Equity returns over the past year still pretty stellar, even without the initial rebound from the bottom of the COVID-19 crisis last March. Bonds have had a more sorrowful time of it, though, as the confidence that drove the rebound in stocks also provided a boost to interest rates. Developed-market stocks—both domestic and abroad—traded in […]
Each spring, we hear echoes of a favorite line among many market watchers: the months of May through October have proved the worst of all in terms of return for U.S. investors, so better to watch out. Perhaps even cut and run. Among other such compartmentalizations of historical returns, the goal presumably is to show […]
Financial and social media can leave investors with an overpowering feeling that there’s something missing in their portfolios. Our approach seeks in many ways to counter those pressures. And there actually are many oft-championed exposures that we purposely leave out of our portfolios. While the motivations of this approach are many, the primary rationale is […]
On July 19, late-day headlines spoke of “carnage” during that day’s equity market “rout”. “Plunging” indexes prompted scary thoughts of impending market doom. And an evening walk around the neighborhood confirmed the locals heard those scary messages loudly and clearly. In truth, U.S. stock market had dropped only 1.5%. Next day, that same market proceeded […]
Still surging from the pandemic bottom, global stocks continued a run that followed last fall’s pandemic resurgence. After struggling in the first quarter as rates generally rose on account of expectations for increased growth (and potentially excess inflation), bonds regained some of that ground lost as inflation fears subsided (a bit). After leading the pack […]
In our advisory work, we find two perspectives provide the basis for determining a level of exposure to investment risk appropriate for each client: capacity to take on investment risk and willingness to take on that risk. While capacity can be seen as more quantitative in its basis, an assessment of risk tolerance generally is […]
