Authored by: Edward Toy – Director, Investment Specialist Coming into 2023, the Federal Reserve Board (the “Fed”) had been aggressively increasing interest rates with a goal of taming a sharp spike in inflation. Expectations were high that this would lead to an economic recession either in 2023 or early 2024. Equity markets had dropped dramatically...

Authored by: Edward Toy – Director, Investment Specialist We have just passed the mid-year mark for 2023. Compared to year-end 2022, the 30-year Treasury is yielding one basis point higher, while the 10-year is up nine basis points, and the 1- year is up 71 basis points. The Treasury yield curve is inverted (short-term yields...

Authored by: Edward Toy – Director, Investment Specialist On Monday, May 1st, prior to the opening of the market, the Fed announced the takeover of First Republic Bank and sale to J.P. Morgan. This was the third major bank failure in the last two months. Market participants continue to focus on other mid-sized banks with...

Authored by: Edward Toy – Director, Investment Specialist To say that 2022 was an eventful year for investments would be a significant understatement. Interest rates rose across the entire yield curve. Market spreads varied. Equity markets jumped up and down. Oil prices spiked and then settled back down. Commercial real estate values rallied before dropping....

Authored by: Edward Toy – Director, Investment Specialist It is commonly understood that investment profiles, strategies and practices differ among U.S. insurance companies. Life insurance companies invest differently from Property & Casualty (“P&C) and Health insurance companies. These differences reflect different needs in asset-liability management and meeting liquidity requirements. In addition to differences across insurer...

Authored by: Edward Toy – Senior Manager, Investment Specialist The COVID-19 Pandemic resulted in economic turmoil and substantial disruption to virtually every investment market in 2020. In many ways the recovery in the second half of 2020 and into 2021 was nearly as surprising to analysts. The areas of potential concern were overtaken by the...

Authored by: Edward Toy – Senior Manager, Investment Specialist 2021 was generally a good year for investment markets after a tumultuous 2020. The S&P 500 reported an overall price gain of 26.9%. National indices of commercial real estate values recovered significantly. Bond defaults and rating agency downgrades moderated significantly. As insurance regulators head into 2022,...

Authored by: Edward Toy – Senior Manager, Investment Specialist With the COVID-19 Pandemic and the resulting economic turmoil, 2020 was a very challenging year for investors in general, and that included U.S. insurance companies. With financial statement data available for year-end 2020, this is a good time to consider how investments may have changed for...

Authored by: Edward Toy – Senior Manager, Investment Specialist Following on our last Market Briefing from earlier this year (March 11, 2020), to say that we have experienced a roller coaster ride in the last six months would be an obvious understatement. The impact of the pandemic on the US economy was severe and we...

Authored by: Edward Toy – Senior Manager, Investment Specialist There is an inherent risk in presenting any cogent ideas about the market in an environment as what we have been experiencing in recent weeks. At any given moment, the data I am relying on may be substantially stale as the Dow Industrials, which is the...