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June was anything but sleepy. Last month may well be the month that will stand out, looking back 10 years from now, as the beginning of the new or the end of the old European Union. It was also a notable month from the perspective of the Fed. Overall, it was a market that was very favorable for fixed income and mixed for equities, depending on currency and geographic region.

The June ...

May continued the trend of the past couple of months, posting positive results in general. The U.S. led the way in the global equity markets while global interest rates continued their decent toward all-time record low yields. International equity markets meaningfully lagged the U.S. as various external forces again made U.S. capital markets more attractive on a relative basis. As the month drew to a close, much of the market narrative began to focus on the ...

With April in the rearview mirror, 2016 is officially one-third completed, and what a four months it has been. Volatility in January and February was followed by a recovery in March and continued recovery in April. April kicked off the second quarter with relatively encouraging returns across global equities, high yield debt, and commodities despite an uptick in volatility during the last week of the month.

The month was not friendly to ...

Gold, long duration U.S. Treasuries and the U.S. dollar were all strong performers in a month where a continued oil price collapse and concerns surrounding slowing Chinese growth weighed on market psychology. Were it not for a furious rally in the final week of January, the already ‘red’ numbers engulfing risk assets would have been all the more uninspiring. Market drivers on the month were essentially a higher pitched version of the same narrative that closed out the year – ...

December saw markets limp to the finish line to close out a relatively challenging year for investors as concerns surrounding monetary policy, Chinese fundamentals, and commodity/currency volatility dominated the conversation. As has been the case for several years, central bank policy maneuvers grabbed headlines and drove markets.

Overall, U.S. equities fell 1.5%-5.05% with smaller stocks underperforming larger blue chip cap names. Non-U.S. markets fell in a similar fashion but were penalized more ...

Global markets limped into September with the swift August correction still freshly in the rearview mirror. The first half of the month saw a short lived relief rally give way to worries over global trade, resulting in a weak finish to wrap up the worst quarter for U.S. equities in the past four years.

The primary focus of the month was the lead-up to and digest of the September 17th FOMC announcement ...

April kicked off the second quarter with several notable and new trends taking shape. Market momentum of latter half 2014 and Q1 2015 reversed course in many areas including oil, domestic equities, currencies, and bond yields. Overall market action in April could be categorized as a reflation trend as commodities, bond yields, inflation break-evens, and equities seem to be pricing in higher growth. As is often the case, commodity markets and the U.S. dollar were mirror images of each other. ...

On the back of a strong February, markets in March were of the up and down sort, ending with more of a risk aversion tendency. March gave us the official passing the six year anniversary of the bear market low, the start of Eurozone QE, and seemingly ever present geopolitical considerations in Europe & Middle East. A variety of data points were discounted including a dovish FOMC meeting, deteriorating U.S. economic conditions, Greek-Eurozone deliberations, and several oil market considerations. Net ...