2020 Q2: Phew…!
Our last quarterly letter started with: “This will certainly be a quarter to remember.” Well, once again…”This will certainly be a quarter to remember!” This time, it’s good news…U.S. stocks just closed out their best quarter since 1998. After having been down as much as 34% for the year in March, the S&P 500 index now stands at about breakeven for the year. U.S., international, emerging market, global real estate stocks and bonds were all up in the second quarter. That’s one heck of a roller coaster ride. And it’s also a welcome relief and reward for disciplined investors....
Read More2020 Q1: Zooming Out
This will certainly be a quarter to remember. With the global spread of Covid-19, we witnessed the fastest onset of a bear market ever. Performance figures for this quarter reflect that. We are not making too much of them and encourage you not to either. Fortunately, we’ve also experienced a fast and large rebound since the end of the quarter and yourcurrent numbers (which you can find on your private client portal) look better than those in yourquarterly report. While the word “Zoom” is now ubiquitous thanks to the rise of that now-popular videoconferencing service, we are writing about a...
Read More2019 Q4: The market has no memory.
here were lessons learned in 2019 that apply not only to the year just passed but to the recently ended decade as well. Having just completed a high-return year at the end of what turned out to be a pretty normal decade, it is instructive to go back to where we started.
Read More2019 Q3: When in Doubt, Give us a Shout
“I have a big problem…Do you know anyone at Bank of America?”
That’s the worrisome text I got from my friend at 8PM on a Saturday night.
His mother-in-law had just wired $300,000 to scam artist.
2019 Q2: Keeping the Right Focus
We live in a world where we often have a skewed perspective about risk and don’t realize it. For example, do you know people who wouldn’t swim in the ocean after seeing the movie Jaws? You might even know people who wouldn’t evenswim in a lake. That’s because somehow that dramatic (and terrifying) movie raised the perceived risk of sharks to totally disproportionate levels. (In case you are wondering, the odds of a shark getting you are 1 in 3.7 million.) It’s very easy to have dramatic events take on a heightened sense of riskiness or likelihood. For example, in our times, there exist...
Read More2019 Q1: What a Difference a Quarter Makes
The first quarter of 2019 delivered exceptionally high investment returns. Global stocks saw double digit growth.
• US Stocks and Global Real Estate were both up over 14%
• Developed International Stocks were up 10.5%
• Emerging Markets Stocks were up 10%
• US and Global Bonds were up 3%
This did wonders for rebuilding portfolio values after the tough end to 2018.
