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Each day between now and the conclave to elect a successor to Pope Francis, on a date yet to be set, John Allen is offering a profile of a different papabile, the Italian term for a man who could be pope. There’s no scientific way to identity these contenders; it’s mostly a matter of weighing reputations, positions held and influence wielded over the years. There’s also certainly no guarantee one of these candidates will emerge wearing white; as an old bit of Roman wisdom has it, “He who enters a conclave as a pope exits as a cardinal.” These are, however, the leading names drawing buzz in Rome right now, at least ensuring they will get a look. Knowing who these men are also suggests issues and qualities other cardinals see as desirable heading into the election.

ROME – When Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa heard the news Easter Monday that Pope Francis had died, he immediately cancelled his appointments and packed his bags for Rome. As he was leaving the headquarters of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, where he has led the Catholic flock in the Holy Land for the last decade, a small group of aides, employees and friends gathered outside as he was getting in the car to head to the airport.

A visibly touched Pizzaballa watched as they sang to him in Arabic: “May the Lord guide your steps with his wisdom, fill your heart with his spirit, and be with you if it’s his prayer that you should lead his church.”

Aside from being a sweet gesture, the impromptu serenade also had the feel of a farewell, since the people making up that cluster knew there’s a decent chance they won’t be seeing the 60-year-old Pizzaballa again anytime soon except on a TV screen as pope.

Pizzaballa was born in 1965 in the small community of Castel Liteggio in Bergamo, the same province that gave the church St. John XXIII, “Good Pope John,” whose memory still lives in countless ways in the region. He felt a religious vocation at a young age and entered the minor seminary, eventually becoming a member of the Franciscan order.

In Bologna the young Pizzaballa studied philosophy and theology, where he came to the attention of Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, an archconservative and a man of deep learning and culture who would eventually ordained Pizzaballa to the priesthood in 1990.

Shortly thereafter Pizzaballa made his way to Jerusalem, where he studied at the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum and earned a degree in Biblical theology. He later studied modern Hebrew and Semitic languages at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem before entering into the service of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, with primary responsibility for the Hebrew-speaking Catholic population.

Pizzaballa became the 167th Custodian of the Holy Land in 2004, and for the next twelve years he would become known as one of the few figures in that perennially divided corner of the world to forge friendships across the usual divides. He earned trust among Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians and Egyptians alike, developing a reputation as a moderate man of patience, listening and dialogue.

As one fruit of that profile, in 2014 Pope Francis entrusted Pizzaballa with organizing a peace prayer in the Vatican Gardens between then Israeli president Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, in the presence of both the pope and Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople.

In 2016, Pizzaballa was named the apostolic administrator of Jerusalem, effectively taking over the governance of the church in the Holy Land from Jordanian Patriarch Fouad Twal. At the time the appointment raised some eyebrows, since the appointment of Patriarch Michel Sabbah in 1987, and then Twal, was believed to have ended the Italian monopoly on the position and marked a transition to elevating patriarchs from the local Catholic population.

Yet those who knew the situation on the ground reported that the local clergy was divided, and in any event, they no longer regarded Pizzaballa as an outsider.

His first challenge was to address a deep financial crisis caused by Twal’s insistence on pouring money – some estimates claim as much as $100 million – into the construction of a Catholic university in Jordan without a clear business plan. Pizzaballa eventually righted the ship through a combination of aggressive fundraising, cutting costs and selling off assets, including real estate holdings in Nazareth.

In 2020 Pizzaballa formally took over as patriarch, and in 2023 he was created a cardinal by Pope Francis. Almost immediately the war in Gaza broke out, and ever since Pizzaballa has found himself trapped between his friends in Israel and the Jewish world on one side and his largely Palestinian and Arabic-speaking flock on the other. To the extent anyone can, he’s tried to show sympathy and understanding for both sides: He’s sharply criticized what he sees as the excesses of the Israeli military operation, but he also offered himself as a hostage in exchange for the Israeli citizens held by Hamas.

Personally, Pizzaballa sometimes comes off as a bit brusque upon first contact, but progressively warmer and with a keen sense of humor as one gets to know him. He’s also said to have a prodigious work ethic.

The case for Pizzaballa as pope?

First of all, precisely because his life has been dominated by the complexities of the Middle East and the Israel/Palestinian divide, he’s never really been forced to take clear public positions on divisive doctrinal and pastoral issues. Where he might stand on, say, the blessing of people in same-sex unions or the ordination of women deacons is something of a mystery.

As a result, he doesn’t bring a lot of baggage into the conclave in terms of past ecclesiastical controversies, potentially making him attractive both to those seeking continuity with Pope Francis and those hoping for change.

Moreover, Pizzaballa’s record of straddling the Israeli/Palestinian divide, sometimes achieving the rare feat of seeming to be on both sides at once, could be a selling point in a conclave in which healing the internal Catholic divisions unleashed by the Pope Francis era may well seem a priority.

Certainly Pizzaballa’s reputation for astute financial management would come in handy at a time when the Vatican is facing a deep fiscal crisis, including looming shortfalls in its pension funds. The hope might be that if he bailed the Patriarchate of Jerusalem out of debt, maybe he could so the same thing for the Holy See.

Utterly unscientifically, you just look at Pizzaballa and you sort of see a pope. He’s tall, with a distinguished-looking Van Dyke and the bearing of a serious man. Taken together with his background and reputation, it’s a compelling package.

One final consideration: A pope is also the Bishop of Rome, and although Pizzaballa isn’t Roman he does have a claim on local affections. His uncle, Pier Luigi Pizzaballa, was a goalkeeper in Italy’s top-flight soccer league, Serie A, in the 1960s and 70s, including a stint with the Roma squad from 1966 to 1969. Given how passionate Romans are about their soccer, they’d might be inclined to transfer some of that to their new bishop.

The case against?

The argument against Pizzaballa generally begins with his age, 60, which could augur for a longer papacy than some cardinals may wish. Yet his age could also work the other way, assuring cardinals wishing stability that they won’t have to go through the upheavals of a papal transition again anytime soon.

In addition, the lack of a clear indication of where Pizzaballa stands on many contested Catholic issues could frighten some voters, leading them to his a Pizzaballa papacy as too much of a journey into the unknown.

For all those who feel the election of another Italian pope would be a step back rather than forward, Pizzaballa obviously would be disqualified on those grounds, even if he’s spent most of his adult life outside Italy.

A final footnote.

In Italian, Pizzaballa’s last name literally means “pizza dance.” Merely contemplating the dancing pizza memes his election would generate suggests he would also be a compelling figure from a media point of view, perhaps affording him the chance to pick up the cultural megaphone left behind by Francis.

(Photo by MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP via Getty Images)

The post Papabile of the day: Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa – the bridge-builder from Jerusalem first appeared on Catholic Herald.

The post Papabile of the day: Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa – the bridge-builder from Jerusalem appeared first on Catholic Herald.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar have announced plans to pay off $15 million Damascus owes the World Bank

Saudi Arabia and Qatar have pledged to pay off Syria’s outstanding debt to the World Bank. The move signals a Gulf-led initiative to support Syria’s economic recovery under the newly-installed government. 

The Gulf nations announced their commitment to cover the roughly $15 million in outstanding debt following discussions on postwar Syria on the sidelines of last week’s World Bank and International Monetary Fund meetings in Washington.

Power in Syria changed late last year, when the jihadist group Hayat Tahrir-al-Sham (HTS) launched a surprise offensive, taking Damascus and ousting former President Bashar Assad. HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa became president and formed a new transitional government in March.

“This commitment will pave the way for the World Bank Group to resume support and operations in Syria after a suspension of more than 14 years,” Saudi Arabia and Qatar said in a joint statement on Sunday. 

The World Bank suspended its operations in Syria when the country’s civil war began in 2011. Settling the country’s arrears will allow the country to once again access the bank’s financial assistance and technical expertise at a time when its economy remains devastated, with GDP slashed by nearly 50% since 2010 and a reconstruction bill estimated at $400 billion.

Both countries have played a critical role in the diplomatic outreach to Syria’s new interim government. Saudi Arabia and its Gulf neighbors have increased humanitarian aid to Damascus recent months, but the debt settlement plan will mark the first instance of Saudi financial support being directed toward the country.

Syria’s central bank governor and finance minister attended the World Bank and IMF meetings in Washington this week, marking their first participation in more than two decades.

US sanctions, which have been in place since 2004 and target supporters of Assad, remain a major obstacle to Syria securing the aid it needs for reconstruction.

Last month, the US presented Syria with a list of conditions for partial sanctions relief, according to Reuters. Among the demands, were the destruction of any remaining chemical weapons stockpiles and increased cooperation on countering terrorism.

Russia has maintained ties with Syria’s new leadership despite granting Assad asylum after his ouster.

Russian President Vladimir Putin indicated that his country is committed to helping improve Syria’s social and economic conditions, including through humanitarian aid. The new government in Damascus has also signaled its intention to preserve “strategic” relations with Moscow.

Pyongyang has grown stronger since the historic summits of the previous decade, the outlet has observed

US President Donald Trump’s team is considering a new strategy for North Korea, potentially mirroring the diplomatic engagement of his first term, according to sources cited by Axios.

Trump met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in person multiple times, including in Singapore in 2018, Hanoi in 2019, and within the demilitarized zone on the Korean Peninsula later that same year. He is the first sitting US president ever to sit down at the negotiating table with his North Korean counterpart.

Trump has told his team that he wants to reconnect with Kim, potentially face-to-face, Axios reported on Sunday. The administration is “convening agencies to understand where the North Koreans are today,” said a senior official speaking on condition of anonymity. “A lot has changed in the last four years. We are evaluating, diagnosing and talking about potential avenues, including engagement.”

Currently, this initiative is not among the White House’s top priorities and involves consultations with external experts, including former officials and think tanks, the outlet said. Axios suggested that Washington holds less leverage over Pyongyang now than it did in the late 2010s, as North Korea has bolstered its military capabilities, including nuclear forces, and forged stronger ties with China and Russia.

Last year, North Korea and Russia signed a bilateral treaty that includes mutual defense provisions. Shortly thereafter, Ukraine started an offensive into Russia’s Kursk Region, aiming to gain leverage over Moscow in future negotiations.

North Korean troops were deployed to Russian territory to assist Moscow in repelling Ukrainian forces, culminating in the complete liberation of the region last week, according to Moscow. Over the weekend, President Vladimir Putin acknowledged the contribution of North Korean troops, commending their bravery and referring to them as brothers in arms.

The Trump administration is seeking a compromise deal to end the Ukraine conflict. Trump has accused Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky of undermining his efforts by publicly challenging key aspects of what media outlets describe as his peace plan.

The two leaders met on the sidelines of Pope Francis’ funeral in the Vatican on Saturday, with Zelensky pleading for more US weapons, according to Trump.

Judgement

Early in Dostoyevsky’s masterpiece The Devils, a meeting of “incredibly vain” and well-lubricated “new men” is recalled:

“They talked about the abolition of the censorship and spelling reform…of the abolition of the army and the navy, of the agrarian reform and of the political pamphlets, of the abolition of inheritance, the family, children and the priesthood, of the rights of women…”

This passage came to my mind when I heard that our (misnamed) UK Supreme Court had ruled, in the case of For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers, that for the purposes of the 2010 Equality Act the term “woman” is to be restricted to biological females. Those not biologically female yet carrying a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) declaring them to be female will not be regarded in law as coming under the definition of “woman” with regard to the Equality Act.

That judgement is, of course, most welcome. Yet if read in full it reinforces the impression that this is merely a victory of one faction of “new men” or “new women” over another and even more extreme faction.

We learn in the judgement at paragraphs 206 and 207, in a discussion of section 12 of the Equality Act and the “protected characteristic” of sexual orientation, that:

“a person with same sex orientation as a lesbian must be a female who is sexually oriented towards (or attracted to) females, and lesbians as a group are females who share the characteristic of being sexually oriented to females. This is coherent and understandable on a biological understanding of sex.”

Allowing those with a GRC declaring them female to count as “women” would confuse the whole issue of “sexual orientation.”  In the words of the judgement:

“The concept of sexual orientation towards members of a particular sex in section 12 is rendered meaningless. It would also affect the composition of the groups who share the same sexual orientation (because a trans woman with a GRC and a sexual orientation towards women would fall to be treated as a lesbian)…”

This would apparently have the dire result that,

“as well as the inevitable loss of autonomy and dignity for lesbians… it would also have practical implications for lesbians across several areas of their lives.”

Sexual Identity

Absent from the judgement is any sense that elevating a “sexual orientation” to the status of an identity which stands in need of legal protection might be part of the problem thanks to which judges must now declare solemnly that women are women and that men can’t become women by mere legal stipulation.

For if you ground the identity of a person in his/her sexual attractions, no less than in his/her maleness or femaleness, you are not giving due weight to the fundamental, bedrock importance of sexual difference and the complementarity of male and female bodies. The male or female body ceases, on this picture, to play its most profound role in our identity as persons, since its own reproductive meaning is subordinated to whatever sexual desires we happen to have. Our very bodily maleness and femaleness cease to have the normative meaning which forms part of our true identity.  That meaning stands above our desires and conditions which of them – consented to and followed through on – are compatible with living out our embodied lives in a manner worthy of our created being.

How did we get here? In terms of mass social movements – as opposed to individual biographies – what grounds both T and LGB? The short answer is that by denuding sexual acts, through contraception, of their procreative and unitive reality, we began already to detach our bodies from their biological telos. Coopting our sexual powers while distorting and impoverishing our expression of our sexual nature gets us used to the idea that our biology can be suppressed at will and that our “true self” can be somehow detached from what we actually are, namely embodied persons, male and female. Gender is then seen not as a way of understanding the interpersonal nature of our actual sexed bodies, but as an arbitrary, feeling-based construct which seeks to suppress the meaning of those bodies and make them “say” something else.

Make “sexual orientation” central to defining “identity” and you have made what gets to count as fundamental not (or not merely) what we are but what we happen to desire. And if desire is now to play this central role and one that can trump the normative meaning of our embodied self, why cannot the desire to change sex or to present as someone of the opposite sex be granted the same kind of “identity status” as being same-sex attracted? 

Of course, those opposed to the “T” of the LGBT movement will reply that you simply can’t change biological sex. And they are right to make this point. But neither can you turn a homosexual act into one that is marital if it is inherently incapable of forming that one-flesh procreative union which makes sense of the institution of marriage. And if your basis for identity bears no relation to the normative and nuptial meaning of your male or female body then don’t be surprised that some people will want to go a step further. They will redefine themselves in opposition to their body’s very structure – a structure whose meaning has been systematically downgraded by the very sexual revolution in  which feminist/LGB gender criticism is based. 

After all, we only call certain activities “sexual” because they relate in some way to our reproductive capacities, which themselves only exist because of male/female complementarity. Write this out of the picture, deny the telos of these capacities and redefine sex between same-sex couples as “uniting” them, and you have redefined sexual acts to suit human desires. The alternative is to understand some desires and acts as problematic because at war with what your embodied person normatively demands.

History and Liberty

But there is a deeper history to all of this and it relates to the history of this country and concerns liberty.

These islands have a proud tradition of liberty and we can all be said to benefit from that emphasis. It is worth remembering that one of the great achievements of Britain was the Magna Carta of 1215, which was a major step in vindicating the liberties of the people as a whole. The original charter only applied to people of a certain status but it was the Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, who ensured, in the highly significant 1225 iteration of the Charter, that the Charter was to apply to everybody.

That year also marked the birth of Thomas Aquinas, who did much to develop the Catholic worldview on which we live in a meaning-laden, teleological and governed universe. On that view God’s creative act is also a legislative act which, in the words of Stephen Brock, constitutes “the community of the universe, all the way down to the very natures or essences of its members”.  This itself “is an ‘ordination of reason, for the common good, by the one who has care of the community’”.

The eternal law constitutes the very goods and evils of created natures. Thus, “natural law has its force from God’s command, but, crucially, not solely in light of its relation to that command; for the command itself gives it an intrinsic force. Its force is its truth”. Natural law is simply the name for our participation in God’s eternal law and is naturally knowable by human beings.

The combination of protections for shared liberties with a God-centred view which took seriously the natural law which made sense of those liberties was a great blessing rich with possibilities, but things were to change.

Locke’s Revolution

The historian Eric Hobsbawm once wrote of Europe, in his Age of Revolution 1789- 1848 that, “religion, from being something like the sky, from which no man can escape and which contains all that is above the earth, became something like a bank of clouds, a large but limited and changing feature of the human firmament.” That vivid description also well describes what had been happening to the scholastic account of the order of the world and the nature of God and man in the seventeenth century of John Locke.

The scientific revolution launched a mechanistic understanding of nature which had the result of “neutralising” the domain of nature in such a way that it was no longer seen as normative. Ignoring the truth, known to all believers in essences, that we can know more than we can tell, Locke rejected the idea of intelligible natures and essences of all things and proposed that we suspend judgement on these traditional ideas and examine their foundation before accepting them. In Charles Taylor’s perceptive words:

“Locke aligns himself against any view which sees us as naturally tending to or attuned to truth.”

The task is one of demolition, not only of a normative view of nature but also of our very sense of identity.  The subject takes a radical stance of disengagement from himself with a view to remaking himself. As Taylor puts it,

“To take this stance is to identify oneself with the power to objectify and remake, and by this act to distance oneself from all the particular features which are objects of potential change. What we are essentially is none of the latter, but what finds itself capable of fixing them and working on them…the real self is “extensionless”; it is nowhere but in this power to fix things as objects.”

Locke, when it comes to personal identity, does not identify the self or person with any substance, but rather makes it depend solely on consciousness, generating a radically subjectivist view of the person. Locke simply assumes that what we call consciousness can be clearly distinguished from its embodiment.  Note how the meaning of the human body and the idea of human nature as normative drop out of this picture of the world.

Whereas Aquinas and Suarez believe that the foundation of morality is naturally knowable intrinsic rightness and wrongness, and understand moral obligation as involving a special form of the ethics of virtue and vice, Locke can only account for the phenomenon of moral obligation in terms of divine commands. Nature as normative is not available to him. On this picture, morality aside from divine commands which oblige us, is reduced to virtue understood in terms of mere advantage and this is an insufficient basis for moral duties. A voluntarist understanding of God, separate from an appreciation of natural law involves a downgrading of human nature and the human body as a source of moral knowledge. For morality has become not the “intrinsic” morality of Aristotle where immorality violates human nature, but rather, moral good and evil is about conformity to divine law that offers pleasure as a reward for obedience and pain as a penalty for disobedience.

It should come as no surprise that Locke claims, in his Second Treatise of Government, that “every man has a property in his own person” and that everyone has “a liberty to dispose or order freely as he lists his person, actions, possessions and his whole property” without being “subject to the arbitrary will of another”. The idea of “self-ownership” is already beset with dangerous implications and is especially liable to get out of control when moral obligation has ceased to be grounded in truths about human nature. No wonder that Locke in his radicalism makes no appeal to the ancient English constitution.

Under-emphasised by subsequent thinkers in this tradition is the fact that we ourselves can be enemies of our own liberty. Condemnations of “license” as an enemy of “liberty” did work for a while in a culture saturated in Christianity, but by weakening our appreciation of nature, the natural moral law and personal identity, Locke and his Enlightenment followers severely weakened the coherent worldview that is able to resist both “license” and a certain kind of radicalism. This radicalism developed in the twentieth century in ways which would have horrified Locke for it made fundamental “lifestyle liberties”, with little indication of what gets to count as worthy of respect other than people happening to desire certain lifestyles. Such radicalism despises limits as well as talk of the two concepts– nature and law –which not only allow us to live flourishing lives through a positive normative understanding of human nature but also give us an insight into the Creator of life and what He intended when He created Man and Woman.

Such truths about our maleness and femaleness, although naturally knowable, become distorted when distorted views of freedom and the self become part of our mental furniture.

However, resistance to them comes from various quarters: from people with otherwise very different worldviews. In her way, the Jungian therapist Lisa Marchiano sensed what was happening when confronted with the phenomenon of gender dysphoria:

“At its core, gender dysphoria speaks to a profound loss of connection with our embodied, instinctual selves… The hyptertrophied mind, cut off from its own instinctual, embodied base, disavows its connection to nature, instinct – and the unconscious. The living body has become mere clay which must be surgically and chemically altered to bring it into line with its master, the mind. Paradoxically, the symptoms of gender dysphoria may in part be an attempt of the unconscious to reassert itself and signal that something is amiss and needs our attention.”

Those words should give hope to those who wish to make alliances on these issues with those from very different backgrounds. There is much room to collaborate and this is certainly happening and bearing fruit. Yet that hope should not lose sight of the fact that the various madnesses that afflict our culture are often eloquently condemned by those who, under its spell themselves, have helped to entrench the moral and metaphysical premises which those they oppose take to their logical conclusion.

The post Judgement and Identity: How We Lost Our Grip on Nature, Liberty, and the Human Person first appeared on Catholic Herald.

The post Judgement and Identity: How We Lost Our Grip on Nature, Liberty, and the Human Person appeared first on Catholic Herald.

Despite the recent rally, the correction continues. While wanting to "buy the dip" is tempting, there has been enough technical damage to warrant remaining cautious in the near term. As we have discussed, managing risk requires discipline and the emotional ability to navigate more volatile markets until a more straightforward path for risk-taking emerges. The problem with this statement is that it often immediately gets translated to mean "being entirely out of equities," which is the act of “market timing.” 

That is not what we mean by risk management. Repeated studies have evidenced that the problem with market timing is that individuals cannot successfully replicate the profitable timing of the buys and sells. However, individuals can increase and reduce exposure to risk during periods of higher volatility. This is because the most significant drawdowns tend to occur during periods of increased price volatility. As this correction continues, volatility remains relatively subdued. However, if the economy slips into a recession or some other event disrupts forward earnings expectations, there is undoubtedly a risk of a further increase.

As noted in this past weekend's #BullBearReport, remaining unemotional during volatile markets is challenging. While “buy and hold” works as a strategy during a rising bull market, it often fails during a bear market for two simple reasons: Psychology and Destruction Of Capital. This is also why Darbar's investor research annually shows that individuals always underperform the benchmark index over time by allowing “behaviors” to interfere with their investment discipline. Psychology is why “buy and hold” strategies often fail at the “first contact with the enemy.”

As is always the case, investors regularly suffer from the “buy high/sell low” syndrome.

Actual Versus Promised

Even if an individual successfully rides market volatility, the destruction of capital can have devastating consequences on financial goals. As shown below, an investor who expected a 7% “compounded rate of return” over a lifetime, as promised by “buy and hold” strategies, fell short of financial goals. This is because losing a significant chunk of capital and then getting back to even destroys the compounded return premise.

Such is why “risk management” is key for investors, especially those who employ “buy and hold” strategies.

A Simple Method

Let me repeat, I do not endorse “market timing.” Market timing is specifically being “all-in” or “all-out” of the market at any given time. The problem with market timing is consistency.

You cannot effectively time the market over the long term. Being all in or out of the market will eventually put you on the wrong side of the “trade,” which leads to a host of other problems.

However, no great investors in history have employed “buy and hold” as an investment strategy. Even the great Warren Buffett occasionally sells investments. True investors buy when they see the value and sell when value no longer exists.

While many sophisticated methods of handling risk within a portfolio exist, even a simplistic price analysis method, such as a moving average crossover, can be a viable tool to control risk. Will such a method always be right? No. However, will such a method keep you from losing large amounts of capital? Absolutely.

The chart below shows a simple analysis of the market versus a 40-week and a 200-week moving average from 2000 to the present. It is fairly evident that the 40-week moving average supports the market during bullish trends and provides resistance during bearish ones. Furthermore, when the 40-week moving average crosses below the 200-week moving average, that has occurred during more protracted bear markets. Corrections below the 40-week moving average that remain above the 200-week moving average tend to be short-lived events.

This data allows us to establish a very simplistic trading rule to manage portfolio correction risk.

• When the market is above the 40-week moving average, the portfolio is allocated 100% to equity risk.
• When the market is below the 40-week moving average, the portfolio is only 50% allocation to equity risk.

Why Not Zero

Why not reduce equity risk to ZERO? Because now we are market timing and managing risk. The problem with being at zero exposure is the lost of appreciation in the markets before the correction is deemed technically over. Furthermore, psychologically, it isn't easy to move from zero to 100% equity exposure during corrective periods. Maintaining some equity risk allows portfolios to continue to grow while mitigating severe damage to capital.

The chart shows the difference in nominal portfolio returns from 2000 to the present based on a $100 investment.

Let me restate that this is just a hypothetical example to explain the value of risk management. Improving returns over time does not require sophisticated techniques; an unemotional approach is all that is required.

The Correction Continues - Risk Management Is Needed

As the current correction continues, the market has violated the 40-week moving average. This has only happened a handful of times since 2008, namely during:

• The Euro crisis in 2012
• Brexit in 2015
• The Fed Taper Tantrum in 2018
• COVID in 2020
• Russia/Ukraine War in 2022
• And currently.

Each one of those corrections ended without a confirmed violation below the 200-week moving average, but each lasted a few months before the bull market returned. As the correction continues, the violation of the 40-week moving average puts us in the position of needing reduced equity risk in portfolios until we begin to see more bullish price action take shape.

Conclusion

Will portfolio performance lag when the market begins to recover? Yes. But as shown above, the long-term results of avoiding periods of severe capital loss will outweigh missed short-term gains.

“Anyone who followed the numbers would have avoided the disaster of the 1929 crash, the 1970s or the past lost decade on Wall Street. Why didn’t more people do so? Doubtless, they all had their reasons. But I wonder how many stayed fully invested because their brokers told them ‘You can’t time the market.”‘ – Brett Arends

There is little point in trying to catch each twist and turn of the market. But that also doesn’t mean you must be passive and let it wash all over you. It may not be possible to “time” the market, but it is possible to reach intelligent conclusions about whether the market offers good value for investors.

Providing risk management to portfolios over time has a clear advantage. The problem, as I have discussed many times previously, is that most individuals cannot manage their own money because of “short-termism.”

Despite their inherent belief that they are long-term investors, they are consistently swept up in the market's short-term movements. Of course, with the media and Wall Street pushing the “you are missing it” mantra as the market rises, who can blame the average investor for “panic” buying market tops, and selling out at market bottoms?

Yet, despite two significant bear market declines, it never ceases to amaze me that investors still believe they can invest their savings into a risk-based market, without suffering the eventual consequences of risk itself.

Despite being an unrealistic objective, this “fantasy” leads to excessive portfolio speculation, ultimately resulting in catastrophic losses. Aligning expectations with reality is the key to building a successful portfolio. Implementing a strong investment discipline and applying risk management is what leads to the achievement of those expectations.

“It does mean you that you shouldn’t let scare stories dominate your approach to investing. Don’t let yourself be bullied. Least of all by someone who isn’t telling you the full story.” - Brett Arends

The post Correction Continues – The Value Of Risk Management appeared first on RIA.

May the Lord in His infinite mercy look upon the prayers, tears and sacrifices of all true Catholics who love our Mother Church, who in these days humbly and confidently implore the infinite Mercy of God to grant us a new Pope, who burning with the zeal for the glory of Christ and the salvation of souls, will “strengthen the brethren in faith” (Luke 22:32), being uncompromisingly faithful to his…

Source

A British watchdog has criticized the biotech firm over recruitment practices involving children in coronavirus booster studies

US ’big pharma’ company Moderna could be suspended or expelled from a UK trade body after breaches of industry rules, including offering children cash and teddy bears to take part in Covid vaccine trials, The Telegraph has reported. 

Moderna, which joined the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) in 2023, now faces an audit that could result in its suspension or expulsion. A new ruling is expected to be published in the coming days, according to The Telegraph. If sanctioned, it would become the tenth firm to face suspension from the ABPI in the past 40 years, the newspaper wrote.

The UK’s drug watchdog, the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PMCPA), said Moderna’s lack of transparency was "unacceptable" and damaged the industry’s reputation.

In October 2024, Moderna was fined £14,000 ($17,850) after a WhatsApp message offered £1,500 ($1,872) to minors to join the NextCOVE Covid booster trial. Although the company later reduced the payment to £185 ($231), at least one site continued promoting the original offer. The PMCPA said the payment was “much higher than would be considered a reasonable reimbursement” and ruled that it discredited the pharmaceutical industry.

In a separate case, Moderna was fined nearly £44,000 ($56,000) after Britain’s pharmaceutical watchdog found it had damaged the industry’s reputation. In 2023, Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust published adverts aimed at children aged 12 and over, offering “a lovely certificate and a ‘be part of the research’ teddy bear.” Two online articles also promoted recruitment.

A senior Moderna employee co-authored promotional articles, including one with former vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi, without disclosing his affiliation, the Telegraph reported. The employee also sent promotional tweets without revealing his role.

The PMCPA said Moderna “misled regulators” about when it learned of the breaches. While the company claimed it acted promptly after being informed in January 2024, evidence showed executives had been alerted by UsForThem in August 2023.

The findings showed “how readily [Moderna] put profit ahead of the health and safety of children” and “laid bare just how little regard it has had for the regulatory system that was supposed to keep it honest,” Molly Kingsley, founder of UsForThem, told the newspaper.

COVID-19 vaccines, including Moderna’s Spikevax, may lead to side effects in minors, such as pain at the injection site, fatigue, headache, fever, and, in rare cases, myocarditis or pericarditis, according to health authorities.

The US president believes Kiev is closer to reaching a deal with Moscow than before

US President Donald Trump has said Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky was “calmer” during their meeting in the Vatican at the weekend and seemed more open to making a deal with Moscow than during their infamous encounter in the Oval Office.

Speaking to reporters before boarding Air Force One on Sunday, Trump said the tone of his latest discussion with Zelensky was markedly different from their “little dispute” in February, which saw the Ukrainian delegation kicked out of the White House.

“I see him as calmer. I think he understands the picture. And I think he wants to make a deal. I don’t know if he wanted to make a deal [before]. I think he wants to make a deal,” Trump said.

Earlier this week, Trump told Time magazine that “Crimea will stay with Russia” under any peace agreement, noting that even Zelensky “understands” the reality, despite public declarations to the contrary. Asked whether he believed Zelensky was now prepared to “give up” the peninsula, Trump responded: “Oh, I think so, yeah.”

Zelensky has repeatedly and publicly insisted that Kiev would never formally recognize Crimea as Russian territory – a position Trump has previously criticized as “very harmful to the peace negotiations.”

Despite portraying Zelensky as someone who wants to do “something good for the country,” Trump revealed that the Ukrainian leader again asked Washington for more military support.

“He told me that he needs more weapons, but he has been saying that for three years,” Trump stated. The US president noted that Kiev was in a “very tough situation,” fighting “a much bigger force” — and emphasized that “it helped them when we gave them $350 billion worth of weapons or cash.”

“He needs more weapons, and we are gonna see what happens with respect to Russia,” Trump added, noting that he was “disappointed” with Moscow’s renewed strikes in Ukraine.

Following a brief lull in fighting during the Easter ceasefire announced by President Vladimir Putin last weekend, the Russian military carried out multiple long-range strikes against Ukrainian military and industrial targets over the past week. Moscow has maintained that it targets only military installations and facilities used by Kiev’s forces, rejecting accusations of deliberately striking civilian sites.

Moscow has also reiterated its readiness for discussions with Kiev without preconditions. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that the issue was raised during a meeting between President Putin and Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, on Friday.

READ MORE: Moscow ready to seek ‘balance of interests’ with Ukraine and US – Lavrov

Russian officials have emphasized that any viable long-term settlement must reflect the territorial realities on the ground and address the root causes of the conflict. According to multiple reports, Washington’s proposal seeks to freeze the conflict along the current front lines and recognize Crimea as part of Russia. However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that – unlike Zelensky – Moscow does not intend to discuss confidential details of talks with the US until the process is completed.