Kavar Canvas

You Can’t Live in the Lab

Date16 May 2023

By: Douglas G. Ciocca Attribution is reflexive in managing money. Understanding why things happen in markets is critical for a variety of reasons: 1) It’s formative philosophically; 2) It helps to avoid future mistakes and; 3) It triggers tactical transitions. Often, as the saying...

Be Curious, Not Judgmental

Date17 Jan 2022

By: Douglas G. Ciocca After a fantastic finish to 20211, US stock markets have stumbled to start the new year. As of this writing, all major indices are lower after 2 weeks of trading in ‘22 and the resounding rationale regularly references: Covid persistency...

Time in the Market…..Not Timing the Market

Date31 Jan 2021

By: Douglas G. Ciocca This past week, Kavar Capital Partners celebrated our 10-year Anniversary. I will resist any clichés as to how fast it has passed but would clock it comparable to a sideline-streaking Tyreek Hill. As with any retrospective, there are certain prominent...

Keeping Politics in Their Place

Date25 Oct 2020

By: Douglas G. Ciocca With the last of the debates in the books; with over 50 million votes already cast; and with local legislator’s ad wheels in overdrive, the election is, finally, upon us. 1 week and 2 days from now, we’ll all tune...

Years of Experimentation

Date07 Nov 2019

By: Douglas G. Ciocca It is always interesting to compare headlines from prior periods. Often, they are ominous framers of the future. Alternatively, they magnify matters of the moment. Regardless, they are a time stamp, offering insights to the psyche prevailing at print. A...

When Push Comes to Shove

Date07 May 2019

In just the last week or 2, financial markets have exhibited a trait otherwise absent thus far in 2019: volatility. Courtesy of a combination of trade-talk consternation and earnings ambiguity, large intra-day price swings, heavy put option/protection buying and a bounce in the VIX...

Mixing Metaphors

Date11 Jun 2018

Five and one half months into 2018 and I can’t help but be reminded of Herman the Hermit’s snappy rendition of: “I’m Henry the VIII, I Am,” from the Ed Sullivan Show in 1965. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GisCRxREDkY) The recollection has nothing to do with the British...

Questions and Quandaries in the New Year

Date16 Jan 2018

In 1939, Winston Churchill characterized the geopolitical interests of Russia as, “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” Essentially, they were so dense and secretive as to be indecipherable and impossible to foretell.1 Such a colorful, triple-barreled description applies today, almost 80...

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