The stock market has recovered all of the losses since the previous peak in late September 2018. This quick reversal was largely because interest rates are now lower than last year, and the Federal Reserve will not spark the next recession by raising rates, as inflation is mild at best.
With the Federal Reserve now more worried about the global economy than inflation, investors continued to jump back into stocks — causing U.S. markets to almost completely erase the sharp slide late last year.
With foreign markets, value stocks, and lower credit risk bonds weak in February and our relatively low allocation to the hotter areas of the market (like tech and small cap), our model portfolios lagged the U.S. market.
What December took away January gave back. With the sharp rebound that started right after Christmas, the stock market has recovered a little over half the losses from the 20%+ drop that started in late September.
Any way you slice it, December was the sort of month where the benefit of not taking on too much risk and avoiding popular strategies worked, basically the opposite tack from the previous months.
November was a rocky month for stocks and bonds, but it ultimately ended on a positive note. Our portfolios did well compared to the Vanguard STAR fund, which has recently had more downside than our portfolios and potentially less upside as investors shift their portfolio strategies.
Ouch. The good times ended in October and rather suddenly at that. There are many straws out there, and it's impossible to know which one broke the market's back but break it did.
In early October unemployment rate dropped to its lowest level since 1969. This is sending interest rates back up to 'normal' levels. The difference this time is the stock market is now sinking along with bonds
At this stage it looks like the U.S. is winning the trade war, but some of this global stock divergence could be due to frightened international investors moving funds into the U.S. from suddenly scary looking emerging market stocks and bonds.
We're still underperforming for the year, with too much interest rate exposure and too little stock exposure, but for the month we were basically in line with the benchmark Vanguard total portfolio fund while still taking less risk in both our portfolios.
