If you’re in the dark about what’s happening in the financial world, you can get caught off guard during bad markets and fear can de-rail your retirement. Staying informed is a good habit, even if you’re not managing your own portfolio. We try to make it easy by providing our readers with a summary of headlines and investment news in a easy-to-digest format.
Let Us Catch You Up
Most of our clients are super busy, so this is the only news about investments they receive. It’s incredibly simple, so if you don’t have a lot of time, just check out page 3 and page 4. You’ll see the overall performance of stocks and bonds this quarter (page 3) and page 4 will give you an overview of the major news events over the past 3 months.
An outline is include below, but be sure to download a full copy of the quarterly market summary. Also, I highly recommend reading “Living with Volatility Again,” by Jim Parker on the last page to gain some added perspective on volatility and how to improve your odds of success.
2014 Q4 Market Review
Notable Q4 News Headlines
- “Gold Prices Fall to Four-Year Low”
- “Mortgage Rates Tumble”
- “US Economy Posts Strongest Growth in More Than a Decade”
- “Oil Prices Tumble to Five-Year Lows”
- “Dollar Ends Best Year in More that a Decade”
- “Dow Has Longest Annual Winning Streak since 1999”
Q4 Index Returns (Oct – Dec)
- U.S Market + 5.24%
- Developed – 3.69%
- Emerging – 4.50%
- Real Estate + 9.68%
- U.S Bond +1.79%
- Global Bond +3.02%
Notable Highs
- WHEAT + 21.82%
- US REITs + 15.09%
- TURKEY + 10.83%
Notable Lows
- WTI CRUDE OIL -40.65%
- UNLEADED GAS -38.56%
- RUSSIA -33.35%
DOWNLOAD THE 2014 Q4 MARKET SUMMARY HERE.