Quarterly Market Reviews
First Quarter Market ReviewBy Paula H. Hogan
Market Review, First Quarter 2013
Reaching for yield is the investing temptation of the moment. Should you succumb?
Fourth Quarter Market Review
By Paula H. Hogan
Market Review, Fourth Quarter 2012
Now what? After a year of worry, the global stock markets climbed upwards by double‐digits amounts in 2012. Who would have predicted that these favorable market returns would come in the midst of a severe sovereign debt crisis in Europe, continued political tensions in the Middle East, and substantial election uncertainty and a fiscal cliff mess at home?
Third Quarter Market Review
By Paula H. Hogan
Market Review, Third Quarter 2012
Just as with politics, the economy right now is buffeted by strong cross currents and possibly coming to a head. For investors and taxpayers, the surrounding uncertainty is uncomfortable, maddening, and confusing. For many business owners and job seekers, the current economy feels like a brutal game of musical chairs. For the economy as a whole, it can feel like a dangerous game of chicken.
Second Quarter Market Review
By Paula H. Hogan
Market Review, Second Quarter 2012
Welcome to a world of near‐zero, and sometimes even negative, yields on ‘safe’ assets. What’s up with that, and what does it mean for your planning?
First Quarter Market Review
By Paula H. Hogan
Market Review, First Quarter 2012
Stocks surged forward this quarter, in sync with this year’s startlingly early blooming of spring flowers. The S&P 500 index with dividends reinvested ended the quarter up 12.59%, the best first‐quarter performance since 1998. Internationally, emerging market stocks and small cap stocks, each up close to 15% during the quarter, bested their larger cap international peers. The average global stock fund is up 12.04% for the quarter.
Fourth Quarter Market Review
By Paula H. Hogan
Market Review, Fourth Quarter 2011
Head-snapping volatility, along with little actual progress, characterized both the markets and politics this year. It’s no wonder that investors are disenchanted and worn out just thinking about the big issues. On the other hand, perhaps the massive upheavals and disruptions in the past year have cleared the way for some defining progression in the year to come.
Third Quarter Market Review
By Paula H. Hogan
Market Review, Third Quarter 2011
High stakes gridlock—welcome to the current state of the global economy. Whatever your personal vantage point is on the global economy, there are several key factors influencing your financial wellbeing.
Second Quarter Market Review
By Paula H. Hogan
Market Review, Second Quarter 2011
Most investors ended the quarter about where they began, although perhaps a bit more worried and perplexed about the economy than when the quarter started. Worries about weak economic growth, budding inflation, and massive sovereign debt concerns, aka “Greece”, kept stocks suppressed this quarter until a late market rally in the final week of June brought some modestly positive news.
First Quarter Market Review
By Paula H. Hogan
Market Review, First Quarter 2011
Now more than ever, the daily headlines are important to personal financial planning. Gratifyingly positive returns occurred this quarter despite significant political upheaval both here and abroad while the heart‐breaking natural disaster in Japan dominated much of the front page news.
Fourth Quarter Market Review
By Paula H. Hogan
Market Review, Fourth Quarter 2010
If you’ve been just licking your wounds since the 2008 market collapse and not paying attention to the markets, you missed two years of back to back strongly positive returns in stocks, bonds, and commodities.
Third Quarter Market Review
By Paula H. Hogan
Market Review, Third Quarter 2010
The kids are back in school, the autumn colors peeping through, the election season heating up, and holiday decorations are already in the stores, but the economy remains stuck uncomfortably in neutral. What happens next?
Second Quarter Market Review
By Paula H. Hogan
Market Review, Second Quarter 2010
Now the hard part begins. After the spending spree comes the pain as individuals, companies, and whole countries face the imperative to get debt back to normal levels now that the boom times in the stock and housing markets are over. In economic history books, we’re fitting into a classic post‐bubble pattern. Once the euphoria of debt addiction yields to the anesthetic of government rescue, like hard core addicts we then wake up to the tough road ahead as the anesthetic begins to wear off. The goal now is economic growth, and the stakes are high. Policy failure at this juncture raises the threat of stagnation, default, or inflation, each of which would make the return to prosperity more challenging.
First Quarter Market Review
By Paula H. Hogan
Market Review, First Quarter 2010
Stocks continued their gratifying upward trend this quarter. The S&P 500 is up 5.4% year-to-date and up 49.8% from just a year ago when the markets were skirting the bottom of the recent sharp decline. The average diversified U.S. stock fund in the Lipper database is up 6.1% for the quarter, likely beating the S&P 500 because of tilting investments towards small cap, real estate, and value stocks, each of which beat the market this quarter. International stocks, relative to domestic stocks, have cooled a bit, up 1.6% for the quarter and 54.6% in the past twelve months, versus the 3.0% and 52.4% increases for the same time periods for global stocks. Commodities are off about 3% this quarter and inflation-indexed bonds treaded water. Other bonds were mostly up, with taxable bonds up close to 2% and municipal bonds up 1.3% for the quarter. As a result, the average stock/bond blend fund is up 3.5% for the quarter and 38.4% over the last twelve months. All in all, a welcome breath of fresh air.
Fourth Quarter Market Review
By Paula H. Hogan
Market Review, Fourth Quarter 2009
The topsy-turvy nature of markets recently and the uncertainty about what will happen next raises the fundamental question of how to maintain perspective as the winds of change blow strongly. Perspective makes a difference, when thinking about time, portfolio returns, or about your finances in general.
Third Quarter Market Review
By Paula H. Hogan
Market Review, Third Quarter 2009
The upward surge in the markets this quarter may have no more meaning than the bright glow of kindling as it first lights at the beginning of a fire in your fireplace. The fire will only provide warmth if the logs also eventually catch fire. In the case of the world’s economy, perhaps they will. But there is also the risk that the “logs” of the world economy are so sodden with debt and income pressures that they can’t do anything but smoke and hiss for quite a while despite the massive amount of kindling thrown their way in the form of increased government spending.
Second Quarter Market Review
By Paula H. Hogan
Market Review, Second Quarter 2009
We are not out of the woods yet, and the winds of change are still blowing hard. This is an important period of transition in the economy and a challenging period for individual investors to navigate.
First Quarter Market Review
By Paula H. Hogan
Market Review, First Quarter 2009
Spring is in the air outdoors and perhaps also in the economy. However, at the moment it is easier to have more confidence in the weather than in the economy.
Fourth Quarter Market Review
By Paula H. Hogan
Market Review, Fourth Quarter 2008
Along with everyone else, you are likely concerned about the impact of the current financial turmoil and wondering what you should do about it. First, breathe. This is the first good advice for coping with the economic events of the last year. Then, get your bearings.
Third Quarter Market Review
By Paula H. Hogan
Market Review, Third Quarter 2008
WHAT HAPPENED?
You have just witnessed an historic credit mania crest and then shift into a comparably dramatic global credit squeeze. The government has made some initial counteractive measures to address this severe financial distress. The markets are not yet satisfied, and the problem has become a global, high stakes challenge. We’re now all waiting for the figurative other shoe to drop. Here’s the background:
Second Quarter Market Review
By Paula H. Hogan
Market Review, Second Quarter 2008
Cross currents in the markets are particularly challenging right now. Consumers face steeply rising food and energy costs but not commensurately higher income. The government would like to raise interest rates in order to stifle inflation expectations but needs to keep interest rates low in order to keep the banking system afloat. Banks and other financial institutions would like to get on with regular business but are reasonably worried about the safety of doing business with their peers. No one yet knows the extent of bank weakness triggered by regrettable lending practices in the sub-prime mortgage area. Some cities and towns are struggling with non-performing alternative investments but have little room to raise property taxes or other revenue even higher. Whole industries are being forced into realignment: airlines are cutting routes and jobs, Starbucks is closing shops and eliminating jobs, and big financial firms are in the midst of large layoffs. Consumers are stretched for cash and worried.
First Quarter Market Review
By Paula H. Hogan
Market Review, First Quarter 2008
Adolescent growing pains. If you have a sense of that phrase, you’ll have a good understanding of the markets this quarter. It was tumultuous, testing highs and lows, catching attention, flirting with danger, and then ending up better than you had dared to hope. As with your favorite teenager, the roots of the volatility are surging but uneven growth. In this case, financial innovation had soared ahead of financial regulation. After a clearly inappropriate but undeniable global binge in credit, the markets are now in the uncomfortable aftermath. And just as with a teenager who is exploring the boundaries of adulthood, the key issues are what the rules will be going forward and how we can ensure that the right lessons get learned.
Fourth Quarter Market Review
By Paula H. Hogan
Market Review, Fourth Quarter 2007
Like a cheap novel, this year’s market was a real page turner, exciting, entertaining, and intermittently revealing, but not descriptive of fundamental truths except by implication. Volatility was the theme. The markets first lurched from one record high to another, only to sink in the fourth quarter back to a ho-hum single digit return for the year.
Headlines were emotional, encouraging both fear and greed. Information was clothed in secrecy. Who really knows how far the sub prime mortgage woes will extend? Who are the good guys, and who the dastardly villains? Does securitization help or harm the economy? Are governments wise or foolish as they offer quick fixes to the global banking system? Should naive mortgage holders be bailed out? What will happen next?
