Monday, April 30, 2018
2018 Q1 Investor Quarterly Market Commentary and Investment Perspectives
Greetings,
The first calendar quarter of 2018 saw the end of the longest consecutive monthly gains (fifteen) for the S&P 500 Index in history, a “flattening” of the U.S. bond yield curve, a “narrowing” of credit spreads, and a change in the leadership of the Federal Reserve Bank.
The S&P 500 Index started the year in a continuation of the strong 2017 advance (+21.14%, including reinvested dividends), rising +7.45% the first three-plus weeks of the year to its record high level of 2,872.87, before plummeting (-10.16%) over the next nine trading days. It bounced around the mid-point of those two points before finishing Q1 2018 down, (-0.76%).
