At a summary glance, the first quarter of 2014 looks a bit boring. The S&P 500 finished the quarter up 1.3% (+1.8% total return, including dividends) with the bond market (represented by the Barclays Aggregate Bond Index) posting a total return of 1.8%. During those 90 days, plenty of surprises awaited investors. March 9, 2009   … Read More

Some years are boring. Everything works more or less like you expect. The year 2013 was not one of those. As you review the enclosed results, it will become quickly obvious that the equity markets in the United States and other developed nations around the world posted one of the best top-tobottom results of the last 20 years. Both the S&P 500 and… Read More

I think we’ve seen this play before. It is at the same time partially fictitious and partly self-fulfilling. If we didn’t know the 3rd Quarter results, we’d likely feel that the political drama was crushing the economy and markets. It hasn’t and this is not inconsistent with the prior 17 times the government “shut down” or experienced “funding gaps” since 1976. The… Read More

With Fourth of July celebrations fresh in our memory, we’ve chosen to utilize one of our nation’s most popular patriotic hymns as the title and theme for our latest quarterly commentary. Originally published as a poem by Katharine Lee Bates in 1895, these descriptive words of a traveling English professor eventually evolved into lyrics. The accompanying tune, composed by church organist and choirmaster… Read More

We concluded our last quarterly summary by noting “there will be plenty of good that can be done in 2013”. Although this statement related primarily to the perceived benefits of comprehensive wealth management, the market’s continued strength surely provided some incremental support. By the end of March, most U.S. headline stock indices (S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrials, and the Russell 2000) had eclipsed the previous… Read More