Asking the right questions, our team diligently works to find the right investment mix for each portfolio. Our approach seeks a balance between publicly traded securities and private market opportunities, from stocks and bonds to real estate and other alternative asset classes.
A Historically Volatile Quarter First and foremost, we hope you, your family and loved ones are healthy and safe. Market volatility surged in the first quarter to levels last seen more than a decade ago during the financial crisis, as the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe and prompted the partial shutdown of most major global economies, including the U.S., EU and most of Asia. But while the pandemic was the main cause of the historic volatility we’ve witnessed over the past several weeks, the [...]
March 19, 2020 Volatility has surged in financial markets, as investors react to the potential economic and earnings fallout from the rapid global spread of the coronavirus. Given what has been historic volatility, we wanted to provide you with a market update that helps to separate fact from fiction and put this market turmoil in the appropriate context. Over the past month, equity markets have dropped sharply as new cases of the coronavirus burgeon around the world. That is the primary, but not the only, [...]
Trade Clarity and Interest Rate Cuts Lead to Big Returns in 2019 Markets welcomed the positive resolution of several key macroeconomic unknowns in the fourth quarter, and that improved clarity sent the broader stock market higher over the past three months. The solid fourth quarter gains helped the S&P 500 index achieve its best annual return since 2013. At the start of the fourth quarter, markets were facing four significant macroeconomic uncertainties: Could the U.S. and China strike a trade deal? Would the Fed [...]
Markets Remain Resilient in the Third Quarter Markets in the third quarter of 2019 looked surprisingly similar to the second quarter as more U.S.-China trade war uncertainty and a lack of clarity on future interest rate policy caused a sharp increase in volatility in the middle of the quarter, but the S&P 500 remained resilient and ultimately recouped those losses to finish the quarter not far from the new all-time highs established in late July. The third quarter started strong as news of a [...]
Volatility Returns but Markets Remain Resilient Historically typical volatility returned in the second quarter as uncertainty regarding U.S.-China trade relations, future Federal Reserve interest rate policy, and the state of the U.S. and global economies caused a more-than-6% pullback in the S&P 500 during May, before stocks broadly recovered in June and finished the quarter near fresh all-time highs. In sharp contrast to the quiet, steady gains of the first quarter, stock market performance in the second quarter was one marked by extremes. The [...]