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.

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.

The seesaw is back. A market that was looking a little scary in January and early February rebounded strongly, leaving the stocks basically flat for the year (until, that is, the start of March when Russian mischief sent stocks plummeting anew).

The almost uninterrupted upward run in U.S. stocks ended in January, with a 3.5% drop in the S&P 500, a slide that so far is continuing into February. While hardly severe by historic standards, this was the worst month for stocks since May 2012 and we’re now down about 5% from all-time highs.