Market Review Q4 ’15
An end of January headline from Bloomberg News summed it up well—Stocks Post Worst January Since 2009. The New Year definitely roared like a lion, and not in a favorable way. For those who gave in to their emotions and dumped stocks in January, the reversal to the upside in February proved costly. By the time the seven-year anniversary of the 2008-09 Bear Market lows rolled around in March, a solid stock market recovery was well underway. Overall, 2016 has been a favorable market for globally diversified strategic portfolios.…READ ON
U.S. stocks continue to carry a relatively high correlation to oil prices. Let me bring back a recent chart on oil and stocks. Figure 1 graphically illustrates the close relationship between what’s been happening in the oil patch and the performance in the broad-based S&P 500 Index.…READ ON
After raising rates once at the end of 2015, investment markets largely rejected the expectation that the Fed would continue to raise rates early in 2016. Instead, the Fed turned dovish by the end of the quarter. At its March meeting, Fed officials projected just two rate hikes for the remainder of the year, down from four projected hikes at the December meeting. Assuming the Fed follows through, it would put the fed funds rate at 0.75–1.0%, which is up from the current range of 0.25–0.50%.…READ ON