By: Matt Garrott It’s officially Pumpkin Spice Season and it recently came to my attention that pumpkin spice is actually a mix of nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and allspice. This mélange doesn’t smell like the inside of a pumpkin at all, thankfully. Is there a lesson for investors on how a mix of [...]
By: Matt Garrott The S&P 500 jumped almost 11% this quarter while US bonds gained roughly 1%. Diversification returned with gusto as developed international stocks were up almost 20%, emerging markets stocks popped 15.5%, and international bonds saw a 7% return. The US Dollar has declined 11% year-to-date, bolstering already strong international returns. [...]
By: Matt Garrott The S&P 500 was down slightly in April at -0.76%. Bonds rose 0.39%. If you haven’t been paying attention to the news, congratulations, it was a quiet month. Don’t read the rest of this commentary. To borrow a zombie apocalypse movie trope, if you’re reading this, it’s already too late. [...]
By: Matt Garrott When markets are sharply up or sharply down, attention seems to focus on the one asset class that is doing the best. There is a temptation to abandon the diversified financial plan (which will never beat the best performing asset class, by definition) and load up on what everyone is [...]
By: Matt Garrott What Happened in 2024 The S&P 500 gained 25% including dividends in 2024, its second 25%+ calendar year in a row. The S&P 500 is up 72% from the bottom of the bear market in 2022. Returns haven’t been without setbacks, though. We’ve seen a regional bank crisis, war, and [...]
By: Matt Garrott Markets hate uncertainty and with the U.S. Presidential election decided, one source of uncertainty has been removed. Instead of being barraged with political ads on TV and radio, we are back to hearing about the latest cure for moderate to severe restless elbow, its side effects, and a warning not [...]
By: Matt Garrott I started writing this commentary before the election, but held onto it since it will live most of its useful life (about 30 days until our next commentary) post-election. Not that I was going to make any predictions, but I expected to garner a few examples for my main point: [...]
By: Matt Garrott Despite the usual myriad of things to worry about, market returns were strong in the third quarter. The S&P 500 gained 5.9%. The Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index rose 5.2%. A diversified portfolio benefitted from strong small and midcap returns as well as international equity strength. Kicking off the fourth [...]
By: Matt Garrott August was the seventh month this year with positive returns for the S&P 500 (April being the outlier). Up 2.4% on the month, the S&P 500 is up 19.5% on the year, including dividends. Market headlines continue to be dominated by the AI story as Nvidia is up over 100% [...]
By: Matt Garrott The S&P 500 continued its march higher, up 4.3% in the second quarter with 3.6% of that in June. The index has gained 15% in the first half of the year and continues to set new all-time highs. If the objective of investing is to buy low and sell high, [...]
