This past week the S&P 500 traded ten percent below its all-time high set just a few weeks earlier on September 21st. This letter also marks the one year anniversary of my letter entitled Top of Tops. Why wait until year-end to write the year in review when an anniversary will do.
Last November we were well into the Bond Bear Market that began in 2012, yet few talked about it or even noticed. We have been keeping score using the US Treasury ten year note which hit 2.01% on September 8th, 2017, 2.47% a few weeks later on October 27th and traded October 9, 2018 at 3.26%. Indeed bond yields are running higher, sending longer-term bond prices ever lower.
The bellwether thirty year US Treasury bond posted a low of 2.63% September 8th, 2017 and recently traded at 3.44% on October 9, 2018. A year later we have seen significantly more analysts, pundits and investors join the bond market bear camp but as I said last month, interest rates are rising so slowly (so far) as to only minimally affect overall fixed income investment returns. (more…)
