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Last week, markets were caught on the wrong foot by the latest package of measures by the European Central Bank (ECB). There was no headline increase of monthly asset purchases, which are currently at EUR 60bn. Since then, investors have grown used to ECB President Mario Draghi over-delivering, earning him the nickname “Super Mario”. When Draghi failed to do so this time around, investors were unprepared. This overview discusses how the ECB measures are impacting international markets.

With a significant number of private equity groups (PEGs) working to succeed in this market, it has become increasingly difficult to identify targets poised for significant growth based on financial analysis alone.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing recently on eight proposed tax agreements: tax treaties with Chile, Hungary and Poland, and protocols amending US tax treaties with Luxembourg, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters. Treasury Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Tax Affairs Robert Stack testified at the hearing, noting it had been over five years since the full Senate had last given its advice and consent to a tax treaty, and urging Senate action.

Those who live in hurricane-prone regions know all too well that when August rolls around, along with end-of-season barbeques comes the possibility of inclement weather patterns. At this time each year, areas of the United States brace for potentially destructive storm systems. As we start the seventh year of a bull market, the calendar is signaling that the stock market may be nearing storm season. Based principally on continued global central bank easing and lower oil prices, we believe the bull will run for at least another year, if not longer.

Market volatility can serve as a reminder of what investors can and can’t control. What is information, and what is noise? What is predictive of the future, and what is just the past? Long-term investors should focus on what they can control and stay the course – provided they are on the “best” course.

As the autumn winds begin to gust in 2015, Jeremy Siegel’s disciples seem ubiquitous across the world of institutional investing. Allocations to equities are massive with the mentality being “of course we all know a correction is coming but I would rather suffer through a correction than miss the next leg up.” Eager to buy into Siegel’s mantra that endorse higher fee assets, Financial Advisors are aggressively talking down any semblance of real portfolio diversification, merely shuffling allocations between correlated paper assets.

In a year of notable financial developments, perhaps the most far-reaching and visible of this group is the sharp decline in oil prices in the second half of 2014. Crude has dropped more than 50% since June and is now trading below $50 per barrel. This precipitous decline stands in contrast to a prior four years of relative price stability when oil traded in a fairly narrow range between $93 and $118 per barrel. What are the causes of the rapid change in sentiment around oil? How have capital markets reacted? What will be the impact of lower priced energy for e

Chief Investment Officer David Donabedian recaps the first half of 2015 and provides an outlook for economic activity and financial markets in the third quarter of the year.

The phrase “private equity liquidity” once felt like an oxymoron, but the picture is rapidly changing.Liquidity has traditionally meant something very different for private equity than it has for other types of investments. While investors in other vehicles could trade their positions quarterly, monthly, or daily, those in closed-end private equity funds typically agreed to have their capital locked up for a number of years before they saw a return. But as private equity investment vehicles and trading venues advance, that difference is now diminishing.