Through March 31st, S&P 500 declined 9.4% YTD and the NASDAQ declined 13.9%. Stocks looked into the abyss on March 17th.
Read MoreThe S&P 500 declined 9.1% since year end and the NASDAQ declined 14.2% over the same period. The 75% S&P 500/25% Lehman Government Bond Index lost 6.3% over the same period.
Read MoreThe news of the month was an "emergency" cut of 0.75% in the Fed Funds rate on January 22nd, followed by an additional 0.50% cut on January 30th, for a total of 1.25% in a week. This is the largest reduction in the Fed Funds rate ever.
Read MoreSince our commentary of last week, US and world stocks markets slid another 5% on average, taking most to within a percent or two of the official definition of a bear market (a decline of 20% from the previous peak).
Read MoreAs of last week, the US stock market is officially in correction (defined as a decline off 10% or more from a previous peak.
Read MoreThe modest 5.5% gain in the S&P 500 for the year disguised the slaughter in financial services (down 18.5%) and consumer discretionary (down 13.2% - primarily home builders and cars, but also retail).
Read MoreBy the end of October, we thought that the worst of the sub-prime crisis was behind us as many of the aggressive lenders (Countrywide, American Home Mortgage) in this space had already hit the wall.
Read MoreFrom a near record close on October 31st, the S&P 500 plunged 6.1% QTD, mostly in the last 24 hours. Hardest hit are the financial service stocks, with notables such as Citigroup down 29.5% QTD, Merrill Lynch down 25.1%, Freddie Mac down 23.9% and two of our long time favorites AMBAC down 60.8% and MGIC Investment Corp down 42.2% QTD.
Read MoreThe S&P 500 gained 2.0% in the 3rd quarter and is up 9.1% on the year. Looking at quarterly returns for the major US Indexes, it was a quiet three months for US stocks. Looking at the month by month returns - what a wild ride!
Read MoreWhat do home-owners and hedge funds have in common? Both are making leveraged bets on the value of an underlying asset.
Read MoreThe S&P 500 gained 6.2% in the second quarter and is up 6.9% for the year. Coming in to the April earnings reports, stock analysts were universally pessimistic about US corporate earnings growth, expecting only 3.9%.
Read MoreStock markets, US and international, were choppy in the first quarter. Through February 20th, the S&P 500 gained 2.9%. Over the next two weeks, the S&P 500, fell 5.9%, recovering before quarter end to a net gain of 0.6%.
Read MoreOne week ago, the Dow was at all-time highs, the S&P 500 and NASDAQ at six year highs and the S&P 500 was within a few percent of making a new all-time high.
Read MoreFor the most part, our clients trailed the averages for the year by about 4% despite a late year rally in technology stocks. As this was the second year in a row of underperformance (last year by 1%), we reviewed our strategy from top down to see whether flaws exist.
Read MoreIn previous letter, we had speculated about the investment of hedge funds in the energy market and whether that participation was driving oil prices artificially high.
Read More