April 1, 2016 In Quarterly Update
Economic Commentary | First Quarter 2016
The market was quite a story of Jekyll and Hyde during this past quarter. For the first half of the quarter, fears of a global recession, led by perceived weakness in China, dominated investor attention, and January delivered the worst returns for that month since 2009. By mid-February, a plethora of positive economic news, accompanied by a rally in oil prices, shifted investors from pessimism to optimism and we enjoyed much stronger returns, leading to mixed results on the quarter. For the first three months of 2016, the large cap S&P 500 index was up 1.3%, the mid/small cap Russell 2000 index decreased by 1.5%, and the international MSCI EAFE index fell by 3.0%.