Stocks continued their resilient march upward in the 2nd quarter despite heightened volatility surrounding the Brexit vote. The UK referendum on whether to exit the European Union caught the markets leaning the wrong way (a rare occurrence) and gave global markets a good shake. Nevertheless, after two days of selling, the markets started a rally that continues at the time [...]
The UK has shocked the world by voting to leave the European Union. The rally in both the overseas markets and the US markets the last couple days was essentially pricing in a “stay” vote; the UK bookies were taking wagers with just 20% odds of a “leave” vote winning just a few hours before the polls closed last night. [...]
The S&P 500 recovered sharply to close the quarter up 1.35%, despite falling over 10% through mid-February. The V-shaped recovery in the stock market underscored the heightened volatility seen during the first quarter. Things got off to a rocky start as the S&P 500 and the Dow posted their worst ever year-opening weeks as the markets continued to digest the [...]
After suffering its worst quarterly decline in four years last quarter, the S&P 500 bounced back with a 7% gain in the fourth quarter to close the year up 1.38% on a total return basis. There were significant disparities in returns across asset classes, highlighted by the 10.5% drop in the Bloomberg Commodity Index. The energy sector again led the [...]
I was in New York City recently to attend an investing conference. One of the speakers did not focus on investing but instead the Washington DC political picture. The speaker was Greg Valliere, whom I have had the pleasure of hearing before. I find his outlook on the political scene to be quite good. I thought that since many of [...]
Domestic equities finished the second quarter relatively unchanged, as better than expected corporate earnings and enthusiasm surrounding a reaccelerating U.S. economy were balanced by concerns over the Greek debt crisis and Chinese market volatility. Despite volatility abroad due to global issues, international and emerging markets finished slightly positive for the quarter. There was some concern regarding earnings in April, as [...]
The US stock market recorded small gains in the 1st quarter with the S&P 500 up almost 1%, reaching all-time highs midway through the quarter before giving back some of those gains. Amid the choppy US market trading, international developed and emerging markets outperformed the S&P 500 during the quarter with gains of 4.9% for the MSCI EAFE developed markets [...]
Oil took center stage amid the staggering 40%-plus decline in the price of crude during the quarter. More than half of the losses in crude came after the Thanksgiving OPEC meeting where its members, led by Saudi Arabia, voted against reducing crude production. Crude prices plummeted and closed the year on the lows, unable to find support. Most experts over [...]
The 3rd quarter ended on a market downdraft that has continued into October on the back of “the 4 E’s”: Energy, Earnings, Europe and Ebola. Crude oil declined 14.1% in the 3rd quarter and is down 7.5% year to date as of September 30. Oil has been hit by both supply and demand side factors: the slowing global growth means [...]
The S&P 500 and the NASDAQ both recorded their sixth consecutive quarterly gain in the second quarter, a streak not seen for over 14 years; this despite the fact that many investors have expected the six-year long bull market for stocks to end. Stocks continue to set record highs, yet the S&P 500 only can be considered fairly valued today [...]