Q1 2026 Market Commentary

Q1 2026 Market Commentary

Stock markets initially got off to a good start in the first quarter of 2026, with US markets up slightly and international markets up over 10% as of the end of February. However, after the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran in the early hours of Saturday,...
Q4 2025 Market Commentary

Q4 2025 Market Commentary

2025 turned out to be an excellent year for many asset classes and marked the third positive year for stocks following strong returns in 2023 and 2024. The S&P 500 index of large US stocks surged 17.9% for the year, while bonds (as measured by the Bloomberg US...
Q3 2025 Market Commentary

Q3 2025 Market Commentary

The US stock market roared ahead in the third quarter of 2025, fueled by increasingly enthusiastic Artificial Intelligence (AI) investment. The S&P 500 gained 8.1% for the quarter, and is now up 14.8% for the year to date. The investment in AI data centers has...

Q2 2025 Market Commentary

Overview of the Second Quarter of 2025 The volatility of market returns in the second quarter of 2025 was closely tied to the unpredictability of tariffs during the quarter. On April 2nd, President Trump announced sweeping tariffs on all countries – a day he referred...

Q1 2025 Market Commentary

A Note About April 2nd The events of April 2nd require some discussion before reviewing the first quarter of 2025, as the tariff announcements President Trump made on that day significantly exacerbated market concerns that were already beginning to surface in the...

Q4 2024 Market Commentary

It was an eventful news quarter – the last three months saw US elections, a narrowly averted government shutdown, two rate cuts to the short-term Fed Funds rate by the Federal Reserve, hurricane Milton, a brazen murder of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, and an Iranian...