Michael Carrico

With earnings season winding down and this week’s relatively light economic calendar, the talk of the week has been around Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s speech at Jackson Hole which is underway as of the publishing of this article. One of these days, speeches by Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) members and monetary policy decisions may once again be humdrum affairs which don’t compel regular newsletter updates, but that time has not yet come.

“Is the 60/40 Portfolio dead?!” I have seen some variant of this as an article title every few months for years. It’s a click-bait title and it is intriguing. The argument usually made in these articles is that investors can no longer rely on a diversified portfolio built primarily of traditional investment assets such as stocks and bonds to support retirement goals. I respectfully disagree with that assessment and today I’ll tell you why.

Three banks have made headlines in recent days, Silvergate Bank and its holding company Silvergate Capital Corp (NYSE: SI), Signature Bank (Nasdaq: SBNY), and most notably Silicon Valley Bank and its holding company SVB Financial Group (Nasdaq: SIVB).  Silvergate Bank is a major bank of the cryptocurrency community and announced on March 8, 2023 that it would be winding down operations with plans to liquidate voluntarily.[1]  On Friday, March 10, 2023 California banking regulators announced that the FDIC would take over the liquidation of Silicon Valley Bank holding company SVB Financial Group.[2]  On Sunday night, March 12, New York banking regulators announced that Signature Bank would be placed into receivership of the FDIC.[3]