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Quarterly Perspective for 4Q16

Summary The U.S. stock market rallied to new highs last quarter.  Investors appeared to be nervous leading up to the election, but whatever concerns they had quickly faded against the promise of lower corporate tax rates and reduced regulation.  Investors…

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  Summary The third quarter was surprisingly strong for stocks.  The S&P 500 gained 3.88% with dividends included, its best quarter since the final quarter of 2015. [1]  As always, the gains were not evenly distributed.  This time, defensive and…

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Quarterly Perspective for 2Q15

Summary Financial assets had a tough second quarter.  Interest rates rose while corporate profits dipped.  Greece was once again in the headlines, this time joined by Puerto Rico and China.  Those negatives were offset by continued growth and rising employment…

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Quarterly Perspective for 1Q15

Summary The U.S. economy improved modestly in the first quarter of 2015.  The bigger story, however, was how well the rest of the world’s developed markets responded to financial stimulus.  In the U.S. quantitative easing has been a fact of…

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Quarterly Perspective for 4Q14

Summary It is hard to overstate the impact that weakness in the global economy had last year.  Because the United States was the only major economy to have clearly strengthened in 2014, capital poured into dollar-denominated securities.  This boosted the…

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