Who Are We Hearing From? 2022 has been the worst overall investment environment (including stocks, bonds, metals, etc.) in over 50 years. Investors have found very few places to hide. These are the investment periods that simply must be endured …
Brian is Back!
He didn’t actually leave but he is back as this quarter’s newsletter feature! As you may know, Brian Weisman founded Columbia Asset Management in 1997. What many of you may not know is that Brian is an avid gardener! He attributes this passion and …
Seriously Sarah
The title alliteration is a stretch…but seriously, our part-time remote employee, Sarah, worked with us in the office for a week! In this edition of our employee newsletter, Sarah reflects on all the things she enjoyed about being back as an …
Bear Market 2022
The Rough Start Continues The 2nd quarter of 2022 brought more and greater pain for investors as we hit the definition of a bear market – the stock market (S&P 500) being down 20% from its recent high, reached coincidentally right at the end …
We’re Not In 2021 Anymore
Off to a Rough Start After strong stock market returns in 2020 and 2021, it’s not terribly surprising to see the market struggling this year. That said, the reasons for the struggle are at least somewhat surprising: major inflation …
Grateful for this Group!
As many of you know, the Columbia Asset Management team is made up of a group of us that are passionate about the work we do. We’re more than happy to help our wonderful clients and we enjoy spending time with one another while getting the job done. …
2021 Was Surprising, What about 2022
Why the Market is Unpredictable Going into 2021, there were lots of clouds on the investment horizon: Covid was raging and the vaccine was only just rolling out, many people were still out of work and yet the market did not reflect these …
Chatting with Christen
It’s been over three years since we chatted with Christen. Since she was last interviewed for our employee newsletter, her family moved from California- where her husband completed his microsurgery fellowship at Stanford- to Carmel, Indiana. Her …
Big Is Getting Bigger and Is that a Storm or Just Some Clouds?!
Storm Clouds or Will It Pass Over? For quite a while, the stock market seemed to know only one direction since the dark days of March, 2020. Then September came along and the market promptly fell over 4.5% for the month. September and …
Big Is Getting Bigger and Is that a Storm or Just Some Clouds?!Read More
Alpha, Bravo, Charlie
First of all, who doesn’t love falling back to the phonetic alphabet whenever possible? (It turns out to be particularly useful knowledge when talking bond CUSIPS.) Since her last newsletter, Charlie too has earned her Certified Financial Planner …
Is the Market Predictable? – Not Really, but Human Behavior Is
Human Behavior: Panic The Colonial Pipeline’s hack in May seemed to create gas shortages all along the eastern seaboard. It turns out, there was never a shortage. Instead, simply the possibility of a shortage created panic buying that ended up …
Is the Market Predictable? – Not Really, but Human Behavior IsRead More
Quarter Report Revolution
We are nerding out over here at Columbia Asset Management and have some revolutionary news to share with our clients: we are updating our reporting software to Tamarac Reporting. Not everyone would call that news “revolutionary” but we are very …
GameStop?
GameStop! ….or Stop the Game? This winter GameStop went from a long-fading, electronic games retailer to the talk of the financial world as it routinely rose or fell 50% or more on a single day. The primary reason for these giant moves had next …
The Year that Was… and Was Not
Goodbye 2020 2020 has been one of the most unusual and tumultuous years in American history. Covid-19 struck with little warning early in the year while the highly contentious national election approached with lots of forewarning late in the …
Looping Back to Linda
It has been nearly three years since we started our Columbia Asset Management Employee Newsletter; and, as you can probably guess, we’ve run out of employees to introduce. However, a lot has happened in the world since then, so we’re starting back …
Perspective-A Very Useful Tool During Unusual Times
Back to Normal? The stock market had a strong 3rd quarter on the heels of a major recovery in quarter two. Having been broadsided by the pandemic during the first quarter, markets are now generally around level for the year (some parts up, others …
Perspective-A Very Useful Tool During Unusual TimesRead More
Recovery? Yellow Light Short Term, Green Light Long Term
Bouncing Back? What the first quarter took, the second quarter has largely given back….at least in general. Though Covid-19 is still an unknown factor in the coming months and the resulting societal changes have been putting downward pressure on the …
Recovery? Yellow Light Short Term, Green Light Long TermRead More
A New World!
We hope you and your loved ones are staying safe and healthy! It has not been the same without seeing our clients in person, but we are grateful to be able to continue to assist you all even while we do our best to stay socially-distant from each …
Well, THAT wasn’t on the Radar
The Black Swan Flyeth After an 11 year bull market, I was ready for a bear to show up sooner rather than later. However, I had no firm idea what would finally be the catalyst for a falling market as interest rates stayed low, the economy seemed …
The Precedents on Presidents
Was 2019 to be Expected? The 4th quarter of 2018 was a very tough time in the stock market and the S&P 500 fell about 12% over just 90 days. The low point for the year, surprisingly, was Christmas Eve, when the Dow Jones fell about 700 points …
Opportunity of the Century…..for our Government
Stock’s Magical Levitation The stock market has been bumping along at lofty levels in recent months – trending somewhat up at times and then down again. Overall, it’s still been a very good year in the stock market, at least to date. Though the …
Keeping up with CAM
With a lot of planning ahead and all hands on deck, we’ve executed a successful move into our new office space and it is already starting to feel like ours. We liked the space “as is” when the lease was signed but we had some ideas of how we would …
The Story of Interest Rate Hopes and The Wall of Worry
Hey Bud – Can I Have a Rate Cut?! Some seem to look at the Fed as a drug dealer of sorts –whenever things get a little rough in the market or economy, they look to the Fed to cut interest rates to make everything feel better again. There is a danger …
The Story of Interest Rate Hopes and The Wall of WorryRead More
The Ship Has Been Righted…..and Fast!
The Market Bounces Back! As quickly and notably as the market fell during the 4th quarter, it did the complete opposite this quarter. What does this mean, if anything? It certainly suggests market turns of momentum are often based more on perception …