Perspectives Newsletter: Q4, 2018
As the fourth quarter opened, despite the turmoil roiling international markets, domestic stocks were enjoying healthy gains and seemed on their way to a tenth straight positive year. In the next three months, we witnessed a quarterly decline worse than any seen since the depths of the Great Recession; it wiped out gains and turned annual returns decidedly negative. Money streamed out of equities and into cash and bonds, causing waterfall declines due to an imbalance of buyers and sellers. Growth stocks, which had handily and persistently outpaced their value peers, were hit particularly hard in the quarter. The risk off tone pervaded further down the capitalization scale, with small cap stocks posting a quarterly decline of over 20%. International stocks continued to pile on their losses from earlier in the year. Emerging markets were hammered by falling commodity prices and the higher US dollar. Developed international was confronted by slowing growth and the continued economic and political uncertainty throughout Europe.
