QUARTERLY MARKET REVIEW (Q3 2024)

We are pleased to provide you with our Quarterly Market Review. Well, it finally happened. After months of will-they-or-won’t-they speculation, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates in September. And it was a relatively big one: The half-percentage-point decrease was the biggest the Fed has made since its emergency rate reductions in March 2020 at the onset of the pandemic. The good news: With these cuts, policymakers acknowledged the progress they’ve made in...

DIMENSIONAL’S QUARTERLY MARKET REVIEW (Q2 2024)

While we hope you are enjoying other types of summer reading, if you wish to examine world capital market performance for the past quarter, you can check out our Quarterly Market Review for Second Quarter 2024. In the U.S., it’s an election year, with the usual election rhetoric and high-stakes alarmism across the board. Elsewhere, global economic orders may be reshuffling as nearly half the world’s population heads to the polls...

DIMENSIONAL’S QUARTERLY MARKET REVIEW (Q3 2023)

As we reported last July, there had been plenty of news that could have dampened year-to-date returns at the time. And yet, most disciplined investors have been rewarded for sticking with their appropriate investment allocations while most markets fueled “surprisingly strong growth.” In many respects, market conditions haven’t changed all that much since then. We’re still grappling with economic concerns over interest rates, inflation, and recessionary conditions. U.S. government showdowns continue...

DIMENSIONAL’S QUARTERLY MARKET REVIEW (Q2 2023)

Recent numbers are now in, with good news to share -- most disciplined investors have been richly rewarded for sticking with their appropriate investment allocations. Even had quarterly and year-to-date numbers not been so sweet, we would have advised you to remain invested as planned. The same can be said for whatever the rest of the year has in store. We know markets have delivered positive returns over time, but we...

DIMENSIONAL’S QUARTERLY MARKET REVIEW (Q1 2023)

The “I’s” had it across the first quarter, as inflation and interest rates continued to dominate financial headlines. That is, at least, until the Silicon Valley Bank meltdown took over, followed by the government’s swift reaction to the same. What should you make of the quarterly news? If you’d missed these events in real time, you may not even have known they’d happened. At quarter-end, inflation continued to simmer on the...

DIMENSIONAL’S QUARTERLY MARKET REVIEW (Q2 2022)

If you wish to examine world capital market performance for the past quarter, you can check out Dimensional’s Quarterly Market Review for Second Quarter 2022. Personally, I’d recommend enjoying other types of summer reading for now, as we will continue to monitor this data on your behalf. But if you are truly interested, don’t miss Marlena Lee’s article on pages 16 to 18 entitled “Three Crucial Lessons for Weathering the Stock Market’s Storm”. Her...

DIMENSIONAL’S QUARTERLY MARKET REVIEW (Q1 2022)

Capital markets are often confounding, especially if we examine just a brief three-month period. It is tricky for investors and markets alike to sort out what qualifies as “good” or “bad” news from one moment to the next. Should we worry about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? Supply-chain effects from the Covid lockdown? Tightening by the Federal Reserve? Rising inflation? Headlines like these translate into the volatile markets we’ve seen so...

DIMENSIONAL’S QUARTERLY MARKET REVIEW (Q3 2021)

As usual, there was plenty to be concerned about in years past if you paid close attention to the never-ending news cycle. But throughout, markets delivered strong returns as you can see in the excerpt below from page 4: It’s typical to think of capital markets as nothing more than constructions for conducting commerce and making money. That they tend to do over time. But markets are made of people, in all...