Introduction

The goal of the Global Market Monitor is to commentary on the global investment landscape. Nothing presented in this post should be considered an investment recommendation. If you would like specific investment advice, contact us at www.dightmancapital.com.

I will attempt to cover general market conditions, a wide variety of asset classes, and economic developments. I may also periodically insert comments on changes in the financial services industry that may be interesting to individual and institutional investors.

Most of my investing work is done with Exchange Traded Funds but some access classes and investments strategies are accessed through mutual funds. I do follow individual stocks for the clues they provide to the overall health of the equities marketplace.

I try to approach the process from a forward looking macro economic and market view in an effort to determine whether an offensive or defensive investment strategy appears more appropriate. I then look more specifically at which asset classes should work well in the environment I expected over the coming months.

At Dightman Capital Group, we believe it is important to hold a wide vareity of assets at all times. But we also believe there are periods where we might want to change the amount we hold in a given asset class due to changes in economic and market conditions (interest rates, gross domestic production, exchange rates, P/E ratios, technical analysis, yield spreads, etc.). This might lead us to place more emphasis on hard assets vs. stocks, short term bonds over long term bonds, international stocks over U.S., etc.

I try to keep it short and easy to read. I also like to have fun investing.

Brian