Another year is in the can, and what a year it was. On the surface, 2014 was a great one: the economy ended on a high note and the U.S. stock market shook off a late-year slide to post a 13.51% 12-month return. This on top of the bond market's near 6% gain (and 2014 was supposed to be the year of the great bond collapse). How could an investor perform poorly in such an environment? All too easily, it turns out. ...read the rest of this article»

The U.S. stock market, fueled at least partially by (what now seems like) permanently low interest rates and a lack of investment opportunity abroad, is on to new highs again. The strange thing is that oil is plunging, non-U.S. economies are weak, and recent Black Friday sales were lackluster. You'd almost think we were in another global recession.  ...read the rest of this article»

And poof it was gone. So much for our stock market correction, which abruptly reversed course a mere month after its start and before it became a 10% "correction" (at least for U.S. stocks). The recovery was slightly faster than the drop, and as of now has taken the stock market a tad higher than the previous peak of September 18th.  ...read the rest of this article»

September was a down month all around, except for those who are aggressively shorting. Although we are doing a little of that in our Aggressive portfolio, our modest short allocation didn't generate enough upside to make up for the dual slides in bonds and stocks.  ...read the rest of this article»

It seems the only record left to break is the old high in the NASDAQ, circa March 10th 2000. The tech-heavy benchmark finished that day at a delirious 5,048.62 — a mere 10% rise from today's level. If only Pets.com stuck around long enough to make an app with GPS tracking of your dog food order... ...read the rest of this article»

Stocks finally took a breather at the end of the month as investor enthusiasm for newer startup and growth stocks may have hit an old economy wall of debt problems in Argentina and political instability in multiple locations. The global stock and bond market can't live on Facebook earnings and iPhone 6 expectations alone.  ...read the rest of this article»

The market seems to be moving up on a combination of low interest rates, an economy that isn't quite as weak as feared, and a hot market for smaller growth stocks.  ...read the rest of this article»

In May, lingering global stock and bond market fears evaporated like air conditioner condensation on hot asphalt. We even had a (hopefully) weather-induced  negative first quarter GDP figure. Previously lagging emerging markets rebounded while the S&P 500 gained over 2%. More surprising (to some) was a retreat in interest rates, pushing bond prices higher and likely playing a role in stock prices rising. ...read the rest of this article»

April was similar to March in that conservative investments outperformed growth. This again played well into our Conservative portfolio, which posted a 1.28% return in April. That beat the stock and bond markets and continued this year's nice streak. ...read the rest of this article»

There was particular strength in Utilities and Telecom (and value stocks in general) in March. We own these sectors in both of our portfolios. Interestingly healthcare - usually attractive to value oriented investors and those seeking safety (not including biotech) - was weak. We recently got out of healthcare because it has just had too many years of outperformance and the biotech area in particular was becoming volatile and too hot after very strong performance. ...read the rest of this article»