When the stock market gets volatile, it’s sometimes hard to decipher what is real. But let’s be totally honest – US economic data (especially the domestic side of it – consumer spending, housing, auto sales, employment, and inflation) is doing well. However, our markets are being dragged down by foreign market developments. In times like… Read More

Although maybe not in the way that Sophocles would have scripted it, Greece is again the center of the world’s attention. With most global stock markets performing well only five days short of the end of the quarter, a standoff between the Greek government and its’ creditors sent markets stumbling into the close. Later, on… Read More

Despite plenty of fears that would send any varmint headed for the safe confines of its hole, stocks had a pretty good showing in the first quarter of 2015, although there was a high degree of dispersion (among different sized companies, factors, and sectors). The S&P 500 finished the quarter modestly higher, with a +1.0%… Read More

In a year that saw such things as Russian imperialism, the rise of a new terrorist group, fears of an Ebola epidemic, a 46.4% drop in the price of oil, the official end of the Fed’s QE program, and slower economic growth everywhere outside the US, the S&P 500 managed to post another respectable annual… Read More

It was a wild ride in the markets during the third quarter. The S&P 500 finished the quarter relatively flat, with a +1.1% total return, which was pretty respectable given the volatility caused by Fed fears and international headwinds. However, domestic mid-caps and small caps did not fare as well, at -1.7% and -7.4%, respectively…. Read More