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A dollar today buys nearly twice as many Japanese yen as it did fifteen years ago. Crude oil, in yen terms, is up roughly 70% year to date. Food prices are similarly elevated. Japan imports most of the energy and much of the food it consumes, paying for it in dollars that keep getting more […]
Real Investment Advice is the editorial home of RIA Advisors — a registered investment advisory firm managing client portfolios through every cycle since 1995. We publish what we actually do: the analysis driving real portfolio decisions for real money.
No consensus narratives. No paid placements. No catastrophist click bait. Just disciplined, evidence-driven commentary on markets, the economy, and the policy machinery that moves both — written by the portfolio managers who own the calls.
Daily Market Commentary
Crude peaked at $106 on September 15 and has since fallen nearly 15% to $90. Despite the recent downturn, gasoline futures are up 1.9% over the same period. The margin between the two widened from roughly $40 to $58 per barrel. That is over three times the twenty-year median, $17, and sits in the 99.8th […]
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A dollar today buys nearly twice as many Japanese yen as it did fifteen years ago. Crude oil, in yen terms, is up roughly 70% year to date. Food prices are similarly elevated. Japan imports most of the energy and much of the food it consumes, paying for it in dollars that keep getting more […]
Daily Market Commentary
The graph below, courtesy of Apollo, shows that not one FOMC member sees downside risks to the economy. This must be a very bullish signal, given that most FOMC members are seasoned business veterans or economists. Further, they are supported by over 400 PhD’s in economics. Unfortunately, despite the experience and educational background of the […]
Daily Market Commentary
The Dow has lost ground for three weeks running, down nearly 3.5% from its August 28 close, while the Nasdaq 100 is slightly higher over the same period. That performance gap has worried some market pundits, as they say it may be signaling a downturn. While that might be true, we think the performance differential […]
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Get answers drawn directly from the Bull Bear Report, Daily Commentary, blog archive, and Lance's long-form research. Cited. Linked. Sourced.
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Valuations across semiconductors and hyperscaler capex are pricing in 2028 revenue today. SOXX has reached parabolic levels last seen at prior cycle peaks — Nasdaq 2000, semis 2018, semis 2021. The question isn’t whether AI is real; it’s whether $60 billion-per-year promises to Oracle from companies that don’t yet earn that revenue can be sustained without a meaningful correction.
Our weekly Bull Bear Report tracks the semiconductor breadth, capex commitments, and the option-implied tail risk. We don’t predict tops — we measure when the trade gets crowded enough that the risk/reward turns.
The latest FOMC projections show three camps. Doves favor further cuts to insulate the labor market. Hawks see a re-acceleration of services inflation and want to hold. The middle warns that easing into elevated equity valuations would be a textbook policy error.
Bond market pricing currently reflects ~1.4 cuts over the next 12 months — below the SEP median. That gap is where opportunity lives. See our same-day FOMC reaction note for the full dot plot interpretation.
Asset allocation always depends on age, time horizon, and risk tolerance. But the current environment — equity valuations 18% above the 10-year forward P/E average, stable bond yields above 4%, and elevated geopolitical tail risk — argues for keeping bonds as the primary portfolio stabilizer rather than chasing alternatives.
Our free Retirement Income E-Guide walks through the framework. Richard Rosso, CFP, also publishes a recommended reading list each January for investors building literacy in this space.
The 200-day moving average is the rolling 200-trading-day mean closing price of an index. For the S&P 500, it currently sits at 6,612. The index is roughly 3.55% above this level.
Historically, sustained breaks below the 200-DMA have demarcated bullish from bearish market regimes. RIA’s internal research on the post-breakdown record — an 87% win rate at six months, average return +14%, average max drawdown −16.5% — informs how we size positions when the trend line is tested.
Gold at $3,142 reflects two things: real demand from central banks diversifying reserves, and a reflexivity loop where rising prices drive more buying. The 1970s analog — gold as a stagflation hedge — doesn’t transfer cleanly because the macro setup is fundamentally different. Today’s debt levels make any sustained Fed inflation tolerance much costlier.
Gold can be a tactical position. It is not, in our view, the structural portfolio stabilizer some commentary suggests. See our long-form piece on the commodity supercycle thesis for the full argument.
Private credit refers to direct lending from non-bank investors to mid-market companies, typically at floating rates and through funds managed by firms like Blackstone, Blue Owl, Apollo, and BlackRock. The asset class has grown from $500B to over $1.7T in a decade.
The stress isn’t yet visible in marks — private credit is held at cost, with quarterly fair-value adjustments rather than daily marks. But the public credit signal (BDC discounts, secondary market pricing) is widening. RIA’s private credit coverage tracks the indicators that matter.
Lance Roberts is the Chief Investment Strategist for RIA Advisors, a registered investment advisory firm based in Houston, Texas. He is the lead editor of the Real Investment Report, a weekly newsletter distributed to over 100,000 subscribers, and host of The Real Investment Show podcast. He has 35+ years of experience managing portfolios through the 1987, 1999, 2008, and 2020 cycles.
RIA Advisors manages approximately $1.5 billion in client assets, focused on high-net-worth individuals and institutions. Real Investment Advice is the firm’s editorial platform — the analysis driving the same portfolio decisions for client money.
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