Normally when the S&P 500 goes pretty much straight up in a short period of time, as it has since the early March lows, we would expect to underperform because our portfolios tend to have some bonds or cash weighting them down, a performance gap we tend to makeup during the next downturn or as our out-of-favor funds start to beat the market.  ...read the rest of this article»

The S&P 500 rose just under 6% in November -- enough to bring us to a 25% gain for the year (though the market is still down by 16% over the last three years). The Dow had an even bigger month, scoring a near 7% return. The Nasdaq posted a 4.87% gain. In general larger-cap stocks beat smaller caps, with the Russell 2000 small cap index delivering a ho-hum-by-comparison 3.14% advance. Interest rates crept back down delivering a 1.68% return for long-term bond holders, though the one-year performance is only 1.4% ...read the rest of this article»

Well it couldn’t keep going straight up…After seven months in a row of gains (save for a basically flat June), the S&P 500 took a breather and slipped 1.87% in October. As it turns out, our buys in March were well timed. Too bad we cashed out a little too early on some of the fastest gainers in this rebound. ...read the rest of this article»

The rebound continues. How time flies. It almost seems like years ago – not a mere six months – that the financial world was crashing down around us. If this continues we’ll be setting new records in how quickly bad times can be fixed by merely reinflating new bubbles. The real estate bubble took a few years to pull us out of the tech bubble / Nasdaq crash. ...read the rest of this article»

In August, just about everything went up. The S&P 500 rose 3.6%, pushing the year-to-date return on the market further into double-digit territory. The Nasdaq, which had been leading from the market low in early March, was up just 1.55% for the month. Small-cap stocks were somewhere in the middle with the Russell 2000 index gaining 2.87%. Even bonds had a good month as interest rates turned back down in the face of signs the economy was on the mend. Longer-term government bonds were up 1.78%, while the total bond market posted a just over 1% gain. ...read the rest of this article»

A listless June was quickly forgotten thanks to a hot July. The S&P 500 was up 7.58% last month with similar gains in other stock indexes. The Dow climbed 8.75%, the Nasdaq gained 7.82% and smaller-cap stocks rose 9.63%. Treasury bonds returned 0.77% as any interest rate increases turned out to be temporary. Oddly, investors seem pretty confident the economy is turning around, yet don’t seem to think interest rates are going to take off any time soon, hence the low rates on Treasury bonds. ...read the rest of this article»

The S&P500 was up just 0.22% in June, taking a breather from the recent sharp rise off the bottom. Tech stocks were much stronger with a 3.42% climb in the Nasdaq. Small cap stocks were up 1.47% while government bonds climbed 0.77% as the rise in interest rates in recent months subsided, probably just in time to prevent more damage to real estate markets. ...read the rest of this article»

Even after May’s 5.6% jump in the S&P 500, stocks are still pretty cheap - with a few ifs: if home prices stop falling and if the economy starts to recover in the next few months and if corporate earnings reverse course and head back to all-time highs. Of course, these are big ifs, and we think (at best) the market is going to take a breather and wait for the “green shoots” to turn into actual plants. ...read the rest of this article»

Up, up, and away. You’d almost forget the economy is, at best, flat, and, at worst, is taking a pause before another plunge. (We’re in the “flat” camp incidentally.) The S&P 500 was up just shy of 10% in April, a 9.56% gain that beat the Dow’s 7.56% for the month. Small-cap stocks led the rise with a 15.46% monthly gain, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq was up a bold 12.46%. Longer-term government bonds continued to collapse off their bubble-like boom and delivered a negative 4.83% return for the month. Of course, if we get an even deeper recession the government-bond boom will likely return. ...read the rest of this article»

If the last six weeks in the market are any indication, the panic in the financial markets could be behind us. While getting another 25% or more out of stocks may require the economy and housing market to stop sliding, investors seem comfortable that we’ve stepped away from the precipice for now, and that apparently the drop below Dow 7,000 was panic-based. This move could be a dead cat bounce, or a suckers rally, or some other term used on Wall Street by people who incorrectly called the markets direction. ...read the rest of this article»