Dear Clients: The financial markets and economy have been hit by their own metaphorical Hurricane Ian in 2022. Following a brief respite in July, stocks ended the third quarter firmly in “bear market” territory (down more than 20%). Bonds, historically considered “safe” investments compared with stocks, have also been crushed, as the [...]
Dear Clients: As the media has reported ad nauseam, the first half of 2022 was the worst start to a year for the U.S. stock market in over 50 years. Additionally, it was the worst start for the bond market ever. We are currently in a bear market (usually defined as declines greater [...]
Dear Clients: We explained in our Q4-2021 Client Letter (January 12, 2022) why we believed 2021 was a high-return, low-volatility “unicorn.” Our counsel was to expect more modest returns in 2022. Additionally, with the Federal Reserve (“Fed”) poised to begin removing emergency stimulus measures implemented at the start of the pandemic-induced economic [...]
Dear Clients: Kirr, Marbach client equity portfolios had excellent performance in 2021, both on an absolute and relative basis. Though we never focus on short-term performance, we’re very pleased with this outcome, particularly given “Value” underperformed “Growth” (yet again) and The Wall Street Journal reported some 85% of actively-managed funds were on [...]
Dear Clients: Though we never focus on short-term performance, we are nonetheless pleased client equity portfolios had solid performance in the second quarter of 2021, building on the stellar gains from the fourth quarter of 2020 and first quarter of 2021. We’re invested alongside you and are quite satisfied with where we [...]
Dear Clients: What a difference 12-months makes! The U.S. stock market bottomed on March 23, 2020 after the S&P 500 Index had plunged a harrowing 34% in just 23 trading days, it’s most rapid meltdown in history. Many Investors were understandably shell-shocked and nobody could have predicted stocks would be at record [...]
Dear Clients: While 2020 was the most challenging year we’ve endured, on a number of levels, our investment performance finished the year on a high note. For the quarter ending December 31, 2020, performance was exceptionally strong, both on an absolute basis and relative to the S&P 500 Index. In fact, performance [...]
Dear Clients: The good news is, as of September 30, 2020, client equity portfolios had their strongest two-quarter performance since the third and fourth quarters of 2010. The bad news is “Value” continued to lag “Growth” significantly in the third quarter of 2020, an all too familiar refrain. However, we’ve completed implementation [...]
The First Half of 2020 Was a “Spock” Market Dear Clients: We are pleased to report client equity portfolios experienced excellent performance in the quarter ending June 30, 2020, both on an absolute and relative basis. The S&P 500 had its best quarter since the fourth quarter of 1998, more [...]
Dear Clients: The term “unprecedented” is often misused/overused, but is certainly apropos to describe what would become the COVID-19 global pandemic and concomitant destruction of the world economy and financial/commodity markets. Unfortunately, the lead headline in the April 1, 2020 edition of The Wall Street Journal (“WSJ”), “Stocks End Worst Quarter [...]
