(New York)

We appear to be in the middle of a long-absent bout of volatility for both stocks and bonds. After a year of almost no volatility, all the major US indices fell strongly last week. The market is also off to a rocky start today. Now, Barron’s is arguing that this could be the beginning of an ugly ride. The reason why is that the recent trend of stocks and bonds being negatively correlated is ending. While for many years bond prices would rise when stocks fell, and vice versa, the opposite is happening now. Because the market fears rate hikes, bonds and stocks are falling in unison, with nothing to give the market comfort. For that reason, the “bond cushion” that has protected markets since the Crisis, appears to be gone.

FINSUM: The whole paradigm of markets is changing right now. Stock investors cannot simply flee into Treasuries as they have for years, which means there is little place a hide—a fact which could bring more serious losses.

(New York)

So we are a year into the presidency of one of the country’s biggest real estate developers. However, the reality is that a lot of uncertainty looms over the housing market. Between rising rates and the new less-interest-friendly tax package, the market is facing some headwinds. But analysts say that the biggest driver right now is that the uncertainty around the tax package is finally in the rearview mirror, which is allowing deals to go through which were previously on hold.

FINSUM: Our view is that the top end of the market, say $1m+ homes, are going to struggle a bit for a few years. The reasons why being the new limited mortgage interest deductions rules, and the fact that the Millennial generation, which will drive home buying, are not very wealthy yet.

(New York)

Okay, so there is a lot to be gloomy about with the stock market right now. Stocks had a terrible run last week and are off to a poor start today. However, looking in the longer-term, there is some heartening news. That news is that despite some forecasters saying the demographic backdrop for stocks looks weak as Baby Boomers begin to withdraw money as they retire, all that slack, and perhaps more will be taken up by the Millennial generation, which is the largest in the US.

FINSUM: Here is an additional argument we found interesting—that compared to market history, stock returns for the period from 2000 to 2016 were very weak on a relative basis. Coupled with the demographics, it makes one think there may some long-term potential left for this market.

(New York)

For years the big fear across the wealth management industry was that robo advisors would steal clients for human advisors and eventually leave the latter jobless. However, several years of evidence shows that is not actually what is happening. First of all, it is not Millennials which are the biggest consumers of robo services, rather it is baby boomers. For instance, Vanguard reports that 85% of those enrolled in its robo are over the age of 50. Even at Merrill’s Edge platform, the percentage is 45%. Additionally, the ~$200 bn that has been brought under management by robos does not seem to have migrated out of human-advised accounts, but rather is new money coming into the industry, representing pure growth.

FINSUM: While the threat of robos has been lessening over the last couple of years, this is downright positive news. Rather than eating away at human advisors, robos seem likely to actually bring more capital to the table.

(Los Angeles)

A term which is anathema to the ears of real estate developers and landlords is once again rearing its head—rent controls. A push for localized and state rent controls is mounting across the country and the battleground appears to be in California, which is set to vote on a number of such measures. Mid-sized and large cities have been seeing double digit percentage annual rent increases for years, which has led to an incredible pushback from tenants. A number of ballot measures would give local governments across the country significant power to control rents.

FINSUM: It has been a long time since these policies were last in force in a major way, and the collective memories of their downside seems to have been forgotten. All that said, this push is a reaction to the huge investment in housing that private equity firms made following the Crisis. Since then they have raised rents aggressively, which has led to this inevitable grass roots push.