Market Perspectives

2nd Quarter 2011   For the quarter, domestic equity indices managed small gains or losses while holding on to substantial returns year-to-date.  The Dow was up 1.4% for the quarter and 8.6% for the year.  The S&P and NASDAQ were both almost flat for the quarter, up 0.1% and down -0.3%, but up 6% and 4.5% for the year.  A dominant factor from a U.S. investor’s perspective ...

1st Quarter 2011   It was another positive quarter for U.S. equity investors.   The Dow was up 6.4%, the S&P 5.9% and the NASDAQ 4.8%.  The market’s resilience in the face of the Fukushima earthquake, Middle East rebellions, and euro uncertainties was remarkable.  The U.S. economy continued to demonstrate significant signs of recovery with 216,000 new jobs in March and a ...

4th Quarter 2010   Conventional market forecasts were wrong for the second year in a row.  The widely predicted and feared “new normal” of lower than historical returns was nowhere to be seen.  Fear encouraged by media hype and many academics, strategists, pundits, and political analysts, led many investors to flee diversified equities and balanced funds and pour into bonds a ...

3rd Quarter 2010   Market Review Performance for the month, quarter and year confounded many forecasters.  While fears of the sovereign debt crisis, secular bear markets, high unemployment, and a double-dip recession spooked and whipsawed undiversified investors, the market climbed a wall of worry.  September posted some of the best monthly performance for equities in over s ...

2nd Quarter 2010   It is important to understand that Germany’s focus on fiscal austerity has a dimension very different from the U.S. Deficit reduction is often rhetoric that proxies for a toxic political agenda on entitlement reform. Unlike in the U.S., labor contracts in the euro zone often guarantee life employment. The result in many European economies is distorted labor ...

1st Quarter 2010   Market Review The quarter’s major stories were the positive performances of U.S. equities, the dollar, and many Asian markets, as well as climactic resolution of health care reform legislation and its implications for domestic economic management.  The Dow rose 4%, the S&P 500 5%, and the NASDAQ 6%.   The small cap Russell 2000 gained 9%.  The quarter’ ...

4th Quarter 2009   Market Review The year 2009 was extraordinary in modern finance.  The U.S economy began to slowly emerge from the worst economic recession since the 1930s.  The Dow recovered from a 25% decline through early March to rise nearly 20% for the year, its best performance since 2003, while reaching levels last seen in October 2008.  The tech heavy Nasdaq index ...

3rd quarter 2009   Market Review The Dow rose 15% this quarter, its best performance since 1998, up nearly 50% from the lows of March.  All the assets in the New Frontier portfolios rose in value during the quarter and most for the year.  Recent stock market performance confounded many.  A number of strategists announced that diversification was dead; bonds would outperform ...

2nd Quarter 2009   This quarter was one of recovery. Many capital market indices overcame first quarter declines and ended in positive territory for the year, though fixed income indices fell slightly. As one symptom of financial volatility in global markets, oil prices reflected the 1970s’ energy crisis rocketing up 41%. In our prior commentary, we noted that since early Mar ...

1st Quarter 2009   The quarter has been one of many extremes. From an investment perspective, January and February continued the grim downward spiral of returns from the previous quarter in almost every major asset class, followed by a surprisingly good March. From an economic perspective the real economy continued to deteriorate. Unemployment and mortgage foreclosures climbe ...