Monday, December 04, 2017

Market Returns


Here are the 2017 total returns of major asset classes through the end of November.  {You can assume that we are long the majority of the equity related classes in client and personal accounts plus a smattering of accounts own gold.}  A few things I've noted:

Foreign equity has outpaced the US this year.  The belle of the ball has to be emerging markets, up 32% so far in 2017.  However, let's also note that emerging markets haven't participated all that much so far since around Labor Day.  You won't see that here but just pull up any major emerging market ETF and you'll see what I mean.

A 60/40 portfolio is up 13.5%.  The chart above assumes you rebalance this portfolio so one would assume there would be performance drag from capital gains in taxable accounts and commissions.  

US stocks are up about 20% when using the Russell 3000.  

Gold up a bit over 10% would usually have that crowd up and yelling but its returns this year look a bit punk when compared to other asset classes.  Still 10% is not something to sneeze at.

Cash finally yields something again.