May 2023

Psychology has brought many ideas to financial analysis, but two that stand out are confirmation bias and myopic loss aversion. Confirmation bias is the tendency to find or accept only research that mainly supports an existing thesis.[1] “The more often one looks at a financial account, the more likely one is to see a loss and, since losses bother us more than gains, they spur turnover.” This is called myopic loss aversion.[2] Combatting these two tendencies is important for investors and their advisors to do, especially in volatile times.

A year removed from the Russian invasion of Ukraine and three years from the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, supply chain disruptions and bottlenecks have eased, remote working is on the decline, travel and entertainment businesses are seeing a strong recovery, consumer spending is steady, and inflation is beginning to come down—a return to some sense of normalcy. The equity markets have been aligned with the recovery and, perhaps hoping for a soft landing, have come back strongly for the past two quarters. Investors returned to growth stocks in Q1 following a surge by value stocks in Q4, providing a remarkably balanced positive swing to equity portfolios over the past six months.

Where does federal tax revenue come from? For all the talk about corporations and individuals paying their fair share and estate and gift taxes being important, it is probably a surprise that the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that for 2022, corporate taxes will make up 8% and estate and gift taxes will make up less than 1% of total federal revenue. As those who follow these debates will know, our international competition taxes corporate income at rates less than we do and the creation of aggregate wealth taxes in Europe has been reversed, so we’re unlikely to raise our corporate tax burden or estate tax burden, unless suicidal.