Market Perspectives

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 ...