It’s likely not a bubble. Earnings are high. Prices are high because they anticipate future high earnings growth. The historical record shows that growth rate is achievable.
April saw a strong rally, which fully reversed the stock market’s losses in March. US markets set new all-time highs, and European stocks came within whispering distance of their all-time highs as well.
March 2026 was a rough month for financial markets. Broad indexes experienced large selloffs, led by international stocks, though many of these still remain up in 2026. The dollar rallied strongly, breaking its year-plus downtrend.
With apologies if this is the tenth investment piece you’ve read this week about the impact of the Iran War on asset markets, but we wanted to share our thoughts on what’s going on with our investors. First a recap. The S&P 500 is down 5.4% since the February 28, 2026 start of the Iran War.
Iran's de facto closing of the Strait of Hormuz precipitated the latest in a series of energy crises. Since the 1970s, some energy spikes were associated with weak stock markets, but some were not.
AI fatigue has taken hold of financial markets. The companies powering the AI revolution (Nvidia, Google, Microsoft) were down. The companies that are being (or might be) disrupted by AI, like software makers, were also down.
The dollar finished the month down 1.3% for a litany of reasons, including our progressively nastier spat with Canada and the Trump administration's insistence on liberating Greenland.
With 2025 in the books, we take a brief pause to reflect on QuantStreet over the last few years. We started managing our first portfolio in December of 2021. What started out as just an idea has grown into a business serving many clients, both retail and institutional. 2025 was a year of growth for QuantStreet, and we hope to continue to build on this in 2026.
After a "mini swoon" in November driven by AI bubble concerns, market tranquility has returned this December as investors await the Fed's widely anticipated 25 basis point rate cut and Chair Powell's subsequent remarks.
October was a good month for financial markets, with a broad-based rally across geographies and sectors. Tech stocks and gold led the way, and the dollar finally had an up month. QuantStreet's strategies, across different risk levels, moved in line with or slightly exceeded benchmarks.
If gold were the perfect hedge for inflation—it isn’t—then gold prices divided by the overall price level would be constant over time. However, real gold prices (adjusted for inflation by dividing by the CPI price level) are currently at multi-decade highs.
The market is in a funny place. September was a strong month for financial markets, its typical negative seasonality notwithstanding.
Target date funds represent the investment industry's best thinking about how people should invest for retirement.
In our opinion, all of these legitimate concerns are, to various degrees, already priced into financial markets. The impact of these on the ongoing stock market rally will depend on their trajectory relative to investor expectations.
Some things change in markets and some don't. The dollar partially reversed its year-to-date decline in July, and US equities had their first moment in the sun relative to international peers thus far in 2025.
After a tumultuous few months, June of 2025 saw a strong rally which took global markets to (or close to) new highs. The rally was broad-based, with international and U.S. markets all up strongly.
Amid a fair amount of market tumult, we wrote two months ago that the best course of action was to stay invested in roughly the same portfolios that we’ve had throughout, and let the market stabilize.
While the S&P 500 index was almost unchanged in April, the dollar remained extremely weak, ending the month down over 4%.
To summarize the market action of March of 2025: U.S. stocks (SPX) did poorly, international stocks (especially Europe, VGK) did well in dollar terms, and gold (IAU) did spectacularly well. The main culprit appears to market concerns about the Trump administration’s tariff policies.
We wrote in last month's letter that the U.S. stock market had to meet lofty earnings expectations to maintain its strong performance relative to global benchmarks, while the latter had a lower bar because of considerably cheaper valuation multiples and higher dividend yields.
The DeepSeek blip notwithstanding (our initial take on the news is here), January 2025 was a good month for financial markets. The S&P 500 was up a robust 2.7%, though Nasdaq lagged (largely due to DeepSeek, in our opinion) with “only” a 1.7% monthly return.
After a strong November 2024, markets were generally down in December. The S&P 500 index was down 2.3%, while energy, small caps, value stocks, and REITs performed considerably worse.
We launched QuantStreet a little over three years ago, and our first accounts went live as of December 2021.
October’s market activity can be neatly summarized in a single chart: the dollar (BBDXY) was strong and U.S. stocks (the VOO ETF tracks the S&P 500 index) meaningfully outperformed international stocks (VXUS).
The major market event in September was the Fed's 50 basis point rate cut following the September 18th Federal Open Market Committee meeting. There was broad consensus the Fed would cut rates, though the 50 basis points (as opposed to 25) and perhaps the tone of Jay Powell's press conference surprised to the upside...
After a bit of an early-August swoon, the stock market came roaring back in the last few weeks of the month. The S&P 500 finished up 2.4%, though certainly in the early days of August, that did not feel like a particularly likely outcome. In client conversations a few days into the selloff, our feeling was to stay put and not tinker with the portfolios we suggested in early August.
When growth slows and rates fall, what will happen to an asset class with long-dated cash flows that are not very economically sensitive? Well, it is likely to strongly outperform. Ergo the short-term outlook for growth relative to value/small caps appear to be rosy.
June of 2024 was a good month for financial markets. Leading the pack were (again) technology stocks, with the NASDAQ up 6% on the month. Close in second place were emerging market ex-China stocks, largely driven by India, Taiwan, and South Korea, all of which had large rallies in the month.
After a weak April, markets bounced back in May, with the S&P 500 staging a breathtaking rally in the final few hours of trading on Friday, May 31.
From the end of March until the end of April, the market had a serious rethink about the path of monetary policy for the rest of 2024.
To properly guide their clients, financial advisors must have a good understanding of the long-run behavior of stock and bonds returns.
With Tuesday's (Nov 15th) Producer Price Index (PPI) numbers bringing more relief on the inflation side, a new bearish narrative has been put forward by financial pundits over the last few days.
Market negativity reached a crescendo sometime around the middle of October, as interwoven narratives of doom and gloom occupied investor and media attention
