics reliably provide great drama. Whether it’s enough to justify the cognitive dissonance of hammering forward with the Games amid a health crisis is another question

Investors face the question of whether high equity prices are a sign of speculative excess or a reasonable conclusion based on pandemic-altered demand and a recovering economy.

In a showing of bipartisan support, the US Senate voted for the Innovation and Competition Act. It provides widespread support for research and development in technology and science, representing a long-term view that will hopefully drive needed patterns of change.

The national employment headline numbers don’t tell the full story of a fraught employment landscape, with ‘help wanted’ signs outpacing job applications in recent weeks.

Tax rates and mortgage rates are both on the rise. For some investors, these shifts may indicate negative trends for market prices and economic growth. If we zoom out for perspective, history tells us that these increases may not be such a bad thing.

Many industries have been unprepared for rapid surges in demand caused by the pandemic. Notably, the lumber and microprocessor industries find themselves rationing scarce quantities through higher prices.

One method of gaining perspective when faced with overwhelming data is to zoom out and understand how recent activity fits into a larger pattern. By doing this, we can gain a better understanding of the ‘relative progress’ during the pandemic versus the ‘absolute progress’ over a longer timeframe.

Traffic on the Suez Canal is fully halted in both directions after the Ever Given became lodged in the embankment. Fascinating as it is, the bottleneck and the slowdown that it’s caused will ultimately be a short-term detour in the long-term trajectory of global trade.