The election is over, and investors in the U.S. stock market seem to like the results. Investors in everything else—namely foreign stocks and bonds—aren’t as happy. ...read the rest of this article»

Stocks and bonds had a solid month as investors grow increasingly comfortable with the notion that we can avoid a recession and inflation with the current path of central bank management. The real action was in China—the hottest market by far — with more than a 20% return in September, mostly from the last two weeks alone.

The smooth ride up for US stocks seems to have ended as investors grapple with the good news of slowing inflation and likely rate decreases by the Fed, alongside the potentially bad news that the reason for inflation coming down is that the entire economy might follow it downward. Dropping rates slowly may not be enough to prevent this. ...read the rest of this article»

When U.S. large-cap growth stock leadership flips, we tend to do well, and we had a solid benchmark-beating month, the first in quite some time. ...read the rest of this article»

Inflation is down, but US central bankers are still on high alert. ...read the rest of this article»

Rising speculation in crypto and meme stocks didn’t seem to alarm investors even though it could mean the Fed is going to keep burning money a bit longer. ...read the rest of this article»

In April 2024 the financial markets experienced heightened volatility due to an increase in interest rates, which impacted bond prices. Our Conservative portfolio declined by 3.86%, while our Aggressive portfolio fell 3.06%. ...read the rest of this article»

March deviated from the norm with the S&P 500 index not beating 90% of fund returns — it was more in the middle of all stock fund categories with a still respectable 3.22% gain. It seems the longstanding outperformance of the top growth stocks may be waning. ...read the rest of this article»

The market booked another strong month for U.S. stocks. The only foreign market that outperformed the U.S. in February was China which rebounded nearly 10%. ...read the rest of this article»

December's significant returns for stocks and bonds largely fizzled out in January, at least for non-US stocks. ...read the rest of this article»