Bedell Frazier Investment Counselling

The final stretch is near. It’s been quite a year for investors. Everywhere you look, up and down Wall Street, you simply can’t escape the AI hype. Artificial Intelligence is expected to revolutionize our way of life, much like the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century and the advancement of the internet towards the end of the 20th. Those were pretty big. Of course that’s a complete understatement. They both changed the game fo...

The Fed cut interest rates for the first time this year. No surprise, it was a virtual certainty heading into the meeting. This was the first rate cut in 9 months, after an extended period of pause to gauge the impacts of tariffs and overall inflation. Fed Chair Powell called it a “risk-management cut”. It’s not a catchy phrase. But it speaks to the indecisiveness at the central bank. Debate is natural. It’s healthy, when used with...

Hiring in America hit stall-speed in August. Just 22K jobs were created. That was a big miss from the 77K expected. The unemployment rate remains at 4.3%. A weakening labor market has been the driver for a potential Fed interest rate cut. That’s kept the Stock Market buoyant. Job openings fell back in July to the lowest in 10 months. The decline in available jobs was most pronounced in Health Care, Retail and Hospitality. Those las...

The AI race is upon us. It's been escalating ever since ChatGPT made its appearance in the Fall of 2022. Nvidia has been the undisputed leader in the race. Companies, both at home and abroad, have scrambled to get their hands on Nvidia's chips. Demand significantly outstrips supply. That sends prices higher. You remember that from Econ 101. That has propelled Nvidia's revenues and profits, which helps explain its sto...

Trade wars are picking up again. The 90-day truce on tariffs expires next week. Talks continued all week with varying degrees of urgency and speed. This week, the American President announced a new twist on tariffs. It's squarely directed at chips and digital devices. President Trump threatened 100% tariffs on semiconductors made overseas. But he said companies that have committed to building manufacturing facilities in the US...

This was another week of some serious Market-moving activity. We just knew it would be. On tap was a Fed meeting, a slew of earnings and more trade talks. The week would end with the July Jobs Report. There was a whole lot to chew on for investors, though many answers remain unknown. Volatility has definitely picked up, despite the S&P hitting new, all-time highs this week. But those gains turned to losses midday Thursday. They...

To say the Stock Market has been resilient is a complete understatement. Investors have been hit with multiple shocks in the first half of 2025. They’ve ranged from 2 wars overseas, American bombs hitting Iran, a Chinese AI threat called DeepSeek and the April obliteration day around trade.  They all created serious bouts of volatility. But none of these events have succeeded in derailing the rally. The S&P 500 is back to all-t...

I was chatting with a friend of mine this week about all of the issues going on around the world. I do that a lot. I like to learn how other people think. Gathering information and broad perspectives is a valuable tool. Our home state almost always comes up in conversation. California has become a bit of a lightning rod of late. People seem to either love it or hate it. Realistically, it’s kind of always been that way. I’m not goin...

The Stock Market is not the Economy. The Economy is not the Stock Market. To be sure, there are definite overlapping influences, no question. But they are both completely separate entities. At times they move in tandem. Other times, they move in opposite directions. The Market is forward looking. It anticipates events and prices in those expectations in advance. Of course, there are events that are difficult if not impossible to pr...

This was yet another wild and eventful week for the Market. Where to start? Well, we found out this: President Trump didn’t have the powers to impose those global tariffs. That, from the U.S. Court of International Trade which struck down the tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The trio of judges on the panel found the President overstepped his authority by imposing across-the-board duties on impo...

Memorial Day weekend is the unofficial kickoff to Summer in America. It’s full of graduations and barbecues. Many hit the beaches and the lakes, from coast to coast. However, it seems to have become increasingly easy for people to forget the real purpose of this special day. Memorial Day is the major American holiday observed on the last Monday of May. It is dedicated to honoring and remembering our brave men and women who made the...