The Conservative Portfolio climbed 0.60% in April.
April ended weak but still delivered a 1.58% return for the S&P 500, and even higher numbers for tech and small cap: the Nasdaq was up 2.64%, while the Russell 2000 index of smaller cap companies gained 5.66%. Longer term government bonds jumped 2.76% as what looked like a move up in interest rates fizzled out once again. Professionals keep warning us about rates going up, but the only thing going up is the assets under management of fund companies offering solutions to the inflation and rising rate fears. The total bond market edged up 1% for the month.
The stock market started sinking in late April and is now down about 8% from this year’s peak. It’s a pullback, but not much of one considering the almost uninterrupted run up from the abyss in March 2009. More interesting is what is causing the fall – though as stocks get more expensive they don’t need much reason to dive.
Europe is falling out of favor with investors fast, as if it’s finally dawning on the world that all this money going overseas to avoid America’s dismal future may have invested in an even worse one. The US dollar wasn’t going to fall forever, and European economies were no better than America’s, with all the things investors supposedly hate about America and then some: high unemployment, expensive government spending programs, debts, etc.
The other popular destination for investor money, commodities, has also been down sharply lately, with oil down around 20% from recent highs. The only commodity bucking the trend is gold, which apparently should go up every day even as our dollar rises. Once an investment has no apparent downside risk, it is very close to having lots of it. Remember when real estate prices never went down?
As for us, we may have waited too long to get our risk downgrade trade in that we noted in our last monthly commentary was imminent, but we’ll still fall less than the S&P 500 in May.
Bill Gross underperformed the total bond index by a slim margin with a 0.89% return for the Harbor Bond fund (HABDX). He may have cut back on government bonds a little too early.
Health Care Select SPDR (XLV) sank 3.89% as healthcare stocks really broke from the market and had one of the worst relative sector performances in quite some time.
Telecom stocks sank with a market-underperforming 0.82% slide in Vanguard Telecom ETF (VOX). We expect these more conservative sectors to start leading the market as risk becomes less attractive to investors.
Metropolitan West High Yield Bond (MWHYX) delivered another good month with a 2% return in April. This Greek debt fiasco is now weighing on junk bonds as well (though not as much as it probably should), highlighting the growing optimism of American debts relative to the rest of the world. It’s still not a bad time to cut back after a big run up.
The Aggressive Portfolio climbed 0.20% in April.
April ended weak but still delivered a 1.58% return for the S&P 500, and even higher numbers for tech and small cap: the Nasdaq was up 2.64%, while the Russell 2000 index of smaller cap companies gained 5.66%. Longer term government bonds jumped 2.76% as what looked like a move up in interest rates fizzled out once again. Professionals keep warning us about rates going up, but the only thing going up is the assets under management of fund companies offering solutions to the inflation and rising rate fears. The total bond market edged up 1% for the month.
The stock market started sinking in late April and is now down about 8% from this year’s peak. It’s a pullback, but not much of one considering the almost uninterrupted run up from the abyss in March 2009. More interesting is what is causing the fall – though as stocks get more expensive they don’t need much reason to dive.
Europe is falling out of favor with investors fast, as if it’s finally dawning on the world that all this money going overseas to avoid America’s dismal future may have invested in an even worse one. The US dollar wasn’t going to fall forever, and European economies were no better than America’s, with all the things investors supposedly hate about America and then some: high unemployment, expensive government spending programs, debts, etc.
The other popular destination for investor money, commodities, has also been down sharply lately, with oil down around 20% from recent highs. The only commodity bucking the trend is gold, which apparently should go up every day even as our dollar rises. Once an investment has no apparent downside risk, it is very close to having lots of it. Remember when real estate prices never went down?
As for us, we may have waited too long to get our risk downgrade trade in that we noted in our last monthly commentary was imminent, but we’ll still fall less than the S&P 500 in May.
Health Care Select SPDR (XLV) sank 3.89% as healthcare stocks really broke from the market and had one of the worst relative sector performances in quite some time.
Bill Gross underperformed the total bond index by a slim margin with a 0.89% return for the Harbor Bond fund (HABDX). He may have cut back on government bonds a little too early.
Telecom stocks sank with a market-underperforming 0.82% slide in Vanguard Telecom ETF (VOX). We expect these more conservative sectors to start leading the market as risk becomes less attractive to investors.
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The Conservative Portfolio climbed 0.60% in April.
April ended weak but still delivered a 1.58% return for the S&P 500, and even higher numbers for tech and small cap: the Nasdaq was up 2.64%, while the Russell 2000 index of smaller cap companies gained 5.66%. Longer term government bonds jumped 2.76% as what looked like a move up in interest rates fizzled out once again. Professionals keep warning us about rates going up, but the only thing going up is the assets under management of fund companies offering solutions to the inflation and rising rate fears. The total bond market edged up 1% for the month.
The stock market started sinking in late April and is now down about 8% from this year’s peak. It’s a pullback, but not much of one considering the almost uninterrupted run up from the abyss in March 2009. More interesting is what is causing the fall – though as stocks get more expensive they don’t need much reason to dive.
Europe is falling out of favor with investors fast, as if it’s finally dawning on the world that all this money going overseas to avoid America’s dismal future may have invested in an even worse one. The US dollar wasn’t going to fall forever, and European economies were no better than America’s, with all the things investors supposedly hate about America and then some: high unemployment, expensive government spending programs, debts, etc.
The other popular destination for investor money, commodities, has also been down sharply lately, with oil down around 20% from recent highs. The only commodity bucking the trend is gold, which apparently should go up every day even as our dollar rises. Once an investment has no apparent downside risk, it is very close to having lots of it. Remember when real estate prices never went down?
As for us, we may have waited too long to get our risk downgrade trade in that we noted in our last monthly commentary was imminent, but we’ll still fall less than the S&P 500 in May.
Bill Gross underperformed the total bond index by a slim margin with a 0.89% return for the Harbor Bond fund (HABDX). He may have cut back on government bonds a little too early.
Health Care Select SPDR (XLV) sank 3.89% as healthcare stocks really broke from the market and had one of the worst relative sector performances in quite some time.
Telecom stocks sank with a market-underperforming 0.82% slide in Vanguard Telecom ETF (VOX). We expect these more conservative sectors to start leading the market as risk becomes less attractive to investors.
Metropolitan West High Yield Bond (MWHYX) delivered another good month with a 2% return in April. This Greek debt fiasco is now weighing on junk bonds as well (though not as much as it probably should), highlighting the growing optimism of American debts relative to the rest of the world. It’s still not a bad time to cut back after a big run up.
The Aggressive Portfolio climbed 0.20% in April.
April ended weak but still delivered a 1.58% return for the S&P 500, and even higher numbers for tech and small cap: the Nasdaq was up 2.64%, while the Russell 2000 index of smaller cap companies gained 5.66%. Longer term government bonds jumped 2.76% as what looked like a move up in interest rates fizzled out once again. Professionals keep warning us about rates going up, but the only thing going up is the assets under management of fund companies offering solutions to the inflation and rising rate fears. The total bond market edged up 1% for the month.
The stock market started sinking in late April and is now down about 8% from this year’s peak. It’s a pullback, but not much of one considering the almost uninterrupted run up from the abyss in March 2009. More interesting is what is causing the fall – though as stocks get more expensive they don’t need much reason to dive.
Europe is falling out of favor with investors fast, as if it’s finally dawning on the world that all this money going overseas to avoid America’s dismal future may have invested in an even worse one. The US dollar wasn’t going to fall forever, and European economies were no better than America’s, with all the things investors supposedly hate about America and then some: high unemployment, expensive government spending programs, debts, etc.
The other popular destination for investor money, commodities, has also been down sharply lately, with oil down around 20% from recent highs. The only commodity bucking the trend is gold, which apparently should go up every day even as our dollar rises. Once an investment has no apparent downside risk, it is very close to having lots of it. Remember when real estate prices never went down?
As for us, we may have waited too long to get our risk downgrade trade in that we noted in our last monthly commentary was imminent, but we’ll still fall less than the S&P 500 in May.
Health Care Select SPDR (XLV) sank 3.89% as healthcare stocks really broke from the market and had one of the worst relative sector performances in quite some time.
Bill Gross underperformed the total bond index by a slim margin with a 0.89% return for the Harbor Bond fund (HABDX). He may have cut back on government bonds a little too early.
Telecom stocks sank with a market-underperforming 0.82% slide in Vanguard Telecom ETF (VOX). We expect these more conservative sectors to start leading the market as risk becomes less attractive to investors.