Index Performance

U.S. and International Equities

This quarter provided positive results for all major market indexes. The top performer and standout was the US small cap Russell 2000, returning over 12% for the quarter. The international developed and emerging markets, as denoted by the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) Europe, Australasia, Far East (EAFE) and Emerging Markets (EM) indexes, both finished the quarter higher.

Energy, Financials and Industrials Show Double-Digit Returns

The energy sector, which started its rebound during the fourth quarter of last year, returned over

The outstanding fourth-quarter earnings season we had in 2020 is a tough act to follow, but 2021’s first quarter has the makings of another potentially great earnings season. The reopening of the economy continues to move forward, and corporate America has done an excellent job managing through the pandemic. In fact, it won’t take much of an upside surprise for year-over-year S&P 500 Index earnings growth to reach 30% this quarter. The 2021 earnings boom is here.

Poised for Another Strong Earnings Season 

Coming into fourth-quarter earnings season, investors had plenty of reasons to expect companies wou

The United States, and the rest of the world, are looking to emerge from the shadow of COVID-19, and business conditions may already have put the pandemic in the rear-view mirror—at least according to the monthly business surveys conducted by the Institute of Supply Management (ISM). The ISM Manufacturing PMI surged to 64.7 in March versus 60.8 a month prior (index levels above 50 indicate expansion) and above all but one of the Bloomberg consensus survey estimates.

Meanwhile, increasing vaccinations and further easing of restrictions—including the full reopening of several states—buoyed a rebound off a nine-mon

Coming into this year, we expected longer-maturity U.S. Treasury yields to rise, consistent with improving economic growth dynamics. That is indeed what we have seen, with the yield on the 10-year Treasury higher by 80 basis points (0.8%) year-to-date, and over 120 basis points (1.2%) since last year’s lows.

What we did not expect—at least not until the Democrats won two Senate seats in Georgia—was an additional nearly $2 trillion fiscal stimulus package on top of the super-accommodative Federal Reserve (Fed). The stronger economic growth outlook and resulting uptick in inflation expectations, which are key fund