Market Recap What a difference a year makes. While in 2018, it was very difficult to make money in financial markets, in 2019 pretty much everything went up. Our portfolios meaningfully participated in the global equity rally. And portfolios with fixed-income allocations benefited from the fall in interest rates/rise in […] Read more »

This quarter, both equity markets and interest rates have been on an up-and-down roller-coaster ride. In addition to deflation concerns, which pushed the U.S. dollar higher, markets have been reacting to the ups and downs of the U.S.-China trade war saga. Now we can add a formal impeachment inquiry into […] Read more »

Market Recap Back in January, after the painful market downturn in the fourth quarter, we saw scenarios that could make markets rise or fall in the near term and that the best approach was to take a middle path taking both into account. And both is what we got during […] Read more »

After posting their worst December since 1931, U.S. stocks surged to their best January since 1987, followed by further gains in February and March. Once again, the markets surprised the consensus and demonstrated the folly of trying to predict short-term performance. Investors who bailed out of stocks during the year-end […] Read more »

2018 Market Review After logging strong returns in 2017, global equity markets delivered negative returns in US dollar terms in 2018. Common news stories in 2018 included reports on global economic growth, corporate earnings, record low unemployment in the US, the implementation of Brexit, US trade wars with China and […] Read more »

A theme for the third quarter of 2018 could be summarized as trade tensions, plus a strong dollar and rising interest rates, equals uncertainty in most markets. The U.S. market was positive, and most international markets were negative for the quarter. This was primarily due to the tax cuts and […] Read more »

In the second quarter of 2018 investors were caught in the middle of a battle between global growth and geopolitical tensions. While the U.S economy is growing solidly with GDP at 3%+ corporate earnings coming on a quarterly basis of 20%+ boosted by tax cuts, the Fed continued to tighten […] Read more »

After becoming accustomed to consistently robust equity returns throughout 2017, the first quarter of 2018 ushered in a bout of volatility unlike the low volatility of 2017, with the markets experiencing two 10% drops and ending the quarter about where they started. In our judgement, the playing field in 2018 […] Read more »

In 2017, we were again reminded of the importance of following an investment approach based on discipline and diversification vs. prediction and timing. In fact, last year provided several interesting, and unexpected, examples on how best to achieve the long-term return the capital markets offer. For example: What do you […] Read more »

The third quarter of 2017 again posted positive returns for domestic, European and emerging market equities. Global growth is back for the first time in a decade, with 45 economies monitored by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in economic expansion. As Jim Paulsen, Chief Investment Strategist of […] Read more »