Perspectives Newsletter: Q4, 2017
The change in market leadership witnessed in September proved to be short lived, as fourth quarter action returned to the prevailing themes of 2017. Growth stocks ended the year with one of the widest performance gaps over value in recent history. Emerging markets capped off a banner year in which they beat US markets in each quarter after lagging in each of the past seven years. It paid to move up the capitalization scale as, once again, large cap issues performed better than their small and midcap counterparts. The year was marked by strong returns and low volatility: for the first time in history, the S&P 500 posted a positive return in each of the twelve months of the year.
